Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from local banks Monday, the country's president said, as he warned that the situation facing Greece's lenders was very difficult.
#3
I am in complete agreement with Charles Krauthammer, whom in my opinion is a national treasure. Gov't 'Persistent Surveillance' at the local, state, or federal, has NO PLACE in a US domestic environment.
Privacy issues aside, lets talk about SAFETY. The first time a UAV crashes into a school yard.... and they do crash, or collides with a Cessna or God forbid, a commercial airliner it will be much too late for a re-do.
Controlled airspace border monitoring....OK, can do easy. Issue the ATO (Air Tasking Order) and go for it. Wasn't that the.... original intent, or stated intent..... or was it?
I'm not encouraging, but I an predicting that the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that's been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country," Krauthammer said tonight.
#5
As far as Zerohedge (or Drudge, for that matter) goes, it is easy to drill backwards to a source news item.
My other link posted on the 'Burg today came up in a Facebook post from a relative of mine living in South Korea, who mentioned the NKor jamming of GPS in SKor. It was an easy step to find the SKor news item in English.
#6
The only domestic drones I would support wouldbe ones put I. The air toact as a police copter in the event of a pursuit. Better to track someone from the safety of the air then race through traffic after them.
"No place in a US domestic environment" > espec when mainstream Americans = US Voters are not being asked to vote on it at any level - Fed, State, or Local. Amers won't be asked to vote on it until many Years or Decades in time have passed, + we are already used to it.
* FYI a Person has repor dev a TASER wid a 20,000-volt capacity. CAN A GOVT. THAT DOES THE ABOVE ONE DAY CONSIDER covert EMPLACING of SUCH A POTENT TASER, PAR OR STRONGER, IN US STREETS FOR "IMMEDIATE" COUNTER-RESPONSE VEE CROWD CONTROL - I THINK SO.
Instant Zap.
ALL THEY NEED IS POWER POSTS + INTERCONNECTING GRIDS.
Once STAR-TREK styled "disintegrators" are emaplced, the Police won't even be needed because the Govt will no longer need to just have you arrested - Public Instigants can be made to quickly "disappear" at the push of button. NO NEED FOR POLICE, ATTORNEYS, CIVIL COURTS, PRISONS, OR PERSONAL LIBERTIES ANYMORE AS WE KNOW IT - CAUGHT, TRIED, JUDGED, + ZAPPED WIDIN A FEW MINUTES OR LESS.
Not even the Commies will send your families the Bullets andor Billing used to execute you anymore.
Just as the US = Fed-DOD will not put in "defensive" MilSys unless it also puts in "offensive" MilSys to defeat a successful or effective Enemy counter-response(s) to same, e.g. Missle-based GMD-TMD versus Laser-based Space/Orbital Strike, DITTO FOR NON-MIL CIVIE + POLITICAL AUTHORITIES.
"No place in a US domestic environment" > espec when mainstream Americans = US Voters are not being asked to vote on it at any level - Fed, State, or Local. Amers won't be asked to vote on it until many Years or Decades in time have passed, + we are already used to it.
* FYI a Person has repor dev a TASER wid a 20,000-volt capacity. CAN A GOVT. THAT DOES THE ABOVE ONE DAY CONSIDER covert EMPLACING of SUCH A POTENT TASER, PAR OR STRONGER, IN US STREETS FOR "IMMEDIATE" COUNTER-RESPONSE VEE CROWD CONTROL - I THINK SO.
Instant Zap.
ALL THEY NEED IS POWER POSTS + INTERCONNECTING GRIDS.
Once STAR-TREK styled "disintegrators" are emaplced, the Police won't even be needed because the Govt will no longer need to just have you arrested - Public Instigants can be made to quickly "disappear" at the push of button. NO NEED FOR POLICE, ATTORNEYS, CIVIL COURTS, PRISONS, OR PERSONAL LIBERTIES ANYMORE AS WE KNOW IT - CAUGHT, TRIED, JUDGED, + ZAPPED WIDIN A FEW MINUTES OR LESS.
Not even the Commies will send your families the Bullets andor Billing used to execute you anymore.
Just as the US = Fed-DOD will not put in "defensive" MilSys unless it also puts in "offensive" MilSys to defeat a successful or effective Enemy counter-response(s) to same, e.g. Missle-based GMD-TMD versus Laser-based Space/Orbital Strike, DITTO FOR NON-MIL CIVIE + POLITICAL AUTHORITIES.
15-year-old schoolgirl died after 'doctor mistook tuberculosis for lovesickness'
A 15-year-old schoolgirl died of tuberculosis after her bungling GP claimed she was 'lovesick', an inquest heard.
Alina Sarag was seen by more than five doctors at four different hospitals but medics failed to detect the curable disease.
Her distraught parents even called her GP more than 50 times about their daughter's ailing condition over a four-and-a-half month period before her death on January 6 last year.
An inquest heard that her GP, Dr Sharad Shripadrao Pandit, accused her parents of "mollycoddling" her.
Shockingly, he even claimed her symptoms were brought on because she was 'lovesick'.
Her distraught father, Sultan Sarag, 43, broke down as he told Birmingham Coroner's Court: "The doctor said to her 'Did you meet someone on holiday? Are you missing him?'
"She found it very distressing he was suggesting she was lovesick for a boy.
"He said all the problems were in her head and she should see a psychiatrist or spiritual healer.
"When he said that in front of her it totally broke her heart.
"He said she was only doing it to keep me at the house nursing her.
"He [Dr Pandit] said 'It is because of you that she is making it up'.
"He said when she was younger my attitude had a detrimental effect on her.
"I was running around looking after her, nursing her.
"He said 'She's only doing that to keep you in the house so you don't go from there'.
"That's what his explanation was."
Mr Sarag also claimed Dr Pandit refused to test his daughter for TB.
He told the inquest: "He said, 'We don't need these tests, we are not going to get them done either.'
"As you tried to progress he just totally changed the subject."
Mr Sarag - who is also being treated for TB - told the inquest his daughter vomited up to 10 times a day and had to be carried to bed "like an old woman with weak legs".
He added that he made more than 50 phone calls to the GP's surgery in Birmingham but Dr Pandit failed to return his calls.
Mr Sarag said: "There was mass neglect. The medical profession, as soon as they mess up they hide."
Alina first contracted TB in 2009 after a girl at her school was diagnosed with the illness.
She was prescribed a course of antibiotics at Birmingham Chest Clinic but medical staff never followed up her treatment.
Alina was struck down again in July 2010 after returning from a trip to Pakistan with her family.
The inquest heard a simple phlegm test would have shown Alina was suffering from TB but this was never carried out.
Instead, doctors shrugged off her family's concerns and told them Alina was suffering from a chest infection despite being classed as a "high risk" patient.
Alina's weight plummeted and at one point she was so ill she could only tolerate baby food.
After doctors at Heartland and City hospitals did not detect TB, Alina was admitted to Sandwell Hospital where she stayed for five days.
TB was picked up but no phlegm test was carried out and a chest X-ray was thought to have found a chest infection.
She later saw a clinical psychologist at Birmingham Children's Hospital but was in too much pain to complete the assessment.
On January 6, 2011 Alina was rushed to hospital after suffering breathing difficulties and she died of a cardiac arrest.
Following her death, Alina, who attended Golden Hillock School in Sparkhill, Birmingham, a clinical review revealed doctors missed repeated opportunities to diagnose her condition.
The family have enlisted Birmingham-based solicitors Irwin Mitchell.
The inquest, which is expected to take up to six days and call 20 witnesses, continues.
TIMETABLE OF MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
August 26, 2010: Alina referred to Heartland Hospital but given all-clear.
October 5, 2010: Alina referred to Birmingham Children's Hospital, but history of TB not picked up and hospital queried typhoid or an infection.
October 12, 2010: Alina transferred to Sandwell Hospital after going to City Hospital in Birmingham. She remains there for five days and TB is noted but sputum test not carried out.
October 30, 2010: Alina attended Birmingham Children's Hospital where doctors dismissed her condition was "psychological issue".
December 14, 2010: Saw clinical psychologist but was in such extreme pain that the psychologist could not complete the assessment.
January 6, 2011: Mr Sarag dials 999 after Alina has breathing difficulties but she dies of cardiac arrest.
At least 44 people including 30 Islamist militants were killed overnight in Yemen, officials and residents said on Tuesday, as the government pressed ahead with a new U.S.-backed offensive against insurgents in the south.
The Islamist rebellion is of serious concern to the United States and to Yemen's much bigger neighbour Saudi Arabia, which both fear that instability could give al Qaeda's Yemen-based regional wing a bigger foothold near oil shipping routes through the Red Sea.
Residents and local officials said heavy fighting erupted late on Monday between the army and militants in an area called al-Jabalain in the south, as troops tried to advance on the militant-held city of Jaar.
The clashes continued until early on Tuesday, killing at least eight militants and one Yemeni soldier, they said, adding that the army had captured two Somali Islamist fighters.
Since the start of anti-government protests in early 2011, Islamist militants calling themselves Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) have expanded their influence in Yemen, seizing several towns and swathes of territory in the south.
Although the group is inspired by al Qaeda, the precise nature of their operational ties is unclear.
At least 21 people were killed on Tuesday in an attack in northern Syria, activists said, and members of a team of UN monitors caught in the battle said they were left in rebel hands.
Reuters asked one of the four monitors by phone if they were being held prisoner. He did not reply. Another said: "We are safe with the (rebel) Free Army."
A spokesman for the rebel military council said the rebels were working on a safe exit for them.
"They are now with the Free Army which is protecting them. If they leave, the regime will terminate them because they have witnessed one of its crimes and it does not want them to tell the truth," he told Reuters.
Once again I will take the opportunity to point out the difference between illegal aliens and illegal immigrants. They are not immigrants, and they have nothing to do with immigration. This confusion of terms is one of the liberal MSM's greatest triumps in our day. I have nothing against orderly, assimilable immigration, but I am against illegally entering my country, as I am against illegally entering another country except to escape persecution, harrassment, and death. The only reason any governor would allow these risks in amongst the people they are sworn to protect is because they are trying to buy their vote with the legitimate people's safety and money.
On Tuesday, a federal deportation program that scours local jails for illegal immigrants will expand into New York and Massachusetts, despite objections from the Democratic governors of those states.
Lots of people legally come to visit New York. Most of them legally leave.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said they opposed the Secure Communities fingerprint sharing program because it interferes with local policing priorities. Under the program, the fingerprints from local jails are matched against a federal immigration database. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then asks local jails to detain people they think may be in the country without authorization, while it decides whether to try to deport them. Immigrants rights advocates say the program expels thousands of people who have no criminal records and makes witnesses to crimes afraid to come forward because they mistakenly believe they will be fingerprinted and deported. No criminal record - except for illegally entering the country.
The odds that they did something illegal go up if they're found in jail...
The federal government at first gave the impression that states and counties could opt out of Secure Communities, before reversing course and saying it would be up and running in every county by 2013, with or without local officials' consent. ICE officials say Secure Communities allows them to focus on deporting criminals, the agency's top priority. ICE recently changed one aspect of the program so that fewer illegal immigrants without criminal records who are fingerprinted after minor traffic violations--such as driving without a license--are detained.
But some counties, such as Santa Clara County in California and Cook County in Illinois, refuse to place detainers on people at ICE's request. After Secure Communities was implemented in Washington state in April despite Gov. Chris Gregoire's objections, immigrant rights groups urged King County officials to join those counties in refusing to cooperate with ICE, according to the AP. It's unclear if the federal government will take action against counties that ignore ICE's detainers.
The European Union's naval force off the Somali coastline on Tuesday carried out its first air strikes against pirate targets on shore, officials said.
Maritime aircraft and attack helicopters took part in the attacks early in the morning on the mainland, a spokesman said. No casualties were reported in the raid, which occurred along Somalia's central coastline in the region of Galmudug.
The long coastline of war-ravaged Somalia provides a perfect haven for pirate gangs preying on shipping off the East African coast.
The EU is the main donor to the Somali transitional government. It is also trains Somali army troops, and is reinforcing the navies of five neighboring countries to enable them to counter piracy themselves.
