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Yemen Troops Kill 12 'Qaida Militants' in Restive South
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: WoT
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Fast Facts
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 20:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336153 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Here's couple more:
Still breathing.
Shouldn't be.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 21:19 Comments || Top||

#2  OOOOOOOOO, "SO CLOSE BUT YET SO FAR", as the saying goes.

I could tell youse, but then I'll have to kill youse.

Nothing personal - its just the Law.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 23:31 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
ICE . . . We Keep You Safe From T-Shirts!
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 20:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336124 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
German check bust man is ex-Iran bank head
The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reports that a man caught last month trying to enter Germany with a check worth about $70 million was Iran's former central bank chief.
Well, a check is easier to carry than $70 million in Krugerrands...
The weekly reports that customs officials at Duesseldorf airport found the check in Tahmasb Mazaheri's luggage Jan. 21 upon his arrival from Turkey.

German customs had issued a statement Friday saying a check for 300 million Venezuelan Bolivars issued by the Bank of Venezuela was found on an unnamed 59-year-old man.
Bolivars? I think I want to see the Krugerrands...
Neither customs officials nor Iran's embassy could be reached for comment late Saturday.

Mazaheri was the governor of the Central Bank of Iran until 2008.

Bild am Sonntag reported in its Sunday edition that German police and customs are investigating possible money laundering.
"Helmut! How do you do it?"
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 13:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336121 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Happy 100th Birthday U.S. Federal Income Tax
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 12:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336114 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well past retirement age.
Posted by: Iblis || 02/03/2013 15:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Oh, geez, I didn't know - happy birthday!

Now die already.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 18:27 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Two scientists using the New York Times archives to predict the future
[GIGAOM] SUMMARY: Researchers are creating software that analyzes 22 years of New York Times archives, Wikipedia and about 90 other web resources to predict future disease outbreaks, riots and deaths -- and hopefully prevent them.
You can use the Rantburg archives to predict certain behaviors as well.

For instance, we know with 99 percent certainty that there will be a Karachi Korpse Kount on any particular day. The numbers might vary, but we can be sure the deaders will be stacked. Give it maybe a 90-95 percent chance that a portion of them (not just the heads, either) will be in Lyari.

We can predict that there will be no arrests of anyone associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistain. Give that a fat 99 percent, as well.

We can predict that in the course of a year at least one, maybe more than one, Saudi holy man will come out with a fatwa that's so abysmally stupid as to take your breath away. That's another 99 percent.

We can predict with similar 99.44 percent certainty that any country going through an Arab Spring will be targeted for takeover by the Moslem Brüderbund and by Salafists, 99 percent for either or, maybe 90 percent for both. And, yes, I include Yemen in that group. AQAP are Salafists.

How about economics? We can predict that any country that's going broke and needs to cut the dole will see people in the streets, hollering for their subsidies. Certainly a better than 95 percenter, I'd say.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 12:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336146 views] Top|| File under:

#1  if they're using the NYT archives, you can also be 99% sure that Republicans are at fault.
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2013 13:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Rantburg predictions are within least two standard deviations of certainty.

The scientists using the NYT, how many sigma certainty are their predictions? How to lie with Statistics.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 13:53 Comments || Top||

#3  I hope they're not predicting crop yields in the Ukraine.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2013 14:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Ouch. Y'all have been sharpening your scalpels again.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 18:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Alaska Paul,

I was taught in my very first Statistics course some 44 years ago that there are 3 classifications of Statistics:
1) Lies, damn lies and statistics
2) Figures don't lie, liars figure
3) Garbage in, garbage out.

Keep that trinity in mind and always demand to see the data and the alogrithms used to manipulate it.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 20:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Whatever happens, women, minorities will be hardest hit.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 21:21 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Kenyan Suicide Bomber Suffers Premature Detonation...
They don't pick their best and brightest to be jacket wallahs.
A suicide bomber was killed in Kenya after the bomb he was carrying exploded before he could reach his target.

The explosion, which injured several by-standers, occurred in Wajir late on Saturday evening. "The bomber was presumably headed towards his target, but didn't make it", reported an anonymous source in the security forces. The area targeted is mainly inhabited by Somalians. . .
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 11:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336111 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Condolences and best wishes to the injured... otherwise a feel good story.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/03/2013 14:35 Comments || Top||


Arabia
“Burkas for babies”: Saudi cleric’s new fatwa causes controversy
A Saudi cleric has called for all female babies to be fully covered by wearing the face veil, commonly known as the burka, citing reports of little girls being sexually molested.

In a TV interview on the Islamic al-Majd TV, which seems to date back to mid-last year, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, stressed that wearing the veil will protect baby girls. The Sheikh tried to back his assertion with claims of sexual molestation against babies in the kingdom, quoting unnamed medical and security sources.

Recently picked up on social media, Sheikh Dauod’s statement prompted wide condemnation from his fellow Saudis on Twitter. Some tweeps called for the Sheikh to be held accountable because his ruling denigrates Islam and breaches individual privacy.

Sheikh Mohammad al-Jzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, told Al Arabiya that Dauod’s ruling was denigrating to Islam and Shariah and made Islam look bad.

Jzlana urged people to ignore unregulated fatwas and explained that there are special regulations set by the Saudi authorities to administer religious edicts and appoint those who are entitled to issue them.

He said that he feels sad whenever he sees a family walking around with a veiled baby, describing that as injustice to children.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 10:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336110 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Isn't there some way they can come out wearing veils?
Sheikhy should beeseech the Prophet...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 12:48 Comments || Top||

#2  "stressed that wearing the veil will protect baby girls"

No, cutting the d**k off the bastards who molest babies (fer God's sake!) will do a much better job of protecting babies. Do the same for the assh*les who molest non-baby girls/women and eventually you may find some men who wish to keep their "equipment." Or not.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 14:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Why not just throw them in trash bags like the liberals do?

Individual privacy, hah! If that were the case their eyes would end at the car, and not at who is driving it.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/03/2013 14:52 Comments || Top||

#4  So what he is saying is that now unveiled infant babies are 'uncovered meat'? Too tempting to Muslim men to resist raping - and that it's the parent's (or baby's) fault.

How fu*king sick is that?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2013 16:58 Comments || Top||


Europe
Spain: Mohamed the Knifeman Avoided Targeting North Africans on his Street Rampage
The nine members of the jury arrived at the most severe conclusion possible for Mohamed el Badoui: the knifeman of Sant Antoni tried to kill nine people in cold blood and behind their backs and did the same with Antonio Bonet. The decision means the accused faces a possible sentence of 84 years in prison, which is what the state prosecutor, Ruth González, has requested since the beginning of the trial and the private prosecutor, Ascensión Joaniquet.

None of the members of the jury accepted the principal contention of the defence: that El Badoui acted on 23 February 2011 under the influence of a mental disorder which led him to feel that the people he came across were attacking him and that eliminated his capacity for reason. In fact, only one of the jury members even accepted that mental illness should even be considered a mitigating factor. Faced with the contradictory explanations of the psychologists and psychiatrists who testified in the trial, the jury members placed more trust in the testimony of the various witnesses who indicated that El Badoui was aware of what he was doing at every moment and that he selected his victims in such a way that he avoided citizens of North African origin, which in no case did he make a move as if to attack.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 10:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336124 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
French army continues strikes in northern Mali
[CHRON] La Belle France's Defense Ministry has said the country's military forces continued aerial strikes in northern Mali, just a few hours after a visit to the country by President Francois Hollande.
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it...

French troops bombarded Islamist sites in Kidal and Tessalit in northern Mali overnight Saturday into Sunday, according to a defense official Sunday who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to be quoted by the media.

The official says "(the strikes) were targeting logistical arms and fuel depots near the Algerian border." He could not confirm that the latest attacks also targeted armed Islamist training camps.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 09:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336131 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


#2  Besoker have you been to the 8th's museum in Pooler?
Posted by: Beavis || 02/03/2013 12:22 Comments || Top||

#3  No, just Duxford.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 12:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Duxford is an amazing warbird museum. In 1992, there were 5 hangers full of birds, including a P-38 and B-29. Plus a WHOLE LOT MORE. Talked to a mechanic overhauling a Merlin engine. Talk about power density. You can really see it when the heads are off the engine.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 13:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Nothing comes close to sitting in the old RAF Duxford briefing room seats and watching a recorded WWII pre-mission brief, then going out on an active flight line and watching and smelling the old war birds taxi. Probably as close to going back in time as one can go. The museum was a treat as well.

Had a friend at RAF Molesworth that spent his week ends digging up old crash sites. He had is office decorated in the stuff, along with framed prints. We used to frequent a pub in nearby Oundle. Brings back memories.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 13:38 Comments || Top||

#6  AP: You remember the old '12 O'clock High' teevee series? Pilots and navs would access the front of the plane by reaching up and flipping themselves through the front fuselage access door just to the rear of the cockpit. Tried that once on a CAF B-17...failed miserably, not once but three times. [quite embarrassing with an audience at hand, by the way]
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 13:46 Comments || Top||

#7  Circa 30 strike aircraft from the French Armee L'Air agz different targets.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 22:12 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Aaron Swartz Died For Piers Morgan's Sins
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 05:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336152 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What is this garbage and what is it doing on Rantburg?
Posted by: gromky || 02/03/2013 8:21 Comments || Top||

#2  I dunno.

I personally think Aaron Schwartz died because the Digerati leftists forgot to exempt themselves from the legal system they wanted guys like Al Armendariz to nail everyone else to.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2013 10:23 Comments || Top||

#3  I felt that the article presented a good contrast between a law dodging pseudo-intellectual bien pensant like Morgan who was allowed into the US because he is a "genius" and a real genius like Swartz.
a good case for MIT to atone for their sins here.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 12:03 Comments || Top||

#4  What is this garbage and what is it doing on Rantburg?