"This action against piracy is part of a comprehensive EU approach to the crisis in Somalia, where we support a lasting political solution on land," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Since December 2008, the EU has kept 5-10 warships off the Horn of Africa in an operation known as Atalanta. NATO has a similar anti-piracy flotilla known as Ocean Shield, and other countries — including the United States, India, China, Russia, and Malaysia — also have dispatched naval vessels to patrol the region.
The EU naval force is responsible for the protection of World Food Program ships carrying humanitarian aid for Somalia, and the logistic support vessels of the African Union troops conducting operations there. It also monitors fishing activity off the coast of Somalia, which has been without a functioning government since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown.
In March, the EU adopted a more robust mandate for its naval force, allowing it for the first time to mount strikes against pirate targets on Somalia's "coastal territory and internal waters." At the time, officials said the new tactics could include using warships or their helicopters to target pirate boats moored along the shoreline, as well as land vehicles or fuel tanks used by the pirates.
The EU did not say which member nation's forces carried out Monday's raid.
But two months ago, the Atalanta force was joined by French amphibious assault ship Dixmude. The 21,000-ton ship, the largest to serve with the EU mission, is capable of acting as a mobile operating base for 16 choppers — including Tigre helicopter gunships — significantly adding to the reach of the naval force.
Chris Matthews appeared on Monday's "Jeopardy!" alongside CNN's Lizzie O'Leary and former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in a special "Power Players" edition of the game show, taped last weekend in Washington. So since Chris Matthews was on MSLSD he get the title of "Power Player"?
And the host of MSNBC's "Hardball," to put it politely, bombed.
Problems started for Matthews when he requested a category in the form of a question.
"Let's go back to, what is 'Crossword Clues E?'" Matthews said. "I mean, I'm sorry, let's go $200 for the category 'Crossword Clues E.'"
For the answer "Full name of the U-2 pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960," Matthews responded, "Who is Gary Powers?" The correct response was "Who is Francis Gary Powers?"
"We need the full name," host Alex Trebek told Matthews.
"Who is Gary Powers?" Matthews said, repeating himself.
"No," Trebek said to audience laughter.
Later, after Trebek said, "A U.S.D.C. is one of these, charged with the jurisdiction of a specific region," Matthews responded, "What is a U.S. attorney?"
The correct answer was "What is a district court?"
"In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the 'hostile environment' type of this can be sex discrimination."
Matthews responded, "What is a hostile workplace?" The correct answer was "What is sexual harrassment?"
In the category "6-Letter World Capitals," the clue was "St. Basil's Cathedral is there." Matthews responded: "What is Istanbul?"
The correct answer: "What is Moscow?"
Conservative bloggers gleefully recounted Matthews' performance, noting that he once used "Jeopardy!" to criticize Sarah Palin.
"In a delicious example of instant karma," Billy Hallowell wrote on TheBlaze.com, "the self-proclaimed brainiac got his chance to show American how smart he was, but came up quite short."
"This guy has the nerve to ridicule anyone," Noel Sheppard wrote on NewsBusters.org. "Where do you find 'attorney' in the acronym 'U.S.D.C.'?"
All three contestants failed to correctly answer the "Final Jeopardy!" clue. Matthews finished last with $2,300. Gibbs won with $5,600; O'Leary came in second with $4,200. For the win, Gibbs collected $50,000 for the Pine Hills Literacy Project. Matthews and O'Leary were given $10,000 each for their respective charities. Maybe this will help cure Chris's "Tingly Leg Syndrome".
Perhaps we should've all seen this coming. As Politico noted on Monday, Matthews finished with no money during a rehearsal.
Greece will hold a new election in June after days of talks failed to resolve the country's political deadlock, party leaders say.
The Athens Stock Exchange plunged on the news, diving 4.86 per cent minutes after the announcement before recovering somewhat.
The May 6 election left no party with enough votes for a majority in parliament and repeated efforts over nine days to cobble together a coalition government proved fruitless.
"The country is unfortunately heading again to elections," Socialist party leader and former finance minister Evangelos Venizelos said. "It is heading back to elections in a few days under very bad circumstances, because certain people coldly put their short-term party interests above the national interest."
The protracted political uncertainty has worried Greece's international creditors, who have extended the country billions of euros in rescue loans over the past two years. The election campaign was dominated by the debate over Greek's dismal financial state and the strict austerity measures taken in return for the bailout - and anti-austerity parties on both the right and the left made huge gains in the vote.
Venizelos said the head of the small Democratic Left party, Fotis Kouvelis, had proposed forming a two-year government, but had insisted that it include the anti-bailout radical left Syriza party.
President Obama attacked Mitt Romney's business record today. Romney ran Bain Capital, and several other businesses before entering the public sector. Today, I want to reverse the roles and attack Obama's business record before he entered the public sector...
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- 1328: Paleostinian demonstrators broke through Israel's separation wall in Ramallah-district village Bilin this morning, witnesses say.
1311: Hundreds gather at Israel's Ofer jail, near Ramallah, where forces fire tear gas at the protest, Popular Committee says. Israeli army says using riot dispersal means against stone-throwers..
1254: Thousands take part in a cross-factional march from central Gazoo City towards the UN headquarters, while raising only Paleostinian national flags, a Ma'an correspondent says.
1217: Hundreds rally in Ramallah's Clock Square as sirens sound to commemorate Nakba, news hounds say. Photographer: Trevor Lewis.
1130: Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, releases a statement marking the Nakba anniversary which says "countries which contributed to the Nakba of Paleostine, namely Britannia, must do penance for their sin by stopping Israeli aggressiveness."
1126: Lebanese security officials urged Paleostinians to restrict Nakba Day events inside refugee camps and not hold mass rallies, Leb newspaper The Daily Star reports.
1100: Israeli police front man Mickey Rosenfeld says four people were locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! in East Jerusalem neighborhood Issawiya after throwing stones at Israeli forces.
1035: The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee says three protesters, including activist leader Naji Tamimi, were locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! while trying to cross the Nilin Checkpoint in the central West Bank. Israeli army says looking into it.
0920: Commemorations of the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, of Paleostinian expulsion in 1948 began in the late hours on Monday, as youth marched through Hebron carrying "torches of return."
President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... said in a speech marking the anniversary "We will remain on our land .. like our olive trees."
Follow this live report for a minute-by-minute account of events as they unfold.
Paleostinians, supporters in Arab countries to mark 'catastrophe' of Israel's inception with rallies, marches. PA declares general strike; IDF on high alert
Paleostinians in the West Bank and Gazoo Strip, as well as pro-Paleostinian supporters in other Arab nations, will mark "Nakba Day" Tuesday, marking the "catastrophe" of the inception of the State of Israel.
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The Paleostinian Authority has declared a general strike, as did the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, which declared a strike in Israel's Arab sector.
Mass rallies and marches are planned across the Paleostinian Authority and in Arab cities in Israel. Â
The IDF has declared high alert across all borders, and has bolstered its deployment in West Bank cities and along the Gazoo border, ahead of possible festivities.
Â
Dozens of Paleostinians clashed with IDF soldiers at the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank. The rioters stoned the troops, who employed crowd-control measures in return. No injuries were reported.
Dozens of Paleostinians rioted and torched tires at a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarch, as well. IDF troops used crowd-control measures there as well.
Â
The PA held its main rally in the Yasser Arafat Square in Ramallah, where thousands of Paleostinians gathered at noon.
Â
The rally will be preceded by a march starting at the former PA chairman's tomb, near the Mukataa. At 12pm, a 64-second siren will sound across Ramallah to mark the beginning of the official ceremony.
Â
A similar march will be held in the Gazoo Strip, with members of all Paleostinian factions in attendance. The procession will commence at the center of Gazoo City and continue towards the local UN headquarters.
Â
In order to avoid festivities, the factions agreed in advance that only the official Paleostinian flag will be waived during the march -- and none of the individual factions' flags.
Â
Ahead of "Nakba Day," the PLO's research center released its annual census of Paleostinians worldwide. The center found that in 2011, Paleostinians worldwide numbered 11.2 million, with 4.2 million living in the West Bank and Gazoo Strip and 1.37 million living within the Green Line.
Â
Some five million Paleostinians live across the Arab world and 630,000 live in various European countries and the United States. Nevertheless, over 50% of Paleostinians live outside the West Bank, Gazoo and Israel.
Â
High Arab Monitoring Committee Chairman Mohammad Zeidan urged the Arab public to avoid festivities with Israeli security forces.
Â
"I hope today will be uneventful. I ask the Arab people to respect the strike, the Nakba and the security prisoners. I also urge the (Israeli) police to stay away from the rallies. The situation is sensitive and we don't want to see any festivities."
Â
In Jordan, the Moslem Brüderbund is also planning a Nakba Day march. A similar event is planned in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Some 200 right wing protestors faced off with 400 leftist protestors who sought to hold a Paleostinian 'Nakba Day' ceremony -- commemorating the "disaster" of the foundation of the State of Israel -- at Tel Aviv University, Monday.
Â
Three protestors were locked away I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! after the confrontations. The right wing protestors called out at the organizer of the event, who was locked away I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! : "Traitor!"
Some 10,000 cyber attacks occur in Israel every minute, according to Interpol President Khoo Boon Hui, who spoke at the international police organization's European Regional Convention in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
Â
According to Khoo, forces of Evil and criminals are quick to utilize new technologies to carry out the attacks. He said that 80% of online violations are committed by crime organizations.
Khoo suggested that many criminals worldwide are abandoning conventional theft in favor of the cyber variation due to the high payoff; banks in the US lose $900 million a year to cyber crime. He noted that sophistication is required in order to get an advantage over internet criminals.
Fatah prisoners held in Hamas jails in the Gaza Strip have gone on hunger strike in protest against their incarceration, Palestinian sources reported Sunday.
I thought the hunger strike was over: oh, oh, wait a minute, that was the one staged by Fatah against Israel...
The hunger strike is also in solidarity with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons who have also been refusing food for the past few weeks, the sources said.
The Fatah-affiliated Palestine Press News Agency published a letter from the striking prisoners in the Gaza Strip in which they hold Hamas responsible for their continued imprisonment.
"We the prisoners in the shameful and despicable prisons belonging to the Hamas government declare our support for the heroic prisoners languishing behind Israeli bars," the inmates wrote in their letter.
"We have decided to go on hunger strike in solidarity with our brothers and call upon international institutions to put pressure on Hamas and the Israeli government to release all the prisoners."
The prisoners in the Gaza Strip also appealed to Palestinians to exert pressure on Hamas to stop arresting Fatah supporters.
Iran on Tuesday hanged a man convicted of playing a key role in the 2010 murder of a top nuclear scientist and of spying for Israel, the official IRNA news agency reported quoting Tehran prosecution office.
"Majid Jamali Fashi, the Mossad spy and the person who assassinated Masoud Ali Mohammadi, our nation's nuclear scientist was hanged Tuesday morning," IRNA said.
Local media on August 28 reported that Jamali Fashi was sentenced to death after being "convicted of Moharebeh (waging war against God) for placing a bomb-laden bike and blowing it up in front of martyr Ali Mohammadi's home, collaboration with the Zionist regime and Mossad."
Jamali Fashi stood trial as the main suspect in the killing of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University who was killed in a bomb attack outside his home in January 2010.
Jamali Fashi also faced charges of cooperating with Israel's spy agency and of having received $120,000 for passing on intelligence to Mossad, the website report added.
The Islamic republic has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of four of its scientists and nuclear experts since 2010.
From the Muslim Brotherhood site
The Carter Center has received accreditation as an organization from Egypt's Supreme Presidential Election Commission and will deploy 22 international election witnesses from 14 countries for the presidential election scheduled May 23-24, 2012. They will be joined by a larger delegation of 80 witnesses from over 35 nations that will travel to Egypt several days before the election, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
While deployed, Carter Center delegates will witness the activities of the election administration, election campaigning, voting, counting and tabulation processes, and other issues related to the overall electoral process in Egypt. They also will meet with election officials, political party and civil society representatives, members of the international community, and other stakeholders
#2
While deployed, Carter Center delegates will witness the activities of the election administration, election campaigning, voting, counting and tabulation processes, and other issues related to the overall electoral process in Egypt.
Might want to stay in lovely Atlanta and Fulton County and have a look at your own election processes. Of course the painter's house.... always needs painting does it not?
Our correspondent received news on Saturday that an armed group attempted to kidnap the Bulgarian ambassador to Yemen on Saturday evening in the capital, SanaÂ’a. Eye witnesses said that a group of armed men which according to the authorities could be linked to al-Qaeda tried to abduct the diplomat, a trend which sadly has been plaguing Yemen for the past few months.
Ever since the departure from power of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, al-Qaeda fighters have used a breaking down in the security apparatus to spread chaos and lawlessness through the provinces, kidnapping foreigners and diplomats to use as bargain chips for the release of their own militants from jail or for large sums of money.
What is now most disturbing is the fact that those militias are now acting in broad day light in vast populous areas, proving say security analysts that they have been emboldened by their previous successes.
The Bulgarian ambassador who was enjoying an evening out with his family was attacked in front of the SanaÂ’a Trading Center, SanaÂ’a biggest shopping mall. Despite the presence of security guards and many police officers in the vicinity, the armed still attempted the kidnapping proving of their new found boldness.
It is the third time in two weeks that alleged al-Qaeda militants are operating at the heart of the Yemeni capital.
#2
If I never see that face again, grom, it will be 20 years too soon. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/15/2012 18:16
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#3
Even if he loses, which is a big if, I think we'll be seeing a lot of this bugger on the international stage. He's had a taste of power and his communist agenda is not likely to change. He'll not be fading away. Just my guess.
#5
get him a daily pass at a decent golf course and we'll never hear his stuttering speech (no teleprompters in post POTUS mode) again, except in bad Youtubes and Mooches appearances on The View
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2012 21:04
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#1
I felt like that during the early Clinton years when I was in the reserves. We gamed the system every month to inflate our readiness metrics. It was brutal.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/15/2012 19:06
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#2
The Air Force is a relic. Right now the Navy standard missile reaches from the surface to the edge of space over 75% of the globe. The Air Force's capability is much less.
We need to revisit the Key West agreement and take the next logical step to move the Air Force into the Navy. Just like the Marines, the Air Force can be a respected part of our national defense without all the overhead of its institution.
The Army is the place for America's citizen soldiers -- expanding and contracting as needed. The Navy is the place for ships, planes, space vehicles, and other capital intensive long lead items.
Every American should thank the Air Force for doing its duty for over 60 years, but it is time to close it up.
#3
We need to revisit the Key West agreement and take the next logical step to move the Air Force into the Navy
What? and give up WWII era 'temporary buildings for spacious Taj Mahals, or Libbeytown style housing for 'Better Homes and Hangars' worthy digs? And how will we ever get that 12,000 foot B-52 capable runway to turn into the wind?????
(Sh. M. Network)-An offensive by Al Qaeda-affiliated bully boyz of shabab onSomaliaand Kenyan forces inLower Jubba region has left at least six people dead and more others maimed, witnesses said on Monday.
Eyewitness told Shabelle Media that the combat started when Al shabab agents armed with heavy and slight weaponry attacked on joint Somali and Kenya military bases on the outskirts of Badade town, Lower Jubba region of southern Somalia.
"We woke up from the sleep in late on Sunday night, because of the thud of the artillery fire and mortar shells used by both warring sides (Somali,Kenya and Al shabab) at several locations on the outskirts of Badade town. At least six combatants from both sides were killed in the fighting," a local resident told Shabelle Media station by phone under anonymity.
Somali and Kenyan army still control the town ofBadadeafter the bully boyz withdrew few months ago without any resistance in what a military front man characterised as a bloodless takeover. The City is adjacent toKenya's border.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Bloomberg] Greece's possible exit from the euro moved to the center of Europe's financial-crisis debate, rattling markets as authorities in Athens struggled to form a government. Meetings brokered by Greek President Karolos Papoulias were set to continue today after Syriza, the leading anti-bailout party, rejected a unity government following inconclusive elections May 6. That moved the country closer to a new vote, with at least five European central bankers broaching the once- taboo topic of its exit from the euro.
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05/15/2012
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Seven terrorists militants were killed recently in Dagestan, Russia's National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC) said Monday.
Interfax quoted the NAC as saying, "A police operation against militants started in a forest in the Kizlyar district on May 10."
Among the seven killed, one was a police-officer-turned terrorist militant who assisted his fellows traveling freely in the region, and another one bombed a railroad track in the Tarumovsky district of Dagestan last year.
The terrorists militants murdered several local people in recent years who openly criticized illegal armed groups in the region. During the operation, machine guns, submachine guns and pistols were seized.
[Bangla Daily Star] US President Barack Obama Ready to Rule from Day One... will not attend the Apec summit in Vladivostok in September, which comes soon after the Democratic presidential nominating convention, the White House said yesterday.
The announcement by White House front man Jay Carney came days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... said he would skip this week's G8 summit at the US president's retreat at Camp David, as he finalizes his cabinet.
Carney delivered the news to the press pool traveling with Obama in New York.
Obama had not been expected to travel to Russia for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, as it takes place soon after the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, during the week of September 3.
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05/15/2012
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#1
missing an opportunity for a delicious plate of dog
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2012 8:45
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But he will have more flexibility after the election. Hope and change I can believe in is Obummer voted out of the WH in November.
#3
No, out in January. Remember, he gets November, December, and most of January to think of some way to screw us over. It will be important for Republicans to be on their toes during this period.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/15/2012 18:03
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[Al Ahram] At Madrid's Puerta del Sol square, Spanish police disperse protesters trying to mark the anniversary of the "indignant" movement, arrest two
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05/15/2012
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#1
>This bank lies, cheats and throws people out of their homes,"
It's not their home, they don't pay for it. Try not paying the lease on a car and saying it's still your car.
I have less than zero sympathy for these people. They took a bet on being able to make a quick no work gain, and lost big. Good.
#2
BP, the only thing I will say in their favor is that the same behavior by the banks, politicians/countries, mega-wealthy get bailed out by the taxes of these people (+u & me, etc.)
It's the same here and there...the rules are for the little guys and the oligarchs skate.
[Dawn] A remotely-detonated bomb destroyed a bazaar in northwestern Afghanistan on Monday, killing seven civilians, including a provincial councillor, and injuring eight other people, police said.
The blast in Ghormach district in the province of Faryab was the latest in a string of deadly bombings and suicide kabooms since Taliban forces of Evil announced the start of their spring offensive earlier this month.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but similar attacks in the past have been blamed on the Taliban, which has waged a 10-year insurgency aimed at toppling Kabul's US-backed government.
"A remote-controlled bomb planted by the hard boyz and enemies of Afghanistan... detonated today before noon when our countrymen were busy shopping in the market," a statement from the interior ministry said.
"As a result of the incident, seven non-combatants were killed, including provincial council member Amanullah Shahabzai, and eight other civilians were maimed." Now in its 11th year, the Taliban-led insurgency has expanded to most of the country from traditional strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan along the rugged border with Pakistain.
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[An Nahar] Suspected al-Qaeda Islamic fascistiblew up a gas pipeline supplying Yemen's Balhaf export terminal in the Gulf of Aden, the second such attack in a month, a government official said on Monday.
"A gas pipeline was blown up near Mayfaa" in Shabwa province in southeast Yemen late on Sunday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered...
"Al-Qaeda blew up the pipeline in response to the raids that targeted it" over the past week, the official said.
Witnesses told Agence La Belle France Presse that flames were seen flaring into the sky from the site of the kaboom that took place around midnight, some 30 minutes after soldiers guarding the pipeline clashed with a group of gunnies.
The amount of damage to the pipeline was not immediately clear and it was not known to what extent supplies of gas, from a field in Marib province, were affected.
On Saturday, Yemeni forces launched a multi-pronged assault aimed at recapturing the southern city of Zinjibar, held by the jihadists for a year.
Earlier last week, air strikes by U.S. drones in eastern Yemen killed jihadist network leader Fahd al-Quso, wanted by Washington in connection with the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbor.
Quso's name figured on an FBI list of most wanted terrorists, along with a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest
Further air strikes were launched by U.S. drones against al-Qaeda targets on Saturday, in which according to a tribal chief and witnesses 12 Islamic fascistiwere killed.
The 320-kilometer pipeline linking Marib province to Balhaf, in Yemen's mostly lawless south, has been repeatedly sabotaged by al-Qaeda.
On April 26, the pipeline was sabotaged shortly after it was repaired following a similar March attack.
Yemen began exporting liquefied natural gas from Balhaf in 2009. French group Total has an almost 40 percent interest in the liquefaction plant.
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05/15/2012
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[Dawn] A well-known religious scholar was bumped off in what police described as a sectarian attack in the Bahadurabad area on Sunday.
The police said Maulana Aslam Sheikhupuri with his two guards -- Wazeer Ali and Najamuddin -- and driver Muhammad Safrain was on his way to Al-Koran Courses Centre in Bahadurabad in a car (AFU-655) to deliver a fortnightly lecture there.
When the car reached near Rangoonwala Hall within the remit of the New Town cop shoppe, three men riding a cycle of violence intercepted the vehicle and sprayed it with a volley of bullets.
Gulshan division SP Salam Sheikh told Dawn that none of the holy man's guards could return fire.
Quoting the statement of one of the two guards, who also sustained bullet wounds in the attack, the SP said one of the assailants got off the two-wheeler and went over to the other side of the car and fired several shots at it.
All the four occupants of the car, including Maulana Sheikhupuri, who was sitting in the back seat of the car with a guard, sustained bullet wounds, the area SP said, adding that the assailants rode away on their cycle of violence.
The police said the maimed were rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where the Maulana was pronounced dead on arrival and shortly after driver Safrain also died.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... JPMC medico-legal officer Dr Kaleem Sheikh said Maulana Sheikhupuri and his driver were brought dead to the hospital.
The police collected several spent bullet casings of 9mm pistols from the crime-scene.
SP Sheikh said it appeared to be an incident of sectarian killing. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... Sherlocks were looking at it from every angle.
Hearing the news of the killing, a large number of students, associates and friend of the slain holy man reached the JPMC.
The police said for the last four years the holy man used to visit Al-Koran Courses Centre in Bahadurabad on second Sunday of every month to deliver a lecture. Owners of the centre provided him a pick-and-drop facility in their car.
Maulana Sheikhupuri, 54, belonged to the Deoband school of thought and held the title of shaikhul hadees. He was the prayer leader of Masjid-o-Madressah Tawabeen in Gulshan-e-Maymar.
He had completed his religious education from Jamia Binoria, SITE. He was a Hafiz-e-Koran and had memorised the holy book in just 11 months, his associates said. He authored hundreds of books on religious topics.
He had been handicapped in the legs for the last three years after a stroke.
Following the medico-legal formalities at the JPMC, the body of the holy man was shifted to Gulshan-e-Maymar. Enraged youths accompanying the coffin had gun sex.
Later, Maulana Taqi Usmani led his funeral prayer, which was held in the Madressah Tawaban.
Till late in the night, no FIR of the killing was lodged at the New Town cop shoppe.
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#1
Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Alice Faye aka Belle Fawcett in "In Old Chicago (1937)" aka Stella Kirby in "Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)" aka Miss Nan Spencer in "Week-End in Havana (1941)" aka Honey Walters in "George White's 1935 Scandals (1935)" aka Jean Legoi in "She Learned About Sailors (1934)" (Died in 1998 at age 83)
[An Nahar] The Syrian conflict has bred the emergence of obscure jihadists carrying out bloody attacks, either acting independently or manipulated by the regime seeking to tarnish the image of its opposition, analysts say.
"Al-Qaeda does not exist in Syria. But there are at present several splinter groups of jihadists who employ the same strategies," said Mathieu Guidere, a La Belle France-based analyst who specializes in the Arab and Moslem world.
"We know that these are Syrians, not foreigners, and that they are very few. For now, nobody knows them -- neither al-Qaeda nor the rebels," he added.
On May 10, twin suicide kabooms in Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... killed at least 55 people and maimed 372 -- the deadliest attacks since the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... 's regime erupted in March 2011.
Al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group unknown before the Syrian revolt, grabbed credit for the bombings as well as previous attacks in the capital and in the northern city of 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...
"Law and order are also breaking down in Syria, which means that we should expect the spread of radical groups," Middle East analyst Joshua Landis writes in his blog.
Whatever their identity, the perpetrators of these attacks are "using signature al-Qaeda tactics," said Guidere, adding that "simultaneous attacks are the trademark" of the network founded by the late Osama bin Laden ... who no longer exists...