It's from some place called "OpEd News" and is called called an "opinion"?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 13:28 Comments || Top||

#5  What is this garbage and what is it doing on Rantburg?

I thought it was quite fine. JSTOR is
the biggest impediment to research after the tenure system itself.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 14:26 Comments || Top||

#6  I'm just getting tired of every time the Schwartz case comes up there are all these useful idiot liberals around who are shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in this establishment and that government is abusing its power.

They never seem to make the connection between guys like this:



and people like Swartz eventually being on the receiving end.

And yes, there's a point to mentioning Morgan's name wrt this. I don't think the original opinion piece linked here mentioned that Morgan was apparently up to his tonsils in the Big Phone Hacking affair that hit the British media. Hmm, let me double check.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2013 16:23 Comments || Top||

#7  I stand corrected, they did.

Hmm.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/03/2013 16:42 Comments || Top||

#8  I personally think Aaron Schwartz died because the Digerati leftists forgot to exempt themselves from the legal system

That, and a prosecutor being groomed for 'better things' got the blessing-to-act from both the Digerati and the Massachusetts political establishment.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 22:18 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
'Israel considers building buffer zone inside Syria'
Israel is considering creating a buffer zone reaching up to 10 miles inside Syria, The Sunday Times quoted sources close to military planners as saying.

The Times reported that the proposal, intended to protect itself from rebels across the northern frontier, has been presented to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“A buffer zone set up with the co-operation of local villagers lies at the heart of the plan. If the country remains unstable we might have to stay there for years,” The Times quoted a military planner as saying.

A security fence is currently being erected from Mount Avital south to the point where the Israeli, Syrian and Jordanian borders meet on the southern Golan Heights, but, according to the military source, a buffer zone is necessary to prevent daily mortar and rocket attacks.

"We knew then that there was a strongman in Damascus. But not any more. The new wall will be good when it’s ready but without the buffer zone mortar and rocket attacks on Israel would be a daily event," The Times quoted the military source as saying.

The prime minister was previously quoted as saying Israel needs to construct a border fence with Syria on the Golan Heights because the Syrian army has moved away from the frontier, and global jihad elements have moved into the area in its place.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 04:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336092 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like Bibi decided the Obama 1967 borders were a bad deal.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2013 8:01 Comments || Top||

#2  A depth of 30-35 miles should suffice.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 8:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like Bibi decided the Obama 1967 borders were a bad deal.

It's only still proposed, JohnQC. The Prime Minister has not formally made a decision.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 8:15 Comments || Top||

#4  “A buffer zone set up with the co-operation of local villagers lies at the heart of the plan. If the country remains unstable we might have to stay there for years,”

Anything like say the Kurdish zone in northern Iraq post Gulf War I? Heck, Bill Clinton backed that one for 8 years of his term.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 10:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Is this 10 miles beyond the current demarcation of the Golan, or 10 miles beyond the 1967 border? I can't tell from the article.

The former would be seen by most of the world as a provocation, even though we at the Burg would understand. The latter is just the usual; the world doesn't recognize Israel's annexation of the Syrian Golan seized in '67 but it's a fact on the ground.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2013 14:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Steve - at some point the buffer zone will need a buffer zone and so on until the Turkish and Iraqi borders.... It's only natural.
Posted by: Water Modem || 02/03/2013 14:44 Comments || Top||

#7  aka Druzistan.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/03/2013 15:37 Comments || Top||

#8  Seems like a good move for self-defence. Might have to move it back farther.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2013 18:16 Comments || Top||

#9  As per FREEREPUBLIC this Superbowl Monday [Guam time], SYRIA = repor prepping up to four SCUDS for possible retaliatory strike agz Israeli targets.

Warheads may be Conventional VHE, or WMD - in any case, Israel + IDF will think + act as per "WMD".

* TOPIX, FOX NEWS > IRAN has given Syria its full support in any counterstrike agz Israel.

LOOKS LIKE THE BAMMER'S "MARCH 2013" DEADLINE FOR IRAN TO PLACE ITS NUCPROG UNDER UNIAEA SUPERVISION/OVERSIGHT MAY END UP BEING MOOT.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 18:57 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Abu Sayyaf members behead MNLF fighters in S. Philippines
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), a terrorist organization operating in southern Philippines, reportedly beheaded four fighters of the Muslim guerilla faction of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in a clash between the two groups in southern Philippines, police said Sunday.
The consequences of that particular choice should be interesting...
The clash broke out when the MNLF forces under spiritual leader Ustadz Habier Malik reportedly attacked the Abu Sayyaf group that refused to free captive Jordanian broadcast journalist Baker Adbullah Atyani Sunday morning in the mountains of Patikul township in Sulu province, island of Jolo, a police security official said.

At least 5 MNLF guerilla members were killed by the Abu Sayyaf militants in the assault. Four of the victims were subsequently beheaded, police said.

Jordanian broadcast journalist Baker Atyani and two Filipino companions were kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf gunmen in Jolo, Sulu on June 13 of last year. The Filipino companions were released by ASG on Saturday night.

Nearly 500 MNLF fighters rushed to the camp of the Abu Sayyaf in the village of Buhanginan in Patikul town early Sunday and were met by around 300 militants, according to police.

Government security forces from police and marines have been deployed at the border to avert the escalation of the fighting between the two forces as fighting continued intermittently, according to the Sulu provincial police office.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 04:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336115 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yahoo! A little red on red here.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 02/03/2013 9:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Let me get this right. 5 of the MNLF were killed - and then 4 of them were beheaded? Boy I bet the 5th one feels lucky!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2013 9:34 Comments || Top||

#3  well this tells you a couple of things. First ... the mad dogs Abu Sayyaf, who really are nothing more than a high-powered gang, are now at odds with other Islamic on the same terrority. But also, it's pretty clear that local police and army units do not have any control over stretches of that southern island. When you've got factions running around with hundreds of members - obviously they control some exclusive turf of their own. So despite rumors that police are "hunting" for kidnapped hostages ... they sure aren't hunting in some places.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 10:07 Comments || Top||

#4  ... they sure aren't hunting in some places

Sounds like London, Birmingham, Dearborn, Malmo....
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 10:42 Comments || Top||

#5  No picking winners and losers! Clandestinely arm both sides with Chinese made weapons, then join the UN in a demand to an immediate end of the violence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 11:25 Comments || Top||

#6  And enforce the blockade, no blood for Buri.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 12:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Let 'em kill each other. Then, when they get sick of that and meet for peace talks, bomb the peace talks.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 12:38 Comments || Top||

#8  "And enforce the blockade, no blood for Buri."

The Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Liberation Front have a history as pirates. We're not talking Johnny Dep here. These guys are the real deal. They have been pirates since the days when the Spanish sailed galleons across the Pacific. They know the waters of SE Asia like the back of their own hand. They have fast boats with low profiles, and smuggling is a way of life to them. That's why AQ teams up with these guys - they are facilitators for moving illegal goods across the ocean. Hence, blockades are pretty much impossible.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 14:03 Comments || Top||

#9  "Let 'em kill each other. Then, when they get sick of that and meet for peace talks, bomb the peace talks."

Works for me.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 14:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Raider, I think it's been the case for a long, long time that the government doesn't control the South. I don't think we really controlled it back when we owned the Phillipines, and I don't think the Spanish ever really controlled it either.

It's another situation where the smart solution would be to let the south go its own way and see if you could get some reasonable strong man to be Emir, sorta like Brunei, and keep the peace. The northern part of the Philippines could then go on its way and develop as a modern state.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2013 14:19 Comments || Top||

#11  The PHIL is of course important to US interests in East Asia, but personally I'm also concerned about Indonesia, PNG, etc. in SOPAC + SWPAC.

Iff Syria + Central, West Africa is any measure, ABU SAYAFF + OTHER PRO-QAEDA AREN'T GOING TO STAY PUT IN THE PHIL FOREVER. There are Repors on the MSM-net about PAKISTANI TALIBAN + LeT fighting in Syria.

The day is coming when the PHIL + SE Asia Nations will see AFPAK Militant andor other foreign Islamist fighters traveling + intervening in already tense or volatile Muslim-vs-non-Muslim local rivalries + situations.

* IIRC TOPIX, FREEREPUBLIC > PAPUA NEW GUINEA - THE FORGOTTEN JIHAD.

Won't be "forgotten" or quiet for much longer once Qaeda + Taliban, etc. Hard Boyz get firmly established.

Muslim Pacific Islanders from Polynesia are allegedly involved.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 18:38 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Survey: 17 percent of Marines would leave with women in combat
A Marine Corps survey found about 17 percent of male Marine respondents said they would likely leave the Corps if women move into combat positions.

That number jumped to 22 percent if women are assigned involuntarily to those jobs, according to the survey.

Male Marines also listed among their top concerns fears about being falsely accused of sexual harassment or assault, fraternization or some Marines getting preferential treatment. They also worried women would be limited because of pregnancy or personal issues that could affect the unit before they are sent to the battlefield.

Results of the survey of 53,000 Marines were released to The Associated Press on Friday.

The survey was conducted last summer and the results were given to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta before he opened thousands of combat jobs to female service members last week.

Both sexes surveyed mentioned intimate relationships between Marines and feeling obligated to protect female Marines among their top five concerns about allowing women into ground combat jobs.