The escalation of violent attacks, reminiscent of those carried out in neighboring Iraq and claimed by jihad boy groups linked to Al-Qaeda, have raised fears of an "Iraqization" of Syria.
Washington, which has long accused Damascus of turning a blind eye to hard boyz crossing through the Syrian border into Iraq, has refused to supply arms to the rebels, lest they fall into the hands of al-Qaeda.
In the absence of any evidence about the sponsors of the attacks, Guidere, author of several books on al-Qaeda, proposes two hypotheses:
"It could be splinter groups who, like Somalia's al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... (Islamist cut-thoats), want to be recognized as al-Qaeda."
"The second and more credible hypothesis is that these groups carry out -- or are made to carry out the attacks -- so that the general public confuses them with al-Qaeda," he added.
Who benefits from the attacks?
The latest bombings primarily benefit the Syrian regime, analysts say, which, from the start of the 14-month revolt, has described the uprising as a Western-backed al-Qaeda plot and its opponents as "terrorists" to justify its crackdown.
"Bashir al-Assad has said: 'If anybody dares to challenge my rule, there will be chaos.' What he said is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy," said Salman Sheikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center.
Sheikh noted there was no clear link between the regime and the kabooms, as the opposition has charged, "but at the end of the day, the responsibility lies with the regime because it has pursued only a security approach."
"It is the regime who created this environment and the international community has allowed the situation to drift," he added.
Sheikh added that a small group like Al-Nusra Front would not be able to pull off such "sophisticated" attacks without the help of "much more professional forces."
Would the rebels, frustrated by the impasse of the conflict, have resorted to terrorism?
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... has openly expressed support for the Syrian revolt, something which the rebel groups have rejected as "interference."
This type of attack could not benefit the rebels, who have no interest in being linked to al-Qaeda," Guidere said.
International Crises Group said the regime appeared to stand to gain the most from the mayhem.
"Some observers suspect a regime hand in events that served its interests: damaging its foes' image; mobilizing and radicalizing its own popular base; frightening the many Syrian fence-sitters; and heightening Western reluctance to become involved in a muddled and messy conflict.
"The blasts almost certainly produced all those effects," it said.
Despite the Islamist rhetoric adopted by many rebels and opposition figures, analysts point out that the agenda of Syria's Moslem Brüderbund bears no relation to the jihadist militancy of al-Qaeda.
"We know the traditions of Islamists of al-Qaeda. These guys are doing it out of ideology ... The Moslem Brüderbund or even Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... are very different," said Sheikh. "It is like oil and water, the two don't mix."
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[Yemen Post] Yemen started few weeks ago a campaign to raise awareness among the students at the primary and high schools about extremism. Officials at the endowments and guidance ministry said the campaign is aimed at te students at the primary school.
The campaign, which also highlights moderation of Islam, started in the capital Sanaa and is designed to cover all schools in the country, the officials said.
A school head in Sanaa said the endowments ministry is sending Egyptian holy mans to educate the Yemeni students about moderation of Islam.
"Some holy mans have told the students that Islam prohibits the killing of innocents and attacking electricity, oil and other public facilities and properties," the head said. "Moreover, holy mans are delivering lectures focused on the effects of extremism and the acts of the Jihadist groups including Al-Qaeda".
The campaign coincided with the expanded war on Al-Qaeda snuffies in southern regions.
Earlier today, the armed forces continued the expanded operations, which started on Saturday, with the participation of the Air Force and the Navy.
The battles come within an effort to retake some towns, which were held by Al-Qaeda last year.
On Sunday, the army was reported to have advanced toward Zinjibar, the capital 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... , and that the snuffies have been almost defeated.
Many snuffies have been killed in recent weeks in Abyan and drone strikes have also contributed to the killing of senior terrorist leaders.
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[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Monday said the government is focusing on new rules of engagement with the United States and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... in line with the recommendations of the parliamentary committee.
He said this here at the Prime Minister House on the occasion of visit of Chinese Youth Delegation under the Bilateral Youth Exchange Programme.
Responding to a question about the new rules of engagement with US/Isaf and NATO, the prime minister said, "We have received recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on the National Security (PCNS) and we are focusing on concrete issue aimed at removing the irritants."
"We want to resolve the issue highlighted by the parliamentary committee for good," he added.
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[Dawn] A close associate of Hakimullah Mehsud, chief of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and six others have been incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, DawnNews reported on Monday.
Hurrah! Did any of them have cell phones or laptops? Oh, wait -- it was the Pakistanis who arrested him? What odds, then, it was protective custody rather than for crimes to be determined?
Mehsud's close associate, "Hakeem," has been incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... along with six other Islamic fascistifrom Peshawar's Hayatabad phase VI and have been shifted to Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location, sources told.
Four tossed in the calaboose ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... commanders of the banned outfit, including Hakeem were on the wanted list and their real names have not been disclosed yet, DawnNews learnt.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients of increasing volatility... in a similar raid 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.... , Police has incarcerated You have the right to remain silent... and registered cases of kidnapping for ransom against three members of the TTP.
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[Dawn] A crowd surrounded a UN peacekeeping unit in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday and opened fire, wounding seven Pak peacekeepers, UN officials and diplomats said.
Other peacekeepers in the contingent were hurt by stones thrown by the 1,000-strong crowd around the base in the Bunyiakiri district of South Kivu province, said UN front man Martin Nesirky.
The peacekeepers were Paks, according to diplomatic sources. The maimed men were taken to hospital in Goma, the main city in eastern DR Congo.
Pakistain asked the UN Security Council to hold a meeting on the attack and make a condemnation, diplomats said.
The crowd was apparently protesting against attacks in the region carried out by Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda rebels, Nesirky told a briefing.
The UN mission in DR Congo reported that "elements" of a Mai-Mai group, the Rai Mutomboki, "may have been part of the protest and may have fired on the peacekeepers," Nesirky said. The Rai Mutomboki is an armed self-defense group.
"The mission is monitoring the situation and has sent reinforcements to the area, which is now reportedly calm but tense," the UN front man said.
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#1
I think my head just exploded from the irony overload engendered by the idea that there are Pakiwaki "Peacekeepers" sent out into the world.
[Washington Post] President B.O.'s campaign is out with a tough new ad, "Steel," attacking former Massachusetts governor 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... 's record on job creation. The two-minute ad focuses on GS Technologies, a steel mill in Kansas City, Mo., that was bought by Romney's private equity firm Bain Capital and went bankrupt soon after. The ad paints Romney as out of touch with the needs of the local workers and concerned only with Bain's own profits. "We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer," says one former mill worker in the ad. Another calls Bain "a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
Someone who extorts money from wealth creators calls Wealth Creator a parasite.
It really is an upside down bizzaro world in Obamastan.
#5
Embed linky didn't work but the target of ObamaÂ’s latest attack ad is also one of the Democratic PartyÂ’s largest contributors. See article in Washington Free Beacon.
#6
I knew I could find it if I looked. You can too. Here's just a sample of what you find when you google gs technologies union strike. Now, who's the vampire, sucking the life blood from job creators all over the country?
#7
Coming from the administration which has done nothing about the big Vampire Squids, nor even about Jon Corzine, this ad makes Obama look even more like a fool.
Ad is just playing on the Matt Taibi's popular meme/simile.
#16
I know that area. Well. Steel industry, what are you talking about? Eff with KC's BBQ industry now that is words. Steel, stupid. Only steel KC worries about is if Dyson can get 2nd on the Rangers tonight.
[An Nahar] At least 37 people were killed in violence across Syria on Monday, among them 23 soldiers who died in fierce festivities between regime forces and rebels in the central city of Rastan, activists said.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said reports indicated that three troop carriers were destroyed in the festivities that began at dawn on the outskirts of the rebel-held city in Homs province, which U.N. observers had toured last month.
A lieutenant who had defected was also killed in the festivities, and random regime gunfire reportedly left two civilians dead in the city of Homs itself.
For its part, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 11 civilians and three rebels.
It said nine people were killed in the central province of Homs, three in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, one in the central province of Hama and one 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... ' suburbs.
Regime forces launched an offensive on Rastan at the weekend but met with sharp resistance from rebels seeking the ouster of the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
The Observatory said a child was killed and dozens maimed in shelling of the city by Syrian troops on Sunday. The bombardment by regime forces resumed following Monday's deadly festivities, it added.
"The regime forces in the course of two hours fired 300 rockets at Rastan before launching their assault," Sami Kurdi, the FSA front man for Homs province, told Agence La Belle France Presse from Rastan.
"The army tried to advance on the city at dawn but it met fierce resistance from FSA soldiers massed there," he added.
"The deserters like the residents of Rastan were on the alert, ready to do anything to prevent the regular troops from entering the town," because "people know what happens when the army enters a town that has revolted," Kurdi said.
Activists and NGOs have accused regime troops of repeatedly committing abuses in pro-rebel areas like Homs and Idlib.
The Observatory reported deadly violence elsewhere on Monday, with three civilians killed by regime forces' gunfire in southern Daraa province, including a child and a Paleostinian refugee.
And in Quraya in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, a 15-year-old boy was killed by machinegun fire as regime forces raided the town, the Observatory said, bringing to at least 30 the number of people reportedly killed.
The watchdog added that 15 residents of the city were tossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud!
In the capital Damascus, regime forces raided the neighborhood of Qaboon, while snipers were stationed on the roofs of some buildings.
The watchdog said 45 people -- 25 civilians, 15 soldiers and five rebels -- were killed in a surge of violence in various flashpoints on Sunday, despite a ceasefire 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... peace 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... that was supposed to take effect on April 12.
Among the dead were a Shiite imam, Sheikh Abbas al-Laham, who leads the prayers in the Ruqayya mosque in Damascus, a revered place of pilgrimage for many religious Iranians. The holy man was assassinated by unidentified gunnies in Damascus, the Observatory said.
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#1
civilian fatalities over 14,500 now per this site
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/15/2012 11:56
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[Dawn] Pakistain's foreign minister indicated Monday the time has come to reopen the country's Afghan border to NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... troop supplies, saying the government had made its point by closing the route for nearly six months in retaliation for deadly US Arclight airstrikes on its troops.
"It was important to make a point, Pakistain has made a point and we now need to move on and go into a positive zone and try to conduct our relations," Khar said during a presser in Islamabad when asked whether she believed Pakistain should reopen the supply route.
"We are trying to put this relationship, you know, in a positive zone and I am quite sure that we will be successful in doing so."
Asked whether Pakistain would allow a resumption of NATO supplies, Information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, who was also spoke alongside the foreign minister, said a decision would be made in the coming days.
"There are a lot of sensitivities," he told news hounds. "How we can share things with you which are under discussion? We will share it in the next three to four days."
The ministers' comments offered the clearest indication yet that Pakistain is ready to reopen supply lines, even though Washington has so far refused to apologise for last year's attack and end drone strikes in the country as demanded by Pakistain's parliament.
Speaking to media representatives, the foreign minister said Pakistain was negotiating with the US and NATO on the same terms that were approved by the parliament for the process of re-engagement.
Moreover, the minister said that the parliamentary recommendations had proved that only a minority of Paks were opposed to normal relations with the Western world.
Pakistain wants to continue to be a controller and enabler for the international community, said Khar, adding that the issue is not just that of relations with the US but with 42 countries that have stakes in Afghanistan.
The government is likely to face domestic backlash for reopening the NATO route given the rampant anti-American sentiment in the country and vocal opposition by hardliners.
The move could also, however, free up over a billion dollars in US military aid that has been frozen for the last year.
Pakistain closed transit routes to Afghanistan after a NATO cross-border air attack last November killed 24 Pak soldiers at the Salala checkpost on the Pak-Afghan border.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had hinted on Friday that Pakistain could miss out on the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21 if it failed to reopen supply routes in time.
Pakistain is keen to attend the summit that will largely focus on the Afghan war, and an invitation is likely contingent on the country allowing troop supplies to resume.
The conference in Chicago, to be attended by more than 60 leaders and heads of state, is regarded as a crucial summit which will map out a future for Afghanistan after most foreign troops withdraw from the warn-ton country by the end of 2014.
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#1
We'll see - Pakistan's Govt. can still easily retaliate for the loss in US $$$ by closing off its airspace to any + all Afghan shipments as well.
* WAFF > [US Demo Senator Claire McCaskill] PAKISTAN'S REFUSAL TO [Re]OPEN AFGHAN SUPPLY ROUTES COSTING NATO MORE THAN US$9.0MILYUHN A DAY.