Women Marines listed among their top three concerns enemies targeting women as POWs, the risk of sexual harassment or assault and hygiene requirements, according to the results which did not given specifics.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 03:49 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336139 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So, the plan works out as its authors expected?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:16 Comments || Top||

#2  I for one think we should boycott today's Superbowl! What better way to protest the lack of female inclusion on the playing field and in the NFL.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 7:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Bwwwwaahhhhhh, the Superbowl is sexist and racist? Who would have thought? With a sample of 53,000, that has to be statistically significant.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2013 8:14 Comments || Top||

#4  How many of the Female Marines would leave?
Posted by: airandee || 02/03/2013 9:08 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm with you, #2 Besoeker.

We should also boycott basketball (I think it's basketball, and maybe football, too), since they're so obviously racist. (Don't believe me? What's the percentage of Asians, American Indians, and Hispanics compared to Blacks on the teams?)
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 11:14 Comments || Top||

#6  Somethings wrong here. 17% is lower than the usual bitch & moan loss rate? I sense retention might wax.... as it were.... :)
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 12:51 Comments || Top||

#7  Social engineering. Of course the big push is to neuter the military. That is the agenda here. They are the last bastion of values in this country.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 14:00 Comments || Top||

#8  This is a differing opinion worth reading.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 02/03/2013 16:33 Comments || Top||

#9  Ahhh yes, OWG + Soccer - what could possibly go wrong when Rational Countries, Govts + Societies, play Soccer agz one another???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 19:46 Comments || Top||

#10  And 50-60% where going to leave after we let teh gheys come out of the closet...
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/03/2013 23:10 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq violence: 'Dozens dead' in Kirkuk police HQ attack
At least 30 people have been killed as a suicide bomber and gunmen attacked a police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police say.

A city official told AFP news agency that militants had tried to seize the compound but were unsuccessful.

No group has said it carried out the attack.

Kirkuk is ethnically mixed, and at the centre of a dispute between the Iraqi government and Kurds over oil and land rights.

Two weeks ago at least 10 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party in the city.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 03:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
Island row: Japan detains Chinese fishing boat
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 00:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336150 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Island row or too much junk mail ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 8:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Chinese fishing boat detained in Japanese waters | Reuters, Jan 24, 2013


East China Sea collision and the video leak, 8th November, 2010

I wonder where this is heading....
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Usually Shanghai, then Nanking.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 12:42 Comments || Top||

#4  This is not trivial.
Could easily blow up into a big incident.
The new Japanese Gov't is taking the bull by the horns, even though China is retaliating by reducing Japanese imports. China will respond by taking the game up as notch.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 14:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Again, iff China refuses to back down vee Japan + instead escalates, to avoid a LIMITED OR FULL-SCALE NUCLEAR CONFLICT POTUS Bammer may end up having to make significant unilateral concessions which NEITHER ORDINARY AMERICANS OR AMER'S OVERSEAS ALLIES WILL LIKE OR ACCEPT.

DAMAGE TO US CREDIBILITY = BAD FOR THE US BUT GOOD FOR ANTI-US OWG LEFTISTS-GLOBALISTS + ALIGNED.

Iff China does back down, GOOD FOR US CREDIBILITY, "NATIONALISM" + SOVEREIGNTY", ETC. BUT BAD FOR ANTI-US "GLOBALISM" + OWG = ANTI-US LEFTISTS-GLOBALISTS + ALIGNED.

In return for no US-China NucWar, China may demand ...
- Immediate handover of TAIWAN to mainland China - includ tote JSDF pullout from Yonaguni.
- Immediate handover of the Japanese Senkakus to mainland China.
- PLA Base rights on Okinawa, or in alternate the more pragmatic/likely DEMAND FOR TOTAL DEMILITARIZATION of Okinawa as per the US + JSDF. NO JSDF MILBASES OUTSIDE OF MAINLAND JAPAN PROPER.
- US FORCES AT SUBIC, CLARK AFB = NORTHERN PHIL???

PRAY HARD, KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED, + STAY ARMED.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 19:22 Comments || Top||

#6  See the above iff you wish to know why or how, etc. an MSM, China-claimed "weak/decling" = geopol-retreating US may choose to destroy strategic Pacific islands [Asia-Pacific Ports] vee "EARTHQUAKE/TECTONIC BOMBS" than allow utility to a Rival or dedicated Enemy.

"TSUNAMI BOMBS"???

[1960's GUAM TAOTAMONAS, HUGO CHAVEZ + "MICHELLE'S/MILWAUKEE BRIGADE" here].

CELINE DION = DESTRUCTION/CAPSIZING OF THE BATTLESHIP USS "OKALHOMA": THEME FROM "TITANIC".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 19:35 Comments || Top||

#7  "PERFECT STORM" = As his Ship = Battleship sank beneath the waves, Capt. George Clooney let the last of his Crew escape, + then closed the hatch-door behind them.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 19:39 Comments || Top||

#8  More ...

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [AJW = Asahi]ABE SAYS PERMANENT BASING OF CIVIL SERVANTS ON SENKAKUS IS "ONE OPTION".

Iff Histoire' is any measure, once China suddenly shockingly mysteriously starts shooting that "option" by Abe = Japan is only going to result in Japanese Civilians, albeit Govt. Employees. etc. getting massacred along wid any JSDF + CG the PLA finds in the area.

CHINA = WW2 JAPAN = INTERNATIONAL LAW + HUMANITARIANISM IS NO BARRIER/HINDRANCE TO A GOOD MASSACRE, espec when Beijing = WW2 Tokyo wants to make sure a message is clearly-n-concisely, but "politely" + "diplomatically",
"understood" by opposing Govt(s). ANY JSDF + CG SERVICEMEMBER ASSIGNED TO DUTY IN THE SENKAKUS/DIAOYUS NEEDS TO BE PREPARED FOR THE WORST - DIPLOATIC, MEDIA-CRITICIZING OF CHINA FOR MASSACRE IS ONLY GOING TO MAKE ANY FUTURE MASSACRE(S) BIGGER OR WORSE.

* WORLD NEWS > VARIOUS = JAPAN PM [Shinzo Abe] VOWS TO DEFEND DISPUTED ISLANDS FROM CHINA, CALLS ON TROOPS TO GUARD AGZ THREATS.

* SAME > [WND = Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin] CHINA BELLIGERENCE LABELED "CRISIS BIGGER THAN IRAN".

CHINA HAS NUKES THAT CAN REACH CONUS, NIPPON + IRAN DO NOT NOR ANY.

Perhaps more importantly, Super/Hyperpower America may have the Power, but does it have the right Leader in the person of POTUS Obama, i.e. a POTUS many Americans mistrust to truly serve-n-protect America's interests???

* BIG NEWS NETWORK > JAPAN'S PREMIER HOLDS BACK ON US BASE RELOCATION, as per Tokyo's cooperat wid local Okinawan authorities to build replacement facilities.

IMO Artic read, TOKYO STILL HAS LINGERING DOUBTS ABOUT US COMMITTMENT TO JAPAN VEE CHINA, ESPEC WID HILLARY LEAVING + JOHN "CHINA/CAMBODIA" KERRY BEING HER CHOSEN SUCCESSOR.

* SAME > [CNBC.com] RISK OF WAR URGING CHINA, JAPAN TO DIAL DOWN TENSIONS.

* BHARAT RAKSHAK > INDIA IRKED AS CHINA GETS PAKISTAN STRATEGIC GWADAR PORT.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Forbes.com]CHINA'S
"STRING OF PEARLS" - REAL OR FAKE?

It will prove to be "fake" iff China backs down vee Japan + US in NE Asia, "real" iff China starts shooting. CHINA DOES STILL HAVE THE PROPOSED TRANS-REGIONAL RAILROAD + OIL-GAS PIPELINES GOING THROUGH CENTRAL ASIA + PERIPHERALS, BUT IT WILL HAVE SUCH WHETHER ITS A "POST-US", "WORLD #1" OR NOT.

In the end, China wants its "post-US" credibility = international recognition, as the One-N-Only Successor to America = Amerika.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 23:25 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
22 Veterans Commit Suicide Each Day
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/03/2013 00:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336100 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nearly 70 percent of all veteran suicides were among men and women aged 50 or older, the VA said.

Key line. (2013-50)+18=1982 that means those who enter service before 1982.

Somehow they'll blame Bush.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 8:34 Comments || Top||

#2  I would look at the psychotropic meds prescribed by VA docs and see if it is systemically different that that prescribed by non VA docs.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/03/2013 11:10 Comments || Top||

#3  That would be 8,000 vets a year. I call horse hockey.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/03/2013 14:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Beat me to it, Dr.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 16:25 Comments || Top||

#5 
Posted by: Clort Elmorong6031 || 02/03/2013 20:18 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
'Israeli Jets Struck Several Targets In Syria'
[Ynet] TIME magazine quotes Western intelligence officials as saying that 'at least one to two additional targets' were hit in alleged Arclight airstrike Tuesday night, Israel had 'green light' from Washington to launch yet more such strikes

American TIME magazine reported Friday evening that Israeli warplanes struck several targets inside Syria in an alleged raid Tuesday night, including a biological weapons research center that was reportedly flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist snuffies fighting to topple the government of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
The report is based on comments made by Western intelligence officials.

TIME explained that only two Arclight airstrikes had been publicly reported, amid a flurry of conflicting initial reports: Syria officially complained of the destruction of the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamarya, northwest of Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
, and a variety of news organizations reported that Israeli jets hit a convoy carrying advanced anti-aircraft defense systems toward Leb's Beqaa Valley, presumably for delivery to Hezbollah.

"A Western intelligence official indicated to TIME that at least one to two additional targets were hit the same night, without offering details. Officials also said that Israel had a 'green light' from Washington to launch yet more such strikes."