Add the above to Waffle-happy, ex-Soviet SSRS whom are also at rising risk from the Islamist-Jihadi threat to the Caucasus + CENTASIA = US MAY HAVE TO ATTACK [invade?] NUKE-ARMED PAK BFF IRAN TO SAVE POST-2014 AFGHANISTAN, or even AFPAK.
As said times before, POTUS Bammer = USA taint out of truble yet.
Accused of militant links, detained Pakistani officer Ali Khan has denounced Pakistani army ties to the US. Khan is an example of the United StatesÂ’ fear that PakistanÂ’s military could tilt toward Islamic extremism with the half of al-Qaida or the Pakistani Taliban.
BAGHDAD -- In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed -- and may jettison entirely by the end of the year -- a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.
Before you think that this is just another situation in which the evil Champ and his White House minions are letting the Iraqis slide back into civil war, consider the alternative hypothesis that Champ and Co. are just incompetent instead, and that the program deserves to be dumped. Then keep reading to see whether you've satisfied Occam's razor...
What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 American law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by the end of this year.
The training effort, which began in October and has already cost $500 million, was conceived of as the largest component of a mission billed as the most ambitious American aid effort since the Marshall Plan. Instead, it has emerged as the latest high-profile example of the waning American influence here following the military withdrawal, and it reflects a costly miscalculation on the part of American officials, who did not count on the Iraqi government to assert its sovereignty so aggressively.
"I think that with the departure of the military, the Iraqis decided to say, 'O.K., how large is the American presence here?' " said James F. Jeffrey, the American ambassador to Iraq, in an interview. "How large should it be? How does this equate with our sovereignty? In various areas they obviously expressed some concerns."
Funny how it is that the Iraqis know what they need and don't need, and the State Department and our current Secretary of State do not...
Last year the State Department embarked on $343 million worth of construction projects around the country to upgrade facilities to accommodate the police training program, which was to have comprised hundreds of trainers and more than 1,000 support staff members working in three cities -- Baghdad, Erbil and Basra -- for five years. But like so much else in the nine years of war, occupation and reconstruction here, it has not gone as planned.
A lesson given by an American police instructor to a class of Iraqi trainees neatly encapsulated the program's failings. There are two clues that could indicate someone is planning a suicide attack, the instructor said: a large bank withdrawal and heavy drinking. The problem with that advice, which was recounted by Ginger Cruz, the former deputy inspector general at the American Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, was that few Iraqis have bank accounts and an extremist Sunni Muslim bent on carrying out a suicide attack is likely to consider drinking a cardinal sin.
[facepalm]
Last month many of the Iraqi police officials who had been participating in the training suddenly refused to attend the seminars and PowerPoint presentations given by the Americans, saying they saw little benefit from the sessions.
The Iraqis have also insisted that the training sessions be held at their own facilities, rather than American ones. But reflecting the mistrust that remains between Iraqi and American officials, the State Department's security guards will not allow the trainers to establish set meeting times at Iraqi facilities, so as not to set a pattern for insurgents, who still sometimes infiltrate Iraq's military and police.
Our military didn't have these problems, did it?
The largest of the construction projects, an upgrade at the Baghdad Police College that included installing protective covering over double-wide residence trailers (to shield against mortar attacks) and new dining and laundry facilities and seminar rooms, was recently abandoned, unfinished, after an expenditure of more than $100 million. The remaining police advisers will instead work out of the American Embassy compound, where they will have limited ability to interact with Iraqi police officials.
Robert M. Perito, director of the Security Sector Governance Center of Innovation at the United States Institute of Peace, called the project a "small program for a lot of money."
So why would a program with a couple hundred advisors cost hundreds of millions of dollars?
"The first problem is the State Department doesn't operate in dangerous environments," said Mr. Perito, who last year wrote a history of United States police training in Iraq. "As soon as the U.S. military left, the State Department was on its own. And that immediately ran the price up and restricted the ability of advisers to move around."
The State Department has consistently defended the program, even after it was whittled down in scope and criticized publicly by the head of Iraq's Interior Ministry, Adnan al-Assadi, who last year questioned the wisdom of spending so much on a program the Iraqis never sought.
"We have stood up a robust police-training program, which is doing a terrific job working with the local police in training and developing a program, which I think will pay enormous dividends," said Thomas R. Nides, deputy secretary of state for management and resources, in a briefing in February with reporters in Washington.
In fact, at every turn the program has faced steep challenges. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Nides said, "I don't think anything went wrong." He added, "the Iraqis don't believe they need a program of that scale and scope."
Mr. Nides said the scaling back of the program was part of his broader effort to reduce the size of the embassy.
After realizing that the security environment would largely prevent the trainers from traveling outside their barracks, the focus of the program was shifted to holding seminars and PowerPoint presentations on topics like how to spot suicide bombers, protect human rights and deal with large crowds. The trainers are mostly retired state troopers and other law enforcement personnel on leave from their jobs back home, and a number of officials who criticized the program questioned what those trainers have to offer Iraqi police officials who have been operating in a war zone for years.
What would an Illinois state trooper know about the streets of Baghdad? Good grief. Our military at least knew what it was doing.
Mr. Perito said that the State Department never developed a suitable curriculum and that instead, advisers often "end up talking about their own experiences or tell war stories and it's not relevant."
Retired Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, who oversaw the training of Iraqi security forces from 2007 to 2008, said, "The evidence suggests that the State Department never really engaged the Iraqis to find out what they need and what they want."
The program has consistently been challenged by the special inspector general's office, which in an audit late last year warned that it could become a "bottomless pit" for taxpayer dollars. The office's most recent quarterly report, released at the end of April, stated that embassy officials acknowledged "that those challenges may lead to the further restructuring" of the program "in the near future."
Last year, in preparation for the withdrawal of the military, the State Department planned a large expansion of its role here, designed to maintain influence and be a counterweight to the vast political influence of Iran. Yet, after doubling the size of the embassy staff to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors, the State Department quickly reversed course this year -- partly because of Iraqi objections to the expanded operation -- and is now cutting back from the slightly more than 12,000 people presently in Iraq.
Since 2003, the American government has spent nearly $8 billion training the Iraqi police. The program was first under the State Department, but it was transferred to the Department of Defense in 2004 as the insurgency intensified. Yet the force that the American military left behind was trained to fight a counterinsurgency, not to act as a traditional law enforcement organization. Police officers here, for example, do not pull over speeding drivers or respond to calls about cats stuck in trees.
"What is really needed is a restructuring and reorienting of that force so it becomes a law enforcement agency that serves a democracy," Mr. Perito said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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"What is really needed is a restructuring and reorienting of that force so it becomes a law enforcement agency that serves a democracy," Mr. Perito said.
WRONG! Get out, and stay out! That, is the "need."
#2
keep reading to see whether you've satisfied Occam's razor
The Occam's razor explanation is that IRAN doesn't like Iraqi democracy; it doesn't like an effective Iraqi police force; and it sure doesn't like Americans in Iraq.
Unfortunately most government ministers have lived in Iran for more than 10 years, and are probably more beholden to Iran than to the land between the two rivers. As long as Obama is willing to sell them down the river, there is no reason they should defy the dominant power in the region.
Of course the other Occam's razor explanation is Obamma and Iran are on the same side. It's so nice to see the White House and the Islamic Republic in agreement on so many issues!/sarc
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/15/2012 11:09
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#3
So, Youre sayin they're bad, and going to get worse?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/15/2012 14:44
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The US is trying to train police to function in a country under the rule of law.
The ruling class of Iraq wants the police to function as an arm of the ruling class.
That's the basic problem.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/15/2012 19:03
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With less than seven weeks to go until the July 1st elections, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto continues to maintain a commanding lead over his nearest rival Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota by 20 percentage points, the same lead he has had since the start of the campaign March 30th, according to data supplied by an ISA-GEA poll published in Milenio news daily.
The political week started with a debate, and a national as well as international press distracted by the cleavage of a Mexican model for all of 15 seconds at the start of the debate. The week continued with barbs against Pena Nieto, especially with reference to his past associations with former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and PRI's response to those attacks.
Last week, just after a week of several unsettling press gaffes and strong, if disturbing indications of a campaign that is imploding, Vazquez Mota told reporters that internal polling placed her candidacy within ten percentage points of Pena Nieto. Her claim has some justification, since the polling done by PAN in the Michoacan elections was a more accurate reflection of how close that race was than news polls had indicated at the time.
Despite that seeming good news, leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador briefly overtook Vazquez Mota earlier in the week by less than two percentage points, only to slide back to third place. Despite that setback, Lopez Obrador continued to protest to his supporters that he would win, and by a comfortable margin.
When undecided voters are excluded by the polling, Pena Nieto continues to maintain a comfortable lead of slightly less than 15 percent, which he has held since the start. Still, Mexican undecided voters are the second largest block, as this writer has pointed out before, a possibly worrying trend for the frontrunner, albeit all the current undecided voters are unlikely to break for any one of the candidates.
In the two weeks before the next presidential debate it will be interesting to see if Pena Nieto and the PRI can maintain this lead all the way into the elections. So far he has been not only the candidate to beat but also has been comfortable enough in his lead to revert to the old PRI tactic of co-optation, in which the goal is to poach support from political rivals.
#1
Am I not ignorant in asking why no one chimes in? Is Mexico so boring or lost or distant right now in WOT that it assumes non-committal free-ride in elections?
There are highways littered with bodies, more socialists than I may count, a stubborn and ignorant US Admin, and the word is mum here.
I vote against anything Obama wants. Let's start there. Any ideas, queries, knowledge other than what badnov is doing?
#2
More interesting at times than what is said, are topics not discussed at all. Topics the administration avoids talking about are not limited to Mexican politics, they also include the border fence and security, immigration, drugs, and Operation Fast & Furious. Call me crackers, but I believe these subjects may all be in some way be, connected.
#3
Negative news is just about the only thing we seem to get out of Latin America. I look for Brazil and Mexico to really develop fast now.
I have worked with a Mexican owned manufacturer and can only say they are hard working and driven 24/7 people. Mexico has several new billionaires that are legit. Next time you purchase a bread or bakery item it could be a Mexican manufactured product. Even co-pack or private label. Then our government has made life so difficult, development will go to Mexico.
[Yemen Post] Yemen's Interior Ministry has revealed that two Saudis were killed in an air raid conducted against Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons in Marib governate ...the site of what is believed to be the biblical kingdom of Sheba... , affirming that al least ten bad boyz were potted.
The ministry said the two Saudis were centered in Al-Wadi district 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... , pointing out that the raid came simultaneously with a military campaign conducted by the army against stronghold of Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons in some towns of Abyan.
Military sources said the army killed 16 Al Qaeda gunnies on Monday and that six soldiers were killed in festivities with faceless myrmidons in Abyan.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... a military official said one warplane on Monday missed its target in Jaar, accidentally shooting at civilians and wounding two children.
In retaliation for the raid, Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons have blown up a gas pipeline the town of Azan of Shabwah governorate.
The military carries out a plan prepared by Yemeni and American experts, and Yemen's air and marine forces take part in the campaign.
President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi ...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... approved an military plan that is under the control of senior military commanders including Minister of Defense Mohammad Nasser Ahmed.
Chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick... , John Brennan, discussed with Yemeni officials including President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi mutual relationships and cooperation's between the Yemeni and US militaries, in particular counter-terrorism.
Media sources said the United States sent nearly 45 counter-terror trainers to Yemen this week in an effort to strengthen the Yemeni government's ability to fight al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen was able to exploit the chaos and tool control on some towns, primarily in the south.
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Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed Monday to end a weekslong hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel to improve their conditions, the two sides announced. The deal ended a strike in which prisoners had gone without food for up to 77 days, leaving several prisoners in life-threatening condition. It was the longest strike ever staged by Palestinians in Israeli custody.
The Palestinian minister for Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, said that Palestinian prisoner leaders signed the deal on Monday afternoon at an Israeli prison in Ashkelon. IsraelÂ’s Shin Bet security agency and Palestinian militant groups confirmed the deal, which was brokered by Egyptian mediators.
Two men launched the strike on Feb. 27, and were joined by hundreds of others on April 17. Among their demands: permission to receive family visits from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, an end to solitary confinement and a halt to an Israeli policy of “administrative detention,” under which suspected militants are held for months, and sometimes years, without being charged. Israel has defended the policy as a necessary security measure.
According to a Palestinian negotiator, Israel agreed to allow prisoners from both the West Bank and Gaza to receive family visits. The visits from Gaza were halted in 2006 after Hamas-linked militants in Gaza captured an Israeli soldier. After the soldier was released in a prisoner swap last October, the Palestinians said the ban should be lifted.
Why -- so you can go snatch another Israeli soldier?
He said Israel also agreed to halt its punitive policy of placing prisoners in solitary confinement, would allow prisoners to make phone calls to relatives and permit prisoners to pursue academic studies.
The Shin Bet said in return, the prisoners pledged “to absolutely stop terror activity from inside Israeli jails.” It also said militant group’s commanders outside the jails made a commitment “to prevent terror activity.” It did not elaborate.
Israel said some 1,600 prisoners, or more than a third of the 4,500 Palestinians held by Israel, joined the hunger strike. Palestinians said the number was closer to 2,500.
Think of the money saved on food...
The fate of the prisoners is an emotional issue in Palestinian society, where nearly everyone has a neighbor or relative who has deservedly spent time in an Israeli jail.
For families of the prisoners, any deal that did not win their freedom fell short.
“Will they release Bilal? Is it over?” asked Missadeh Diab, the elderly mother of Bilal Diab, one of the prisoners who refused food for 77 days. “May God give your demands and freedom.”
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A senior Israeli military official said that Israel is closely tracking events in Syria, fearing the collapse of President Bashar al-AssadÂ’s regime could see the Syrian Golan Heights fall to groups like Al-Qaeda. The military official told AFP that such a situation could create a dangerous security vaccum similar to Sinai.
“If the Assad regime will fall, the biggest threat is that the northern border, the no-man’s land, can be taken over by groups like Al-Qaeda,” the official in Israel’s northern command said on condition of anonymity.
The fear is that the strategic plateau could slide into a situation similar to that in Sinai, where a wave of lawlessness has left the Egyptian army struggling powerless to rein in militant activity.
This one's easy: if Assad falls and the country collapses, Israel just moves into the Syrian Golan, cleans out the knuckleheads, invites the Syrian Druze population to move in, and creates a mini-state, security guaranteed by Israel. Invite the Lebanese Druze to ally with it.
If the Druze won't go along, no problem, invite the Syrian Christians...
Last year, gunmen snuck across the border from the Egyptian territory and carried out attacks in southern Israel that killed eight people.
“This could happen if the Assad regime collapses,” the official warned.
For Israel, the ongoing bloodshed in Syria has also raised fears that DamascusÂ’s stockpile of sophisticated weapons could fall into the hands of militants, including LebanonÂ’s Shiite militia Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
Last month, Major General Yair Golan, head of the Israeli military’s northern command, said the concern was that Syria’s stockpile of strategic weapons, including “the world’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons,” could end up in Hezbollah’s hands.
The Israeli military official said that although Syrian weapons were continuously being passed to Hezbollah, he was “not aware” that any of them were chemical. He said Assad’s fall was likely to deal a very heavy blow to Hezbollah, which stood to lose a key ally in terms of weapons and logistical support.
“Hezbollah is very worried about what is going on in Syria because all their logistics are there,” he said.
“If the Assad regime collapses, they will be alone in this region and will have no border with a friend that can help and support it. They are very worried about it,” he said. “That’s why Hezbollah is working very hard to support the Assad regime.”
HezbollahÂ’s main fear was losing the support of Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is a heretical an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
“The top advisers from Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are helping Assad to slaughter his own people because they know that if Assad falls, this axis won’t work any more because most of the (Syrian) people are Sunni,” he said.
But such an outcome could also benefit Israel, he said. “Without Syria, Hezbollah will be much more careful in its acts."
The military source said he did not see a quick end to the bloodshed in Syria, which was likely to continue “for years.”
“Most of the army is loyal to Assad, he has money to pay their salaries. He is not going to run away,” he said. “This could go on for years.”
But he said fears that Assad could try to deflect world attention by provoking a conflict with Israel had proven to be unfounded.
“The military forces and Assad know very well that if they start a war against Israel, he will lose and his whole regime will be under threat,” he said. “Today the Syrian military force is not ready for any kind of war.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
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But he said fears that Assad could try to deflect world attention by provoking a conflict with Israel had proven to be unfounded.
"The military forces and Assad know very well that if they start a war against Israel, he will lose and his whole regime will be under threat," he said. "Today the Syrian military force is not ready for any kind of war."
The idea that weak regimes go in search of foreign enemies to shore up their domestic popularity is wrong-headed. Weak regimes are already having serious difficulties against their internal opponents. Fighting foreign enemies results in the expenditure of resources that these regimes need to defend themselves against their internal enemies, who are typically opposed to them not because of a clash of ideologies, but a clash of interests, as in "what's yours should really be mine". The Sunni Arabs aren't fighting for their civil liberties - they're fighting for the right to persecute or kill anyone who isn't Sunni or Arab to the last man, woman and child.
[Washington Times] Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said Monday he will not compete in primaries in any of the states that have not yet voted -- essentially confirming 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... will win the Republican presidential nomination.
Mr. Paul said he will continue to work for delegates in states that have already voted and where the process of delegate-selection is playing out. He said that's a way to make his voice heard at the nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., in August.
"Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted," Mr. Paul said. "Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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But Romney may still have to deal wid a brokered RNC = split ticket this summer - all the signs or indics for such are still there, + haven't changed.
[Dawn] Nearly half a million Paks are estimated to have fled fighting between soldiers and militia on the Afghan border with more than 264,000 registered for aid, officials said Monday.
Authorities say increasing numbers of women and kiddies are fleeing Khyber, one of the seven districts that make up Pakistain's semi-autonomous tribal belt, which is considered a stronghold of al Qaeda and Taliban.
More than 500 families are arriving on a daily basis at Jalozai camp, near the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, camp administrator Noor Akbar told AFP.
"We have registered 56,842 families or 264,253 individuals so far since the offensive was launched in January," Akbar said.
"We expect more will flee as the fighting continues."
Save the Children said it estimated that 63,000 families, or nearly half a million people, have already been displaced from Khyber.
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[Dawn] A Punjab University Islami Jamait Tulaba office-bearer and law student was rubbed out and another student injured outside Hostel No 16 of the varsity's New Campus on Sunday.
Police said the suspects who shot Awais Aqeel, who was central area nazim ...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council... of IJT, were former students of the varsity and ex-members of the IJT. Apparently, an internal rift led to the killing, they added.
The indiscriminate firing, which put a question mark on security arrangements made by the varsity administration, triggered panic among students and shopkeepers who saved their lives by taking cover or running away from the scene.
The victim had been taken into custody along with others by Multan police after a clash broke out between PSF and IJT chapters of Bahauddin Zakaria University, Multan, over a week ago.
Quoting witnesses, DIG (Operation) Rai Muhammad Tahir told Dawn that Awais, who was an LLB student at varsity's Law College, was sitting at the canteen adjacent to Hostel No 16 when eight assailants riding bikes opened fire on him. The suspects expeditiously departed at a goodly pace immediately after shooting Aqeel.
He said Awais, a resident of Sumbrial, Sialkot, and his friend Ejaz Butt, who is a student of Hailey College and was also injured, were transported to the Jinnah Hospital where the former succumbed to his wounds.
A police investigator said some witnesses identified two of the assailants as Ibrar Watto and Imran Tarar who were likely to be nominated in the FIR.
He said Ibrar and Imran were also former students of PU and remained office-bearers of PU's IJT chapter. Ibrar was also wanted in some other cases.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Sectarian violence linked to the unrest in Syria claimed another six lives in the northern port city of 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... on Monday as festivities spread beyond the rival districts of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen and Islamist protesters reclosed the roads around al-Nour Square after their Salafist comrade Shadi al-Mawlawi remained in jug.
Clashes erupted in the afternoon in the areas of al-Mallouleh, Jabal Mohsen, al-Riva and al-Baqqar, leaving two people dead -- Bahaa Mohammed Daoud and Riad Ali Maarouf, state-run National News Agency reported.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... OTV said festivities killed citizens Mahmoud Maarouf and Khodr al-Jalakh.
For its part, LBC television said at least 70 people were maimed on Monday.
NNA earlier said Haidar al-Rashed was killed by gunfire as he was standing on the balcony of his house in the area of Wadi al-Nahle-al-Baddawi during the fighting overnight.
Later in the day, Ramzi Taan Bakir was killed in Jabal Mohsen.
Clashes intensified at around 3:00 p.m. as several RPGs fell on al-Mankoubin district and flames and smoke could be seen rising from a building on the area's outskirts.
The ongoing violence has brought Leb's second largest city to a standstill socially and economically, with piles of garbage visible across its neighborhoods after festivities forced the suspension of waste collection.
NNA reported that several gunnies were seen on scooters on Azmi Street, which is outside the festivities area.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients of increasing volatility... Islamist protesters reclosed the roads leading to al-Nour Square to protest the continued detention of their comrade Shadi al-Mawlawi, whose arrest on Saturday by General Security agents had sparked the unrest.
LBC reported that Internal Security Forces troops were preventing vehicles from heading to al-Nour Square, as Islamists formed disciplinary committees to maintain the sit-in's "peaceful nature."
Mawlawi's brother, Nizar, told LBC that the protesters "were surprised by the judiciary's ploy against Shadi," vowing that they will maintain their sit-in until the release of Shadi.
Fighting had erupted on Saturday night between the rival neighborhoods of mainly Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh and majority Alawite Jabal Mohsen.
Clashes witnessed the first use of mortar shells on Monday, after rival gunnies used machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and Energa rifle-launched anti-tank grenades.
The Lebanese army has sent reinforcements to the city and warned that it would not tolerate any attempt to shake Tripoli's security and stability.
The gunbattles erupted over the General Security Department's arrest of Mawlawi by luring him to an office of Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi's welfare association under the pretext that he would receive health care.
Mawlawi was seized for allegedly contacting a terrorist organization. Media reports said that the suspect is an avid supporter of the Syrian revolution against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... 's regime.
Premier Najib Miqati told As Safir daily that some parties are trying to picture the army as being against the Islamist forces in the city. "But the reality is different and the proof is that it didn't interfere to end the sit-it on Saturday."
He was referring to the protest held by Mawlawi's supporters at al-Nour Square on Saturday. The sit-in was followed by the deadly festivities between the two neighborhoods.
"When the festivities spread ... the army had to interfere to control security in the city," Miqati said.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel also said that security agencies have the names of the gunnies involved in the festivities and the judiciary will take action.
Tripoli Mufti Sheikh Malek al-Shaar told Future News that the only solution to remove arms from the streets lies in taking a firm political decision. He blamed the deadly festivities however on a fifth column that he said is capable of smuggling weapons to the city anytime it wants.
"There won't be any security without justice," he said in other remarks to al-Liwaa daily. "Security would return to the city when its residents feel that justice has returned."
Al-Shaar said the festivities were partly to be blamed on the lack of development projects in Tripoli, adding the residents believe that they don't have equal opportunities.
The mufti also told Voice of Leb radio (93.3) that the sit-in at Abdul Hamid Karami Square might not end because the protestors believe that holding a demonstration is a democratic right.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Tripoli Lebanon is about 80% or more Sunni about 10% Alawite, about 5% Christian and most of the rest Shia with a few Druze and maybe some others.
I think the Sunni are taking out their anti Assad feelings on the local Alawite.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/15/2012 19:12
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[Christian Science Monitor] The price for a North Korean woman named Kim Eun-sun, her mother, and sister, to escape to China was 2,000 Chinese yuan, slightly more than $300.
Like thousands of North Korean women before them, they crossed the Tumen River into China and met a woman who said she would help them escape --only to discover that they'd been sold to a Chinese farmer who wanted a wife.
"A lot of women come to China not knowing what they are getting into," says Ms. Kim, who escaped the farmer with her family but was caught by Chinese police and then sent back to North Korea. "Women are secretly sold in China."
After fleeing from North Korea to China a second time, Kim Yuen-sun, her mother, and sister eventually made it to Mongolia moving mostly on foot across the Gobi desert. Mongolian soldiers found them and delivered them to the South Korean Embassy in Ulan Bator whence they were flown to Seoul.