The American magazine stressed that "Hezbollah is not Israel's only concern -- or perhaps even the most worrying. Details of the Israeli strikes make clear the risk posed by fundamentalist forces of Evil sprinkled among the variegated rebel forces fighting to depose Assad."

According to TIME, among the buildings leveled at the military complex at Jamarya, outside Damascus, were warehouses stocked with equipment necessary for the deployment of chemical and biological weapons," relatively complicated systems typically manned by specially trained forces."

The magazine also reported that lab facilities dedicated to biological warfare were of special concern, given both the damage that could be done by even small amounts of biological agents, and the interest expressed in such weapons by the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now beyond all cares and woe...
's successor, 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...
One Western intelligence official told TIME the US military was poised to carry out similar Arclight airstrikes around Aleppo if rebels threaten to take sites associated with weapons of mass destruction in that region, the magazine said.

Earlier Friday, Leb's official news agency reported that Israeli warplanes had been flying over Nabatieh, al-Tufah, Marjayoun and Bint Jbeil in the south of the country since 9:30 pm.

According to the report, the planes were conducting "mock raids" over Leb.

A Lebanese website reported Friday morning that Israeli warplanes were flying over the areas of Marjayoun, Hasbia and Rashaya al-Wadi in southern Leb, as well as over the Shebaa area and Mount Hermon.

The website also reported that the Israel Defense Forces was patrolling the border fence area along the Blue Line.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336105 views] Top|| File under:

#1  According to the report, the planes were conducting "mock raids" over Leb.

Anti-aircraft radar testing. No need for alarm.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 2:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Western intelligence officials


I love this phrase!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Who else would leak talk to Time magazine.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 7:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Time magazine still exists?
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 8:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Yeah, it's called Time Beast or Time Caller or some such. I hope to win Time Beast's Avatar of the Years.

It's virtually assured.

Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 8:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Long as Obama's around, ya got no shot, Ship...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 12:42 Comments || Top||

#7  Israel had 'green light' from Washington to launch yet more such strikes

We, the US gave the green light? Israel is doing its dirty work to survive while the O admin puts in their little bit claiming credit. Grandstanding from behind.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 14:04 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tuareg in Sebha protest Mali "ethnic cleansing"
[Libya Herald] There were small demonstrations today in Sebha as well as Obari and nearby Maknusa by Tuaregs protesting at what they called "ethnic cleansing" in northern Mali.

The protestors, reported as no more than 100 in each of the towns, called for an end to attacks on Tuaregs and Arabs in what they referred to as Azawad, the name the Tuareg gave to their abortive independent state in the north of Mali.

There have been reports of atrocities, including summary executions and rapes, carried out by the Malian army in the wake of the military operation led by the French to free the region from the control of militant Islamists. Tuaregs and Arabs in the area have been accused of supporting the fleeing militants.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336092 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Dine


Arabia
Saudi preacher gets off light for raping, killing daughter
Anything less than receiving exactly what he dished out is getting off light. Driil here, drill now.
A Saudi preacher who raped his five-year-old daughter and tortured her to death has been sentenced to pay "blood money" to the mother after having served a short jail term, activists said on Saturday.

Lamia al-Ghamdi was admitted to hospital on December 25, 2011 with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns, the activists said. She died last October 22.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi, an Islamic preacher and regular guest on Muslim television networks, confessed to having used cables and a cane to inflict the injuries, the activists from the group "Women to Drive" said in a statement.

They said the father had doubted Lama's virginity and had her checked up by a medic.
At age five?
Randa al-Kaleeb, a social worker from the hospital where Lama was admitted, said the girl's back was broken and that she had been raped "everywhere", according to the group.

According to the victim's mother, hospital staff told her that her "child's rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed."

The activists said that the judge had ruled the prosecution could only seek "blood money (compensation for the next of kin under Islamic law) and the time the defendant had served in prison since Lama's death suffices as punishment."

Three Saudi activists, including Manal al-Sharif, have raised objections to the ruling.

The ruling is based on Islamic laws that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives, activists said.
Posted by: Beavis || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336121 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Islam, what can I say?

Moslem values. get some.

Do you have any Moslem friends and neighbors? Take a good look at them. See if they celebrate the Fourth of July at all.
Bet you they don't. What do you bet?

you don't have to do a thing, just take a look at them next fourth of July. I know Christmas....but what about the 4th of July? Ever seen any USMC bumper sticker on their car in the driveway? No?
I wonder why.
Posted by: Threater Flusoper9823 || 02/03/2013 4:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Threater Flusoper9823, I give you Dr. M. (for Mohammed) Zuhdi Jasser, (Lt. Commander, Ret.). You owe him an apology.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 5:47 Comments || Top||

#3  He does indeed, TW.
Posted by: lotp || 02/03/2013 7:29 Comments || Top||

#4  TW, from all I've seen and read Dr. Jasser sounds like an apostate. Sort of the same thing as a pro-abortion Catholic or pork eating Jew.

Now, I'm not comparing Dr. J's activity with abortion just the deviation from the received wisdom of the faith.

My feeling is that the only good Muslim is not a good muslim.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 8:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Fayhan al-Ghamdi, an Islamic preacher and regular guest on Muslim television networks...

Well, isn't that nice...
This guy oughta be ground up into hamburger.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 15:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Interesting studies and research have been going on for sometime with regard to sign-language and pre-speech developed toddlers. I'm waiting for someone to document fetal signals and communications from the womb.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 16:01 Comments || Top||

#7  or pork eating Jew

What's wrong with that?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 16:21 Comments || Top||

#8  g(r)omgoru, 8^)

According to my son who became a Jew to marry the woman of his dreams they're not supposed to eat pork.

Me??? In most any form especially my locally renowned ribs (recipe free on request) ;^)
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 19:36 Comments || Top||

#9  According to my son who became a Jew to marry the woman of his dreams they're not supposed to eat pork.

Not supposed to, AlanC, but quite a few don't keep kosher. That's not make or break for the religion.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 23:17 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
India set to introduce death penalty in some rape cases
[Dawn] India's cabinet has approved harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty, after a brutal gang-rape in New Delhi that sparked national outrage.

A government-appointed panel recommended the changes to ministers after the death of a 23-year-old woman who was savagely raped and attacked in a bus on December 16 and died nearly two weeks later.

The case ignited nationwide demonstrations by protesters demanding better safety for women.

The changes, which must be approved by President Pranab Mukherjee to become law, include doubling the minimum sentence for gang-rape and imposing the death penalty when the victim is killed or left in a vegetative state.

"We have taken swift action and hope these steps will make women feel safer in the country," Law Minister Ashwani Kumar told reporters late on Friday.

"This is a progressive piece of legislation and is consistent with the felt sensitivities of the nation in the aftermath of the outrageous gang-rape," he added.

The changes to the rape laws are expected to be approved by Mukherjee as early as this weekend but must be ratified by parliament or they will lapse.

Under the changes, the minimum sentence for gang-rape, rape of a minor, rape by policemen or a person in authority will be doubled to 20 years from 10 and can be extended to life without parole.

Under the current law, a rapist faces a term of seven to 10 years.

The cabinet has also created a new set of offences such as voyeurism and stalking that will be included in the new law.

Delhi gang rape suspects plead not guilty

Meanwhile,
...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors...
five men pleaded not guilty on Saturday in the New Delhi gang rape case.

A Reuters witness saw the men file into the court room with their faces covered, where lawyers in the case said they were read thirteen charges including murder, which carries a maximum penalty of death. They left after 15 minutes.

"After the judge read out the charges, the five pleaded not guilty and walked out," said AP Singh, a lawyer defending two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur.

Singh said the next hearing will be held on February 5, when the prosecution will call three witnesses to the formal start of the trial.

A sixth person police say was part of the gang that attacked the woman and her friend is a juvenile and will be tried separately.

Police say the gang lured the 23-year-old physiotherapy student onto a bus, where they repeatedly raped and assaulted her with a metal bar before throwing her bleeding onto a highway. She died of internal injuries two weeks later.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Russian Judge Fired after Falling Asleep in Court
[An Nahar] A Russian judge has been fired after he caught 40 winks in court and then sentenced an outraged defendant to five years in prison.

Judge Yevgeny Makhno of Blagoveshchensk City Court in Russia's Far East was forced to resign Friday for obviously falling asleep several times while trying a businessman on charges of fraud.

The case became a national scandal after the defendant's lawyer posted several videos online of Makhno asleep in court. The videos were then shown on state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Makhno claimed that he was not sleeping, but listening with his eyes closed, the reports said.

But since a higher court decided not to punish him, Makhno only has to take an exam to be reinstated.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Quite a few judges would do a better job asleep...
Posted by: Iblis || 02/03/2013 17:41 Comments || Top||

#2  "Siestas" is why the SCOTUS doesn't like afternoon hearings. The snoring
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2013 18:00 Comments || Top||

#3  One in LA county was infamous for sleeping through afternoon hearings. She wasn't fired during the years I was there and God help you should you wake her up.
Posted by: Clyde Omiling8317 || 02/03/2013 19:50 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Bill Whittle video - What difference does it make?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under:


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Isla Fisher [Scottish/Australian][Filmography](age 37)



Intelligent Design

Bridget Regan's Gams turn 31


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/03/2013 0:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Good thing Sabrina has long arms, otherwise she couldn't reach the plate.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2013 9:15 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Pledges Full Support to Damascus
[An Nahar] A senior Iranian security official visiting Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
on Saturday pledged Tehran's full support for the Syrian regime, its close ally, Syrian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said.