Now a senior in college here, she has received a US government grant that gives her eight months of English-language training and another semester of study in psychology at a US university. Wherever she goes, she conveys the message of the suffering inflicted on North Korean women, generally estimated by officials and activists to comprise at least 70 percent of the defectors who cross into China.
She believes that exposure of the plight of North Koreans, particularly women, is the best she can do to bring about change.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
NORTH KOREA ...
versus
* WAFF > 3-4000 GIRLS FROM TURKEY WERE SOLD TO PALESTINIAN ARABS.
#3
Although being sold into a marriage to a peasant is far from ideal I don't think sex slavery is the right term. It conjures up images far worse. And considering the stories coming out of North Korea about eating bark and grass and cultures that often arrange marriages it's hard to get super worked up.
The instrument panel on a Jin Air passenger jet that took off from Chitose Airport in Japan's Hokkaido Prefecture on April 29 began to malfunction as the aircraft was landing at Incheon International Airport. The ground proximity warning came on even though the aircraft had not reached the landing strip.
The pilot immediately switched off the GPS and swerved the aircraft in another direction. It managed to land after circling the airport, but the malfunction could have led to a major accident. Three similar incidents occurred at Gimpo and Incheon airports since April 28, all of them due to North Korean GPS jamming signals.
According to the government, 667 aircraft were affected by North Korean GPS jamming signals since April 28. They include 618 Korean passenger planes, 48 foreign passenger planes, including 17 U.S., 10 Japanese and six Chinese, and one U.S. military aircraft.
Ships have also been affected. In some cases, small South Korean fishing boats near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, the de facto maritime border, almost drifted into North Korean waters when their GPS malfunctioned. Paging Lemony Snicket to the white courtesy phone
[Al Ahram] Presidential candidate Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh's campaign has invited his supporters to a huge event called "Strong Egypt" that it will hold next Friday afternoon at Cairo Stadium.
The event, which takes its name from Abul-Fotouh's presidential platform, will be attended by the presidential candidate and a number of the prominent public figures who have announced that they are supporting the moderate Islamist's presidential bid.
According to the campaign's official Facebook page, the event is designed to display the size of Abul-Fotouh's support. The event will include a march to the stadium from Rabaa Al-Adawaya mosque, organised by the campaign and the Masrena movement.
Cairo International Stadium is the second largest stadium in the Arab world, with a seating capacity of 75,000.
Abul-Fotouh's event comes after huge rallies were organised by the Moslem Brüderbund and Freedom and Justice Party to support their candidate Mohamed Mursi. Thousands of supporters attended the events in Mansoura, Alexandria and Giza in recent weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
Um, what's the definition of moderate Islamist again? Does Barack qualify?
[World Net Daily] Iranian outlets have been claiming recently the United States has been forced to bow before Iran on its nuclear program, demonstrating the West's abandonment of Israel and paving the way for the Islamic regime to annihilate the Jewish state.
While restating that Iran will demand ever more in the upcoming second round of talks with the 5+1 nations to be held this month in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , the Iranian media are now boasting that Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is in a dire bind.
One such editorial, published last week by Iran's Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, "It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region."
The editorial, written by Sadollah Zarei, a columnist for the hard-line paper, said that within the last three months, Israeli officials, after reports that America is on the verge of accepting the Iranian nuclear program, have made several trips to Washington, where on one trip they met for 10 days with U.S. officials to try to change President B.O.'s decision to accept Iran's nuclear program. They were unsuccessful.
"The ramifications of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's defeat in the face of Obama's policies have been a breakdown in Israel's usurper regime, where now many within its own government have spoken against its own prime minister, claiming Iran is a rational regime and not after the bomb," Zarei wrote.
While Israel's government is in disarray internally, the editorial said, the West is forced to watch Iran's victory in nuclear negotiations.
"The West, which in the first (5+1) Istanbul talks would not recognize Iran's nuclear program even if the 20 percent enriched material was sent out of the country, now before stepping into the Storied Baghdad meeting has accepted Iran's nuclear program without even getting an assurance on the 20 percent enrichment process," Zarei said. "All of this is taking place in front of the horrified eyes of the Zionist regime."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
Now cometh agz Israel ...
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Reza] KAHLILI: IRAN ALREADY HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS [+ LR Delivery Sys for same], WESTERN INTEL HAS KNOWN IT FOR YEARS.
2 of 3 known or believed missing Soviet-era Nukes from ex-SSR Kazakhistan.
Once again, the post-Cold War, pre + post-9-11 consensus is that there is no consensus in the US-NATO/West + Russia on how many Soviet-era Nukes, other WMDS Iran + AQ/Radical Islam maanged to successfully procure, espec vee the Black Market(s).
Not counting vee Pakistan's arsenal, North Korea's, or even the many many Nukes Russia still stores in ex-SSR Azerbaijan.
Egyptian police raided the Cairo office of Iranian television channel, Al-Alam, confiscating its equipment after it was found to be operating without license, a security source said on Monday. The raid was carried out on Sunday and the head of Al-AlamÂ’s Cairo office, Ahmed Sioufi, was charged with working without an official permit, the source said.
On the Arabic-language channel’s website, Sioufi confirmed that “several members of the police raided the office of Al-Alam” in Cairo. He slammed the raid as an “attack on freedoms, a means to silence” the media, adding that the channel had repeatedly requested an official work permit.
Because when you think 'freedom of the press', you then think 'Iran'...
It was the second time the station had been raided. In July 2008, the channel also had its equipment confiscated after it failed to get permission to broadcast from Egypt.
Dozens of journalists, including Al-Alam staff, protested against the move outside the journalistÂ’s syndicate in Cairo, an AFP photographer said.=
Posted by: Steve White ||
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[Al Ahram] Gunmen believed to be members of Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... burned down a cop shoppe in volatile northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... , killing two coppers and a civilian, the military said Monday.
A senior army officer with the military joint task force (JTF) deployed in the area, who asked not to be named, said gunnies stormed Mafa cop shoppe in Borno state on Saturday night.
"Two coppers and one civilian were killed in the attack," he said, adding that troops had been drafted in.
The JTF Sunday raided a suspected Boko Haram base in London Ciki, Maiduguri, killing two Islamists, the officer also said.
"Two locally made pistols were recovered and five suspects were tossed in the slammer Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! as a result of the operation," he added.
Troops have recently stepped up raids on suspected Boko Haram hideouts, looking for explosives and arms.
Maiduguri, the home base of Boko Haram, has seen some of the worst violence blamed on the cut-thoat sect, which has focused its attacks on the mainly Mohammedan north.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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New York City Mayor Michael Nanny Bloomberg has told University of North Carolina graduates that last week's gay marriage vote shows there is still a lot of work to be done for civil rights in this country.
Bloomberg spoke Sunday to thousands of graduates at Kenan Memorial Stadium.
Bloomberg told them Americans have slowly understood since this country was founded that if the government can deny freedom to one person, it can deny freedom to everyone. The mayor says every generation has brought more freedom to this country, and he expects the latest generation to continue the work, especially after last Tuesday's vote approving a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in North Carolina. Greater freedom is supposed to also mean greater responsibility
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
For all that political graft,you ought to just shut your ass up. You have always been an idiot. Even I could put together a stock ticker when you did. You just had better coders.
#2
Fortunately Bloomberg's fanatical attacks on the 2nd Amendment have done a lot for civil rights - namely, encouraged all of us to give more to the NRA.
#6
Bloomberg told them Americans have slowly understood since this country was founded that if the government can deny freedom to one person, it can deny freedom to everyone.
like the freedom to arm yourself for self defense, or eat transfats and salts if you want, or....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/15/2012 14:32
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#7
Bloomberg told them Americans have slowly understood since this country was founded that if the government can deny freedom to one person, it can deny freedom to everyone.
Well, it depends who is denying what to whom. Isn't that what ya meant to say, Mikey?
Police have arrested a man suspected of being involved in a grenade attack that wounded seven people in Narathiwat province on Sunday night. The arrest came on the same day that a group of 16 military rangers were wounded in a bomb attack and an ensuing gun battle with suspected terrorists militants in Pattani province.
In Narathiwat, police yesterday arrested a suspect, identified as Hadafi Sedommad, who is being questioned for his alleged involvement in the grenade attack that wounded a police officer, a defense volunteer and five civilians.
The grenade went off near the landmark clock tower on Wijit Chaiboon Road while police were searching vehicles for explosives and banned items at a checkpoint as part of the security team for the annual Red Cross fair. The blast caused panic as hundreds of people tried to flee the area.
Witnesses said they recognised the suspect's face. Police examined security camera footage and concluded the grenade had been hurled over a wall from a Pakistani mosque opposite the checkpoint.
Interesting.
Elsewhere, Pol Lt Col Waehasan Len, 28, of Thung Yang Daeng police station, was badly injured in a gun attack by suspected terrorists militants shortly after midnight yesterday. The officer was shot in the head and body and in the intensive care unit.
[An Nahar] Archbishop of Baalbek-Deir al-Ahmar Semaan Atallah handed over on Monday Banin Qataya back to her parents after she had left their home two weeks ago.
Qataya, who had converted to Christianity from Islam three years ago, had fled her home following psychological and physical abuse from her father as a result of her conversion, said Semaan.
He revealed that she had left her home "out of her own freewill."
She was handed over to her parents at Hizbullah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek's office.
Semaan said: "Qataya left her home and her parents had the right to search for her."
"We had the duty to help to find out what she wants," he continued.
"My hand is extended to Sheikh Yazbek to cooperate in order to demonstrate Leb's message of coexistence in the region," he stressed.
For his part, Yazbek said: "This issue should be dealt with in an open heart and mind."
The pastor of Baalbek's Our Lady of Good Help Church, Father Walid Gharious, aka Father Elias Maroun Gharious, was recently kidnapped for baptizing the girl.
Her father Sheikh Ahmed Qataya had vowed to LBC television on Thursday that he will recover his daughter "even if it will create a civil war in Leb."
On May 7, unknown individuals kidnapped Father Walid Gharious on the Baalbek road near the intersection leading to the town of al-Ansar.
He was released later that day.
LBC had said that Gharious was handed over to Yazbek following his release.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
Wonder how the archbishop is going to wash the blood off his hands? A pusillanimous response from a dhimmi bastard.
#3
One girl against the threat of Genocide, with no Syria to reign them(Hezbollah) in? Damn, it's a tough spot. Really tough spot. I don't hate the Archbishop for this, but still, damn it all to hell.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/15/2012 18:06
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[An Nahar] Six people were killed in attacks in central and northern Iraq on Monday, including five who died in a spate of bombings in the former Death Eater bastion of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... officials said.
In Fallujah, just west of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , three kabooms in close succession killed five people and maimed 18 others.
An initial car boom detonated in the center of the city, killing five people and wounding eight, Anbar provincial police front man First Lieutenant Ali al-Amiri and Doctor Omar Dalli from Fallujah hospital said.
Two more attacks -- a cycle of violence bomb and a roadside kaboom -- in the east and west of the city respectively maimed 10 more people, including two traffic coppers, the officials said.
Explosives experts defused one more car boom and two roadside kabooms.
Fallujah is in western Sunni Arab Anbar province. It was one of several towns along the Euphrates valley that became al-Qaeda strongholds after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... from 2006, local Sunni tribes sided with the U.S. military and unrest dwindled in Anbar as rebel fighters were ejected from the region.
Another attack on Monday in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk left intelligence service First Lieutenant Abbas Fatih Ahmed dead when a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car detonated shortly after he left his house, deputy provincial police chief Major General Torhan Abdulrahman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] A pro-government religious scholar and head of Marwat Qaumi Jirga, Maulana Syed Mohammad Mohsin Shah, was rubbed out by unidentified persons in his seminary at Darra Pezu Town on Saturday night, police said.
They said that Maulana Mohsin Shah was asleep in his seminary Jamia Halimia when unidentified persons killed him. He was the administrator of the seminary. He was highly respected in religious and political circles of the district.
Mufti Abdul Ghani, the son of the dear departed, lodged FIR with Shaheed Haibat Ali Khan cop shoppe against killing of his father. He told police that he found his father dead when he went to the seminary from home at 4:30am. He said that his father was killed with a firearm and he had bullet wounds on his body.