"We will give all our support so that Syria remains firm and able to face all the arrogant (Western) conspiracies," said Saeed Jalili, who heads the Supreme National Security Council.

"The Israeli aggression and arrogant international forces have tried to take Dire Revenge™ by attacking the resisting Syrian people," said Jalili, who said Israel and the West had turned "desperate."

Jalili was referring to an alleged Israeli air strike on Wednesday that a U.S. official said hit a military complex and missiles near the Syrian capital.

The Syrian army said the raid, which the Jewish state has not confirmed or denied, targeted a military research center located between Damascus and the Lebanese border.

On Thursday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian warned that the attack would "have grave consequences," without elaborating.

Israel fears Syrian weapons could be sent to Hizbullah, a close ally of Damascus and Tehran.

Jalili said "the Arab and Mohammedan worlds must do all they can to diminish the Syrian people's suffering because Syria is at the forefront of the struggle against Zionist aggression."

In a separate statement carried by state news agency SANA, he criticized "Syria's enemies who aim to undermine the resistance...by attacking Syria's infrastructure and by pursuing their economic sanctions."

"The Mohammedan world will not allow an attack against Syria," Jalili warned.

Jalili, who last visited Damascus in August, met with Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi and discussed "cooperation in the economic, fuel and electricity sectors", SANA said.

Jalili also met on Saturday with national reconciliation minister Ali Haidar, and was due to also hold talks with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, Iranian officials in Damascus told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Jalili is Iran's top nuclear negotiator and a close aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran has backed Assad's accusation that the 22-month uprising against his regime is politically, financially and militarily backed by the United States, Turkey, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
and Qatar.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Activists Say Key Aleppo District Comes Under Rebel Control
[An Nahar] Syria's rebels have seized a key district in the embattled northern city of Aleppo, a resident and activists told Agence La Belle France Presse on Saturday, as troops again bombarded areas south of Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
"Rebel fighters seized total control of Sheikh Said in southern Aleppo, after troops exhausted by 48 hours of fighting withdrew from the district," one resident of the area said.

"Most neighborhood residents fled the area after rebels took control."

The takeover was a strategic victory for the rebels, as it secured a key route linking Syria's second city to its international airport.

Activists said the takeover also severed regime forces' access to a military airfield.

"Rebel fighters have seized Sheikh Said, which was the last land route linking Nayrab airport to the city," the anti-regime Aleppo Media Center said.

According to the AMC's Abu Hisham, the battle for Aleppo's airports has become a key rebel objective.

Violence went kaboom! in the city on July 20, when the army launched an all-out bid to prevent a rebel onslaught on what was once the country's commercial hub.

South of Damascus, meanwhile, the army pounded the rebel enclave of Moadamiyet al-Sham on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in a renewed effort to suppress the insurgency on the capital's doorstep.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Africa North
Egypt Protesters Stone PM's Motorcade
[An Nahar] Protesters threw stones and bottles at the Egyptian prime minister's motorcade on Saturday as he tried to enter Cairo's Tahrir Square after overnight festivities nearby and at the presidential palace, media reported.

Dream Live, a private television station, reported that Prime Minister Hisham Qandil left the scene after the attack. His office said in a statement, without elaborating, that he had been "confronted by youths and troublemakers."

"I preferred to avoid a confrontation between them and security personnel," Qandil said later on his Facebook page.

Dozens of protesters remained in the square on Saturday after several thousand demonstrators rallied there on Friday against Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Hundreds of people had clashed with police in a nearby street.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
Police patrol escapes blast in Peshawar
[Dawn] A police patrol on Friday morning narrowly escaped a terrorist activity in Shinwari Town in Paharipura area here.

An official of Paharipura cop shoppe said an bomb fitted to a timer and planted by a road went off at around 6am shortly after a police patrol van passed by.

An official of the cop shoppe said the bomb weighed around 500 grammes and was packed in a canister.

He said investigation into the blast had begun after the registration of a case against unidentified terrorists.

However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
according to him, no arrests were made by night.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under: TTP


IED blast kills two, injures three soldiers in Orakzai
[Dawn] Two security personnel, including an officer, were killed while three others sustained injuries in an IED blast in Ghunda Mela village of upper Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
, officials said.

The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) has confirmed that two soldiers "embraced martyrdom" while three others were maimed in the blast during search of an old compound.

Tehsildar Orakzai Agency Nauman Khan has also confirmed that the security forces convoy was hit by a discarded improvised bomb when they were searching an abandoned compound.

The dear departed were later identified as Captain Hasnat Ali and Naib Subedar Arif Khan.

Earlier, jacket wallahs had attacked a military checkpost in Lakki Marwat early on Saturday, killing 13 soldiers and 11 civilians.

Banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) later grabbed credit of the attack.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: TTP


ISPR dismisses 'biased' HRW report as 'pack of lies'

[Dawn] The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Saturday dismissed a recent report by a global human rights watchdog, calling it a "pack of lies, propaganda-driven and totally biased."

The report by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) had accused Pakistani security forces of allowing extremist groups to attack minorities.

"It is yet another attempt to malign Pakistan and its institutions through fabricated and unverified reports, completely favouring an anti-Pakistan agenda," said a statement by the ISPR, the public relations wing of the Pakistani military.

"The HRW report seems to be a clear attempt to further fuel already ongoing sectarian violence and to create chaos and disorder in Pakistan," it added.

In its report, the HRW had accused the Pakistani military of continuing to "perpetrate abuses with impunity in Balochistan and beyond", with the government "unable or unwilling to break the links of military and intelligence agencies with extremist groups."

The ISPR hit back Saturday, critcising the rights watchdog for raising controversies through biased reports, and favouring an anti-Pakistan agenda through "funding from certain quarters."

"HRW has no credibility and has been criticised world wide for raising controversies through its biased reports and funding from certain quarters and its reports have been rejected by many countries of the world," said the ISPR statement.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336091 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Four more children die of measles
[Pak Daily Times] Four more children died of measles in the city on Saturday as the number of deaths caused by the disease reached 18 -- out of them 10 belonged to Lahore. The children were under treatment at Gangaram and Children hospitals where they succumbed to the disease. They were identified as two-year-old Habib, two and a half years old Anam, six-year-old Zunaira and 10-month-
old Zainab.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


The Grand Turk
Turkey Detains 3 After US Embassy Bombing
[Ynet] Authorities in Turkey placed in durance vile
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
three people in Istanbul and Ankara on Saturday in connection with Friday's suicide kaboom on the U.S. embassy in Ankara, state broadcaster TRT said.

A Turkish leftist group, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), said earlier it was responsible for the attack, which killed the bomber and a Turkish security guard.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Taliban attack at Lakki Marwat checkpost claims 24 lives
[Dawn] Suicide bombers attacked a military checkpost in Pakistan's troubled northwest on Saturday, killing 13 soldiers and 11 civilians, officials said, in an assault claimed by the Taliban.

"Thirteen security personnel and 11 civilians were killed in the attack," a security official said of the raid which happened around 240 kilometres south of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Another official said that the civilians were killed when one of the suicide bombers ran into a house as security forces attempted to repel the attackers from the checkpost.

"A suicide bomber entered a nearby house in a residential colony of the irrigation department and blew himself up. Four children, three women and four men were killed there," said Nisar Ahmed, a senior government official.

He said four houses were also damaged in the attack.

"The explosion damaged four houses in the colony. Civilians who were killed in the attack were residents of these houses," he said.

The security official said that eight soldiers were injured also.

The attack was on a joint checkpost of the Pakistan army and a paramilitary force in the Serai Naurang area of Lakki Marwat district.

Another security official in Peshawar said security forces killed 12 militants.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the attack but disputed 12 militants were killed, saying they had sent only four suicide bombers.

"We sent only four suicide bombers to attack this checkpost. We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike," said Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the TTP.

Ehsan added that the attack was in revenge of Pakistan's "assistance to the US for drone strikes."
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under: TTP


The Grand Turk
Marxists Claim Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Turkey
[NY Times] A Marxist group with a history of political violence in Turkey grabbed credit on Saturday for a suicide kaboom at the American Embassy in Ankara the day before, releasing a statement calling the United States "the murderer of the peoples of the world."

The statement, which also denounced American foreign policy, was released by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, and a translation was distributed by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the communications of jihad boy groups. The message, which was posted on a Web site that has previously carried statements from the group, condemned Turkey for its cooperation with the United States and for its policy of supporting Syrian rebels fighting the government of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad.
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
After conducting DNA tests, the Turkish authorities on Saturday identified the man who let 'er rip at the embassy, killing himself and a Turkish guard, as Ecevit Sanli, 40, also known as Alisan Sanli. Mr. Sanli was a convicted terrorist who had twice attacked government facilities in Istanbul but was released from prison under an amnesty program. Earlier Saturday, officials in the Black Sea town of Ordu said he lived there.

The Ankara police said they had incarcerated
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
three people thought to have helped Mr. Sanli and had found a handgun linked to the thug group. They also released security footage from the embassy in which Mr. Sanli was shown pretending to be a courier.

The statement by the group included two photographs of Mr. Sanli. In one, he is holding an assault rifle, and a banner bearing the hammer-and-sickle symbol of communism is behind him.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336120 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Marxists are using suicide bombers now? That's news...as atheists they are annihilated after they die.
Posted by: gromky || 02/03/2013 5:30 Comments || Top||

#2  By most accounts many Marxist-Commie, other Socialist groups are still colluding or cooperat, i.e. "doing business", wid Radical Islamist groups, networks etc. around the world.

Have to admit though that a Marxist suicide kaboomer is a rare bird - I would firstly believe that the Marxists prolly recruited or hired him from one of the local or linked Islamic/Muslim Radical groups.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 22:21 Comments || Top||

#3  I would firstly believe that the Marxists prolly recruited or hired him from one of the local or linked Islamic/Muslim Radical groups.

An interesting point. Thank you, JosephM.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 23:18 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
US warns citizens to stay out of southern Philippines
Posted by: ryuge || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
UK special forces face big cuts in support network
The support network for Britain’s special forces is facing major cutbacks with around 600 posts earmarked to be lost in a reorganisation to coincide with the military pull-out from Afghanistan.

Sources told The Sunday Telegraph that the controversial move could become necessary because the campaign had seen a build-up of support and logistics to enable elite squads to carry out their operations which would no longer be necessary.

The proposals, drawn up at the Ministry of Defence, do not affect the fighting troops of the Special Air Service or the Special Boat Service.

However 156 posts are expected to be lost from the Special Forces Support Group, which provides infantry and specialised support to SAS and SBS operations. The rest of the 600 posts are from units providing vehicles, signals, logistics and intelligence — the key “enablers” which allow elite troops to operate.

The plans come in the wake of last week’s confusion over the Coalition’s plans for future overall spending on defence.

David Cameron suggested that totals would be increased “year on year” from 2015, following the next Whitehall spending review. But Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, later said the increase would apply only to equipment.

Mr Hammond today opens up a new rift with the Liberal Democrats over the future of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. He uses an article in The Sunday Telegraph to back a like-for-like replacement of the current Trident submarine system as “the best option for Britain”.

He warns that alternative systems being studied by the Liberal Democrats would carry “enormous financial, technical and strategic risk” — and could even risk triggering a nuclear war.

Sources said the cuts proposed to special forces support were “an option being considered by the military” because certain roles would not be needed after the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, scheduled to take place by the end of 2014.

Some military figures are unhappy about the latest plan. One said the decisions in the SDSR would be “completely undermined” if it was implemented and added: “This is absolutely bonkers — it will institutionalise overstretch within the UK’s special forces at a time when they have been operating, and need to continue to operate, at a high tempo.”

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, said: “These very specialised, high-end forces, which the UK now needs more than ever, are being made redundant at the same time as ministers hail their importance. Prime ministerial promises to support defence seem even more worthless.”

Mr Hammond, meanwhile, backs moves to keep a continuous nuclear deterrent at sea. It offers Britain more “freedom of manoeuvre” in a crisis, while the Trident missile system provides “range” and “endurance”, he argues.

Replacing Trident would cost around five to six per cent of the annual defence budget, which would be “affordable” and would enhance links with the US, which uses the same system, according to Mr Hammond.

His comments come days after Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Treasury Chief Secretary, said a direct replacement for Trident was “not financially realistic”.
Posted by: lotp || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336127 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There's an old book by Chris Ryan who was in the SAS "The One That Got Away". The book received a fair amount of criticism because of some things thay Ryan said in his account. Just the same ... his basic accomplishments for E&E were outstanding. The thing that amazed me about that book was how little support was given to the SAS when they first deployed to the Gulf (First Gulf War). Guys were scrounging for all kinds of equipment, including firearms and rifles. That's insane. Looks like Britain may be going back to that stage again.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  McNab's Bravo Two Zero was another good read. Glad I wasn't on hand for that one. :-(
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 15:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like Britain may be going back to that stage again

Y'mean "off with the fairies" - again?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 20:51 Comments || Top||

#4  The Brits are going to support or save France + Germany, etc. Euros from the Caliphate, Nuke-wannabe Global Jihad - HOW, AGAIN???

E.g. WORLD NEWS > JIHADISTS IN GERMANY [pro-Salafism] TERROR THREAT TO AMERICA + ALLIES, SAY NEW TRAC ANALYSIS.

German = Allemaigney Bad Boyz are increasingly non-Foreign or non-Foreign born converts to Islam + Salafism from traditionally Western religions. IOW, GERMAN YOUNG PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPY WID GERMAN ANDOR WESTERN LIBERAL SECULARISM.

Reminds me of STAR TREK:TNG EPISODE [paraph] > LT. WOORF = made the observation that "NEW GENERATION(S) OF KLINGON WARRIORS ARE HUNGRY FOR SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE".

As for America = Amerika, ...

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > IS THIS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD AN INDEPENDENT WHITE REPUBLIC IN THE US? | [Independent.CO.UK] AMERICA - GUN-TOTING RIGHTS TAKEN TO THE HILLS. [US] LIBERTARIANS ARE PLANNING TO SET UP SELF-SUFFICIENT COMMUNITIES TO TURN THEIR BACKS ON BARACK OBAMA'S AMERICA.

Anti-Marxist, anti-Socialist, anti-Liberal, + anti-Establishment Republicans [GOP-Conservatives = RINOS-CINOS?].

----------

Once again, Year 2014 = formal request by US State-Local Govts, NOT just Citizen-Resident Individuals, to SECEDE from the US Federal Union of States, as dependent on what happens between the BAMMER-VS-CHINA-IRAN + US-WORLD ECON DURING THIS YEAR 2013.

FED DENIAL OF RIGHT TO SECEDE = RISE OF ARMED REBELLION + MILITANCY IN THE US???

ADVANTAGE = ANTI-US LEFTISTS-GLOBALISTS + ALIGNED, "POST-US" RISING CHINA, RISING IRAN, + FUTURE NUCLEAR RADICAL ISLAM.

BAD FOR AMERICANS, GOOD FOR "MORE OR WORSE THE CHAOS/ANARCHIES THE BETTER" ANTI-US OWG NAU 2015.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/04/2013 0:04 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Anti-polio campaign postponed over Karachi security fears
[Dawn] Authorities have postponed an anti-polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
campaign, scheduled to start in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
from Feb 4, due to law and order concerns in the metropolis.

Bloody Karachi EDO Health Dr Imdadullah Siddiqui said the campaign was postponed due to the city's deteriorating security situation and the non-availability of health workers.

The campaign was scheduled to start in Bloody Karachi and the rest of the province from Feb 4-6.

Siddiqui said that security personnel were busy assisting Election Commission workers in the voter verification process in Bloody Karachi, and were therefore currently unavailable to provide security to the health workers.

He added that polio workers constantly received death threats and could not initiate the campaign without adequate security.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  polio workers constantly received death threats

Threats that have been carried out more than a few times.
Our own vaccine fears are leading to unneccesary deaths too, but we are not yet murdering the health care workers.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2013 9:13 Comments || Top||

#2  "we are not yet murdering the health care workers"

Give BambiCare time.... >:-(
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 11:15 Comments || Top||


Blast in Nowshera destroys internet cafe, music store
[Dawn] A music store and an internet café were destroyed in a kaboom in Nowshera's Shireen Kotha area on Saturday morning, DawnNews reported. Eighteen others shops were also partially damaged in the blast.

The perpetrators had placed kabooms in front of Iqbal Market's Palwasha Music Centre, located on GT Road. When the blast occurred, the music store, along with an adjacent internet cafe, were completely destroyed.

Police collected evidence from the scene of the crime and started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the unidentified culprits.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Bangladesh
Re-elect AL to free nation from Jamaat
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...
yesterday called upon all to re-elect Awami League for a second successive term to free the nation from the clutches of Jamaat-Shibir and their cohorts.

"It is the nature of Jamaat-Shibir and their cohorts to kill people by pouring petrol and cutting veins and wrists. So you will have to cast your vote for Awami League again to free the nation from the clutches of Jamaat-Shibir and their cohorts," she said.

The prime minister was addressing a mammoth public rally at Bera College ground after inaugurating a 70-MW power plant built by the Power Development Board here.

Hasina, also the president of Awami League, congratulated the people of Bera for turning down Matiur Rahman Nizami, the infamous Al-Badr chief during the Liberation War, in the last general elections.

About the ongoing trial of war criminals, she said the present government had pledged to people to try the war criminals to free the nation from a stigma. "We have kept our commitment through the verdict against Bacchu Razakar by the International Crimes Tribunal."

In this connection, she said the country moved backwards for several years due to the rule of anti-liberation forces after the liquidation of Bangabandhu in 1975.

The leader of the opposition is engaged in a tricky game to save the war criminals, she complained. "So I call upon all to remain alert about her [Khaleda Zia
Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
] conspiracy."

Hasina said the AL government in 1996 had started the work to move the country forward, but it was stopped when the BNP- Jamaat alliance government took over in 2001.

Returning to power in 2008, the AL government resumed its work to take the country to the "highway of development," she added, urging people to cast their vote for her party again for the continuation of the development work.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Harb Hails Judiciary after Man Charged in Attempt on his Life
[An Nahar] Batroun MP Butros Harb lauded on Saturday State commissioner to the military court Judge Saqr Saqr for "taking the bold decision" to charge Mahmoud Hayek with the attempt on his life.

Saqr "took a courageous decision given the pressure ... exerted by Hizbullah on the judiciary by striking deals at the expense of justice and the investigation," Harb told al-Joumhouria newspaper.

He expressed regret however that some judicial and political officials had tried to strike a deal with Hizbullah.

Harb hoped that "the course of justice would not be subdued by political deals."

Saqr charged on Monday Hayek, a Hizbullah member, with the liquidation attempt on Harb in July 2012 and with carrying out acts of terror.

If convicted the suspect, who still remains on the lam, could be sentenced to death.

The March 14 opposition politician escaped the liquidation bid after residents of a building in which his office is located in the Beirut district of Badaro discovered individuals trying to booby-trap the elevator.