Police shifted the body of the assassinated holy man to a nearby hospital for postmortem. The body was later handed over to his relatives for burial after fulfilling medico-legal formalities.
The news of his killing spread like a jungle fire in the entire region. Common people, elders of the area and prominent religious scholars rushed to Jamia Halimia after getting information about the liquidation of Maulana Mohsin Shah.
The dear departed was a close aide of JUI-F chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman and a prominent religious scholar. He assumed the responsibilities of heading Marwat Qaumi Jirga at a time when bully boyz posed threat to the writ of government in the district.
He united politicians, tribal elders and religious scholars on a single platform to eradicate militancy and restore peace in the district with the support of law enforcement agencies.
His funeral prayers were offered in Darra Pezu. JUI-F provincial chief Maulana Amanullah Khan, MNA Maulana Attaur Rehman, Maulana Gul Naseeb, former MPAs Maulana Lutfur Rehman and Qari Gul Azeem, members of Marwat Qaumi
Jirga, politicians and religious scholars attended his funeral prayers.
MPA Yasmeen Zia and ANP district president Advocate Sadruddin strongly condemned the killing of Maulana Mohsin Shah. They demanded of the government to arrest of his killers.
Talking to this scribe by telephone from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, they said that services of the dear departed for restoration of peace in the district were unforgettable. "He headed the peace jirga and helped government to bring normality to the district," they
added.
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Two soldiers were killed and several other maimed when a car boom targeted a paramilitary convoy in the troubled southwestern city of Quetta on Monday, police said.
The car was packed with explosives and parked on the main airport road. It went off as vehicles of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) passed by, senior police officer Malik Arshad told AFP.
"The blast destroyed two military vehicles and killed two soldiers, and maimed around 10 others, mostly civilians," he said.
The kaboom happened near Almo Chowk, located on the city's main airport road, which is among Quetta's 'Red-zone' areas.
Police and security forces are frequently attacked in the insurgency-hit Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Sudan's parliament rejected yesterday a United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... call for talks with rebels who have been fighting government troops for almost a year.
It also said it would not allow foreign aid agencies into rebel-held areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, as proposed jointly by the United Nations, 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... and 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... Rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) have been fighting in South Kordofan since last June, and in Blue Nile since September.
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[An Nahar] Canon Inc. is moving toward fully automating digital camera production in an effort to cut costs -- a key change being played out across Japan, a world leader in robotics.
If successful, counting on machines can help preserve this nation's technological power -- not the stereotype of machines snatching assembly line jobs from workers, Jun Misumi -- company front man, said Monday.
The move toward machine-only production will likely be completed in the next few years, perhaps as soon as 2015, said Misumi, although he declined to give specific dates.
Japanese manufacturers have been moving production abroad recently to offset the earnings damage from the soaring yen. And fears are growing about a hollowing-out of Japan Inc. as jobs move to China, India and the rest of Asia, where labor costs are cheaper.
Misumi was adamant that jobs won't be cut at Canon.
"When machines become more sophisticated, human beings can be transferred to do new kinds of work," he said.
Toyota Motor Corp. is also working on beefing up automated production not only to cut costs but achieve better quality. In a recent plant tour for news hounds, Toyota showed how welding got much faster and more precise through instantaneous laser-welding.
Toyota used that technology to make Lexus luxury models move and withstand sharp turns better.
Despite growing pressure from the high yen, Toyota is innovating production efficiency to keep annual Japan production at 3 million vehicles, about a third of its global production, by reducing costs through boosting robotics use.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
As long as the Canon Hackers Software Development Kit still works with the new cameras ... I don't have a pro or con position.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/15/2012 1:41
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#2
human beings can be transferred to do new kinds of work,"
I've plenty of training in economics so I have heard all the "answers" to this question but I have to ask again....."What KINDS of work?"
The ever growing reliance on automation pretty much precludes the movement of workers to other "construction" work.
How many programmers do you need?
How many people that build cameras, cars, etc. could actually do a good job at brain work?
The things that are left that can't (yet) be easily automated are the jobs that don't pay well at all. The ones that do pay well are not needed in large numbers. That's the whole point of increasing productivity.
#5
gorb, as I said I am fairly well versed in economics (poli sci major, eco/math minor ... now stop laughing, I was young and naive)
The question still remains government will have to provide an education education in what? How many current new grads are at best under employed because there are not enough jobs in their fields even for the engineers no less the physicists?
[Yemen Post] Gunmen on Saturday threw a bomb at the house of Yemen's Information Minister Ali Al-Amrani but no one at the house, sources at the minister's office said.
The minister was inside the house when the attack occurred, the sources said.
The gunnies were on two cycle of violences when they detonated the bomb and bravely ran away late on Saturday, the sources said.
While fleeing, the gunnies open fired randomly in the area in an attempt to prevent anyone from exposing or hunting them and a civilian was injured, the sources added.
It is the second attack on Al-Amrani since he was appointed as the Information Minister. Earlier, he escaped an liquidation attempt before the Ministerial Council and he has facing media propaganda allegedly by the loyalists of the former regime.
Recently, key figures including ministers and others have been targeted within what experts said is an liquidation campaign to eliminate the foes of the former regime.
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05/15/2012
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(Sh. M. Network)-A huge landmine blast has on Monday morning rocked an Æthiopian convoy in the heart of Somalia's central strategic town of Beledweyne, local residents confirmed.
The witnesses said the blast occurred when a landmine went off as a convoy of the Æthiopian military forces snaked its way through the eastern part of the district, causing an unconfirmed fatalities on the troops.
"I don't know the exact number of casualties, but Æthiopian soldiers rubbed out two civilians following the blast," one of the witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity told Shabelle Media by telephone.
No group or individual has claimed the responsibility for the attack so far.
Tension was high in the area moments after the kaboom. Both the Æthiopian troops and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) cordoned off the scene of the attack. The main roads leading to the region were also closed to traffic.
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05/15/2012
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[Gulf News] The Philippines yesterday said that while it does not recognise a Beijing-declared ban on fishing in certain areas of the South China Sea, it will impose its own restrictions if only to conserve marine resources in the area.
Reports reaching Manila said the South China Fisheries Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture had recently imposed a ban on fishing in areas of the South China Sea, including the Scarborough Shoal in northwestern Philippines, from May 16 to August 1.
The imposition of the ban is part of measures observed annually since 1999 to allow fish and other marine life to replenish their stocks.
Manila said that it would not abide by the ban because the areas identified by China overlap with the country's 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
IIUC, China's ban is against both Chinese + non-Chinese fishing activities, as enforced by China.
At last check, China is planning to build 36 armed maritime cutters [FLECS] for deployment to both SCS + Daoyus [Senkakus = Okinawa-Taiwan Straits] in order to unilater enforce its sovereignty.
Despite China's rhetoric this past weekend denying that it is prepping for war in the SCS, IMO this new ban on fishing actually contradicts + affirms that it is. THE US + PHIL MUST WATCH THEIR STEPS NOW, as CHINA = IRAN = HAS BEGUN "SHAPING THE BATTLEFIELD" IN ANTICIPATION OF MILITARY CONFLICT.
China on the surface may appear willing to negotiate wid PHIL, ETC. for formal "joint" or bilateral econ dev of the various disputed SCS islands, BUT IMO CHINA WILL ULTIMATELY NOT SIGN OR APPROVE SUCH VENTURES OR TREATISES UNLESS ITS SOVEREIGNTY = "SOLE" CONTROL OF THE ISLANDS + SCS REGION IS RECOGNIZED BY THE OPPOSITE GOVT(S).
* E.G. DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Manila Times OPED] CHINA: PHILIPPINES MUST SURRENDER SOVEREIGNTY.
NOT "SHOULD", BUT "MUST"???
The only reason I see for China to totally ban fishing in the SCS, fishing being a Beijing-recognized vital national activity for China, is because China wants Any + All Civilians out of the way before the shooting = warfare begins.
IN EFFECT, CHINA HAS GIVEN THE PHIL + ITS US ALLY A SUBTLE BUT ESCALATORY "RED LINE", as consistent wid its historical preference for exercising "soft power/diplomacy".
China will not take the Issue to the UNO + UNCLOS because it needs Milbases to guard both Hainan Island + Taiwan, + does not trust the UNO = UNSC to support its case or "post-US" Agenda.
THE ABOVE LEAVES "POST-US" WANNABE RISING CHINA WID ONLY TWO REAL OPTIONS - CONCEDE ITS CLAIMS OF SOVEIGNTY [ + hence its "Manifest Destiny" as future World #1] TO OTHER COUNTRIES; OR ELSE TO FIGHT!
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > CHINA AGAIN WARNS PHILIPPINES NOT TO ESCALATE TENSION.
* WORLD NEWS > SOLON SAYS RP [Republic of the Philippines] LOSING SCARBOROUGH SHOAL TO CHINA.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > "CHINA LOSING SOUTH CHINA SEA BATTLE".
See above.
Lest we fergit, NUKE-ARMED PAKISTAN = has stated that BFF "CHINA'S ENEMY IS ITS ENEMY" [PHIL + US, wid US also read, INDIA].
#2
CHINA AGAIN WARNS PHILIPPINES NOT TO ESCALATE TENSION.
It is the geo-political version of "the bitch made me do it". Push will come to shove, and I don't see anything on the horizon that can stop it. Other than its neighbors completely ceding the SCS to China, I mean.
(Sh.M.Network)-Turkish commandos have tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! 14 pirates thought to be from Somalia off the coast of Oman and freed seven Yemeni sailors they were holding hostage, the army said Sunday.
A helicopter of the frigate Giresun, which operates with NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... forces in the region, spotted the boat Friday around 190 nautical miles from the Omani coast, the army said in a statement on its website.
Commandos stormed the boat and seized nine assault weapons, a rocket launcher and other materials, said the statement, which was accompanied by photographs showing the suspects with their arms in the air as the raid began.
Turkeyhas been a partner in the international campaign against Somali pirates and arms smugglers in the northernIndian Oceansince early 2009.
The International Maritime Bureau recorded 439 acts of piracy in the world last year, mainly in Somalia, the Gulf of Guinea and Southeast Asia.
Oceans Beyond Piracy, a specialist American observatory, estimated the economic cost of Somali piracy at nearly $7 billion (5.4 billion euros) last year, of which $2 billion was spent on military operations, equipment and armed guards.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2012
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#1
Muslims save Muslims from Muslims.
Rare & curious.
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/15/2012 17:59
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[Dawn] Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... has said the absence of a well-formulated foreign policy over the past 10 years has paved the way for the United States to dictate terms and threaten Pakistain.
"We have had no clear foreign policy in Pakistain for the past 10 years. That is why the US is dictating and threatening us," he said while speaking at a seminar on 'Internal and external challenges to Pakistain' arranged by the JUI-F here on Sunday.
He said the country was in dire need of a clear and strong foreign policy to deal with the prevailing challenges.
Maulana Fazl said the US had started mounting pressure on Pakistain at a time when the government was preparing the budget for next year.
"Only peace is the base of human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... . But the efforts in this regard are being foiled in the name of religion," he said, adding that Pakistain had been turned into an unsafe and war-torn country instead of a welfare state during the past 64 years.
He said a government not able to maintain peace had no right and authority to collect taxes from people. The JUI-F chief said the nation was always victimised and blackmailed by creating an atmosphere of fear and pressure.
He said politicians should learn from past mistakes and should not force the people to ignore them and take a decision about their future on their own.
He appealed to the entire politicianship to practice politics of hope and not of fear.
"We cannot afford a war in the name of rule or power and we should strive to save Pakistain," he said.
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05/15/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
15-year-old schoolgirl died after 'doctor mistook tuberculosis for lovesickness' 
Chris Matthews appeared on Monday's "Jeopardy!" alongside CNN's Lizzie O'Leary and former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs in a special "Power Players" edition of the game show, taped last weekend in Washington.
Seven 
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
A well-known religious scholar was 
cycle of violence
Zawahiri
...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...
BAGHDAD -- In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed -- and may jettison entirely by the end of the year -- a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners agreed Monday to end a weekslong hunger strike after winning concessions from Israel to improve their conditions, the two sides announced. The deal ended a strike in which prisoners had gone without food for up to 77 days, leaving several prisoners in life-threatening condition. It was the longest strike ever staged by Palestinians in Israeli custody.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Najib Miqati
North Korea
Michael 
Somali pirates
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