A string of high-level liquidations struck Leb between 2004 and 2008, targeting political, media and security figures who vocally opposed the Syrian government, including former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who was killed in a powerful boom-mobile blast in February 2005.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Home Front: Politix
Germany, Italy Protest At US Axing Of Missile Defense
More moves by The Smartest Man in the Room and his clever henchpeople. Remember when y'all thought we should vote for him, O Europe? This is your reward: you got what you wanted. Enjoy.
[Jpost] Germany and Italia have told the United States they expect it to fulfill its obligations after the US Congress blocked funding for a missile defense program involving the three countries, Germany said on Saturday.

A defense bill passed by Congress in December prohibited a final US payment of $400.9 million for development of the Medium Extended Air and Missile Defense System, known as MEADS, which is being developed by Lockheed Martin with partners in Italia and Germany. US politicians said Washington has no plans to produce the system.

The United States, Italia and Germany have spent about $4 billion to develop MEADS over the past decade as a successor to the Patriot missile defense system.

The White House raised concerns about the bill before its approval, warning that a ban on MEADS funding could harm Washington's broader relationship with its allies.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why bad things happen to good people?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:12 Comments || Top||

#2  A shirtless Putin, holding a custom made SAKO hunting rifle smiles broadly.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 7:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Military welfare recipients complain about cuts to the dole. Anything in this says that they can't fund it themselves, if they thought it was so important?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 8:25 Comments || Top||

#4  The deal is that they allow the US to be the reserve currency and the US provides the military umbrella. This may not end well.
Posted by: tipper || 02/03/2013 8:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Europe is getting the America it wanted.

Be careful what you wish for.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/03/2013 11:04 Comments || Top||

#6  ...I'm inclined to think that our Allies thought that the President was saying one thing to keep the base quiet and would do something else entirely when it came down to it.

Well, as was pointed out, they got exactly what they wanted, and now they're scared. I've said this before and I'll say it again - NONE of the NATO allies (with the very qualified exception of the UK) have capable militaries any more. They have mostly administrative units plus what amount to a few very heavily armed paramilitary police units, and that's IT. We're supposed to be protecting them while they enjoy the Millennium, and they're now starting to consider the awful possibility that we aren't going to any more. NATO has no, repeat NO requirements for any US units to be based there...and it may be dawning on the Allies that what was once unthinkable - the withdrawal of all but a couple of token units from continental Europe - is now far more possible than they ever dreamed.

As the Perfesser says, "That which cannot go on forever, won't."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/03/2013 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  "Industry executives and foreign officials say the government may face termination fees nearly equal to the money required to finish the system, which is financed by the United States, Italy and Germany." Congress passes bill to ban funding for MEADS missile defense system, December 19, 2012
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 12:23 Comments || Top||

#8  :imho ON.
The US interest in MEADS is to prevent IRAN from blackmailing Europe into standing aside to Iranian moves in the Middle east that are not in Europe's interest. No MEADS means that Europe has to either standup for itself or "go gentle into that good night" that Dylan Thomas spoke of.
:imho OFF.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 12:42 Comments || Top||


Europe
Islamist Threatens To Attack Germany, Merkel
[Jpost] A German Islamist has threatened to attack Berlin this summer and kill Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
in a video posted on the Internet, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

A front man for Germany's intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, confirmed its agents had seen such a video.

"This is an Islamist battle song. It is known to the security services and is being evaluated," said the front man.

Die Welt newspaper reported that a three-minute video had surfaced on the Internet with a German Islamist calling himself Abu Azzam, believed to be a radical Salafist who moved to Egypt last year.

"Looking back at an Arab spring, we are looking forward to a European summer," said Abu Azzam in the video, according to the newspaper.

"Osama, wait for us... We want to see Obama and Merkel dead," he was quoted as saying, adding that Germany's Reichstag parliament building would be subject to attacks like those on New York's World Trade Center in 2001.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Islamists threaten to attack everybody. Remember Saddam? he was a mite hysterical and waving his arms about and later they put a bag over his head and that was a short. But then Islam is always shouting about the next mother of all battles. The Palestinians do that all the time. But mostly Moslems just kill each other or burn down girl schools. Its in their theological DNA. Moslem values, you know.

I think its safe to say that the Islamists have their work cut out for them and they better get busy about that knocking on the door. They seem to be having a rough week of it in Egypt and Mali and a "few" other places.

But then that is what Jihad seems to get you. Bend over, Abdrool, its on the way.
Posted by: Threater Flusoper9823 || 02/03/2013 4:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Islamists threaten all kinds of things. They get their way when people are weak and do not stand up to their intimidation. When people are strong and stand up to the bullying, the Islamists go away back to their caves.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 13:35 Comments || Top||

#3  It was argued during the US-USSR Cold War that then-Western Europe was in serious trouble iff anything broke through the West German Army/FRG Bundeswehr - in Years 2013-2020/2025, NATO-EU???

Not much of a Royal Navy or anything UK Armed Forces left to back up the Germans or the Frenchies or ....

AFAIK, the Lefties + Globies still desire to see the USoAmerikka suborned under anti-sovereign OWG + NAU starting in 2015 or ASAP AMAP thereafter.

NATO-EU, THEN, HAVE TWO YEARS [or more?] TO PREP THEMSELVES FOR A REAl_WORLD SCENARIO WHERE AMERIKKA DOES N-O-T UNILATERALLY INTERVENE OR COME TO THEIR RESCUE???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 18:50 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
People vs the masses
[Dawn] AS Pakistan prepares for landmark elections this spring, here's a plea to the country's politicians, young and old, male and female: stop talking down to the Pakistani 'masses' and start addressing the 'people' of Pakistan. Yes, there's a difference -- a very big one.

Make the switch -- in mindsets as well as in your vocabulary -- and you will see. Suddenly, being a politician in Pakistan will become more of a challenge. It will also become, hopefully, more interesting and fulfilling.

Addressing 'people' means listening first to their hopes and aspirations, recognising them as citizens and voters, as men and women who have choices which they exercise intelligently and with dignity. The 'masses' can be neglected, ignored and browbeaten. They can be manipulated and denigrated -- and their votes can be bought and sold. Try doing that to 'people' -- and you will have a full-fledged revolution on your hands.

In the words of Emma Lazarus, the masses are tired, poor and huddled, yearning to breathe free. In contrast, people are first and foremost, free and proud individuals and second, part of a group.

For an even better distinction between the two, read Pope Pius XII's Christmas radio message in 1944, where he talks of masses as no more than "a shapeless multitude, an inert mass to be manipulated and exploited". On the other hand, a "people", he says, is much more remarkable, representing a "group of persons, each of whom -- 'at his proper place and in his own way' -- is able to form its own opinion on public matters and has the freedom to express its own political sentiments and bring them to bear positively on the common good". A state does not make a people; rather, a people make a state, the pope explains further.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  A state does not make a people; rather, a people make a state

Call me pessimistic, but by that metric, Pakistain is pretty much *bleep*ed.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/03/2013 1:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Pakistan is the most dangerous nation in the world today. At the rate it is devolving it is only a matter of time before its nukes - which do work - are either put to use against someone (who? Who knows!) Or lost to a non-state organization that will use them. Depending on the targets chosen (and the weather) we could easily see the first true nuclear war.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2013 9:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Sometimes I think that the best thing that can happen to Wakiland is that it devolve back to the days of complete tribal/war-lordism where all the tribes are of equal strength and the nukes have been hauled away by the adults.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 10:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Sometimes I think that the best thing that can happen to Wakiland is that it devolve back to the days of complete tribal/war-lordism. AlanC

Somewhere between Darwin's theory of Natural Selection and Big Fish Eats Little Fish,
[Pieter Bruegel the Eldar 1556], the truth must surely be found. I'm with you AlanC; devolution should be unhindered, monitored at a safe distance, and accurately recorded for posterity.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 11:44 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Biden 'Applauds' France on Mali Mission
[An Nahar] U.S. Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden
The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body...
on Saturday "applauded" La Belle France's intervention against Islamists in Mali, as the EU's foreign policy chief defended the bloc's contribution to support the offensive.

Biden said that dealing with beturbanned goons in North Africa and parts of the Middle East now required "a more integrated strategy" and using the "full range of the tools at our disposal".

"That's why the United States applauds and stands with La Belle France and other partners in Mali, and why we are providing intelligence support, transportation for the French and African troops and refueling capability for French aircraft," he said.

"The fight against AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) may be far from America's borders, but it is fundamentally in America's interest," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


India-Pakistan
State of anarchy
[Dawn] THURSDAY'S attack targeting two holy mans and a madressah student in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
reinforces a disturbing truth: gunnies roam the city's streets leaving death in their wake, and law enforcers are unable to stop them. That the ambush took place on Sharea Faisal, one of Bloody Karachi's main thoroughfares, in broad daylight, also highlights the brazenness with which killers operate in the metropolis. Many 'sensitive' locations, including armed forces' installations, are situated in the area. The holy mans belonged to Jamia Binoria, one of Bloody Karachi's most influential Deobandi madressahs. The hit was recorded by CCTV cameras belonging to a wedding lawn in the vicinity. The chilling footage shows three assailants calmly spraying the vehicle carrying the victims with bullets, then riding off on a cycle of violence.

Over the past week a number of workers belonging to different religious and political groups have been killed in Bloody Karachi, which is not news in itself considering 'routine' levels of violence in the metropolis. Police have attributed Thursday's ambush, which, thankfully, has not resulted in the usual violent reaction, to the "ongoing spree of sectarian killings". If this assessment is correct it would be in line with other incidents of cold-blooded shooting of Shias and Sunnis including some high-profile political and religious activists. While one hopes that the camera footage in Thursday's killing will provide solid clues, overall, the police's investigative capabilities have hardly kept pace with such incidents. The force's investigations wing was merged with the operations wing in 2011. So whatever little work was being done by the investigations wing has been greatly reduced. Also, with so many factors behind Bloody Karachi's violence -- ethnic, political, sectarian, criminal -- no one, especially in government, seems to have any idea about what's going on, or how to stop it. It seems that the state does not have the intention or motivation to lift the lid off Bloody Karachi's boiling cauldron of violence and identify the problems. Nor do the city's various political actors. Sindh government officials have said an "operation" will be launched to crack down on crime. Unless there is action to back up such words, which have been heard countless times, such pronouncements will remain meaningless.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Magical Thinking: PA Plan To Import Fuel From Arab Countries On Hold
Nobody cares #15386934:
]Maan] A plan by the government to import fuel from Arab countries is still being considered despite that a feasibility study has not yet been prepared, says the head of the Paleostinian Petroleum Corporation.

Fuad al-Shubaki told Ma'an on Friday that contacts were made with companies in Jordan and the Gulf states, but there were no further follow up talks.

With regards to the current fuel price rise, he said the Paleostinian government shouldered a percentage of the price rise. "Benzene prices rose by 32 agorot, but the government raised the price by 15 agorot only. Similarly, diesel price rose by 15 agorot, but the government raised it by 5 agorot only.

"The government will cover the rest and that is expected to cost the treasury 4-5 million NIS a month in addition to 50 million NIS the government covers as a result of a previous rise in fuel prices."

Asked whether the plans to import fuel from Arab countries have been cancelled, he said the government held talks with Jordan, but the country does not have enough quantities.

He added that initial contacts have been made with Qatari and Saudi companies, but the Paleostinian government has not made a decision yet, neither has a feasibility study been made.

Al-Shubaki highlighted that the Israeli side was not contacted about the issue because the joint Paleostinian-Israeli committees have not been operating since the Paleostinian Authority obtained recognition of Paleostine as a non-member state in the UN. The Israeli side is expected to approve the move, he said.

Another initial agreement to install four pipelines to carry fuel from Israel to the West Bank and the Gazoo Strip has also been suspended because of the rupture in relations after the UN move.

Thus, he said, fuel is still delivered in trucks from Israel to the Paleostinian territory.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Dr. Melgen's politcal contributions rise sharply after IRS lien - Breitbart
Posted by: Ebbemble Churt4802 || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I would not be shocked to learn that these people are involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 2:03 Comments || Top||

#2  I guarantee the Democrats are getting massive amounts of "donations" from slavers. Look at the reaction of the ACORN operatives to someone telling them he was setting up a slave brothel -- cooperation! Planned Parenthood reacted the same!

And, no, we won't ever hear about it. The press won't look at it, because it's too dangerous to their people.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/03/2013 19:14 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt President Vows Firm Hand with Violent Protests
[An Nahar] Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi vowed security forces will "act with utmost decisiveness" to protect state buildings, as protesters clashed with police outside the presidential palace on Friday.
And then they apologize for showing the police beating a protester on TV. Which is it here, Mohamed, iron fist or crocodile tears?
The presidency, in a statement posted on his Facebook page, also said it would hold "politically accountable" opposition groups behind the violence. It said protesters had tried to break down the palace gates and scale its walls, and demanded that opposition groups denounce the violence and call on their followers to withdraw.

The opposition National Salvation Front, which called for mass rallies on Friday, said it "had no connection whatsoever with the trouble that erupted suddenly in front of the presidential palace."

It said the NSP condemned all acts of violence and urged security forces to exercise "utmost restraint" with the protesters.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336109 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Egypt's Government Apologizes After a Beating Is Televised
[NY Times] Egypt's Interior Ministry issued a rare apology on Saturday, a day after a group of its officers were seen beating a naked man two blocks from the palace of President Mohamed Morsi, an episode captured by television cameras and broadcast live during festivities between protesters and riot coppers.

In a statement, the ministry said it regretted the beating and called it an "individual attack" that did not reflect police doctrine. The police were performing their duties "with a new spirit" of Egypt's revolution, the ministry said, adding that the beating would be investigated with "objectivity and transparency."

Mr. Morsi's office also issued a statement saying it was "pained by the shocking footage."

More than 50 people have been killed over the last 10 days during fighting in several Egyptian cities in some of the worst violence since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
almost two years ago. That uprising was set off in part by widespread anger with the ministry's long record of police brutality.

The beating, though, provoked a different kind of outrage, crystallizing for many the collapse of order and civility that has derailed Egypt's transition from its authoritarian past. And even if most Egyptians could agree that the beating was vile, they could agree on little else.

Beneath the official pronouncements of regret, supporters and opponents of Mr. Morsi continued to blame one another for the festivities on Saturday, each citing the unrest as evidence to support their political complaints.

By Saturday evening, even the essential details of the attack were in dispute as the victim, Hamada Saber, gave an interview on state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
asserting that the coppers who beat him had actually been trying to help him.

Speaking from his hospital bed, he said that the riot officers had come to his aid as he was running from protesters who stripped and robbed him. He said the attack started after he felt what might have been a bullet or birdshot that struck him in the leg, which came, he said, from the "side of the protesters."

"I was afraid," he said, adding that as he ran, officers came to his aid. "They tried to help me," he said.

His account contradicted the reports of witnesses, as well as the video, raising the question of whether he was intimidated or coerced by security officials.

The graphic images of the beating showed Mr. Saber naked and being dragged and beaten by riot coppers with his pants pulled down around his ankles. A witness, Mai Sirry, said she and others watching the protests from her apartment saw officers beat Mr. Saber and strip him of some of his clothes. Officers were cursing at him as they dragged him on the street, his pants around his knees, she said.

Later Saturday, the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, repeated Mr. Saber's account, though he still acknowledged that the officers' conduct was "excessive," and said he had ordered an investigation.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336100 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  For letting it be televised?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Yep. The Instaprof has a on going program of posts documenting American cops going after anyone filming their public actions (ridiculous given that COPS has been airing for a couple of decades on national television and infinite reruns on independent TV channels).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 8:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry you had to see that. We'll make sure you don't see it anymore...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 12:35 Comments || Top||

#4  At least it wasn't a cheesy, amateurish video belittling Mo...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 13:13 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Twenty cops assaulted
[Bangla Daily Star] They promised peaceful rallies and processions. They got permission. The result -- at least 20 coppers injured, two critically.

In keeping with the pattern of their assaults on the law enforcers over the last few months, Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
yesterday brutally attacked police in Narayanganj, Bogra, Bagerhat and Joypurhat.

In the capital, stick-wielding Jamaat-Shibir activists brought out a procession in Bijoynagar area. They blasted hand-made bombs before staging a rally at Shapla Chattar.

Mehedi Hasan, additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Motijheel), told news hounds that Jamaat-e-Islami had promised to stage a peaceful procession and rally. "That's why we gave the permission."

Witnesses said there was no resistance or provocation from the cops yesterday, yet the Jamaat-Shibir cadres ran riot in the capital and elsewhere, beating up police.

Narayanganj witnessed fierce violence as Jamaat-Shibir went on the rampage, blasting cocktails and assaulting police.

At least 15 coppers were maimed in the mayhem with Sergeant Delowar and ASI Abu Jafar critically hurt.

Before the attack on Delowar and his colleagues, the activists had assured police that they would just hold a peaceful rally on Chashara intersection.

"But soon, Jamaat-Shibir men -- many with sticks and brick chips in bags -- took position at Sayam Plaza, Khanpur Hospital and Tolaram College points.

"All of a sudden, they launched synchronised attacks on police from three sides," Narayanganj Superintendent of Police Sheikh Nazmul Alam told The Daily Star.

"It seemed their attack was pre-planned and guided by big shots holed up nearby."

Videos and photographs show Shibir men indiscriminately hitting Delowar with large sticks, pelting him with brick chips and kicking him until he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Jamaat-Shibir men also attacked from behind a group of police personnel standing in front of the Shaheed Minar, locals said.

Later, additional police force turned up and fired over 30 rubber bullets and several tear-gas shells to save their fellows. Some of the activists were maimed at that time.

At least five cops suffered injuries in Bogra, Bagerhat and Joypurhat in the festivities yesterday.

While enforcing hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
in Bogra, Jamaat-Shibir men hurled several cocktails at a police van in the morning. Police were seen trying to save themselves hiding inside the van.

On January 31, the Jamaat called the dawn-to-dusk hartal protesting the killing of its three members.

During the hartal hours, they blasted at least four cocktails in front of Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Hospital.

They also vandalised seven vehicles on the Bogra-Dhaka highway at Sherua Bottola area around 8:00am.

In Bagerhat, the officer-in-charge of Rampal Police Station said, a group of Jamaat-Shibir cadres attacked police from a procession in the afternoon. Two of the activists were locked away
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
In Joypurhat town, the activists attacked a police van.

Meanwhile,
...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline's mayonnaise had erupted in flames again...
Jamaat in a blurb announced protest rally across the country tomorrow demanding the government stop the war crimes trial and unconditionally release its leaders. It also threatened to enforce a countrywide non-stop hartal if its demands were not met.

Fearing verdicts in the war crimes trial, Jamaat and its student front started a campaign of terror last year, mostly targeting police, claiming they were not being allowed to hold "peaceful" procession and rallies.

The trial of those who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Liberation War has been a national demand since the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Ahead of the 2008 general election, the Awami League pledged to try the war criminals if voted to power. The party won a landslide victory in the December 29 polls, and later the Jatiya Sangsad unanimously passed a proposal for the trial.

Some top leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami are among those on trial. The party acted against the birth of the nation by collaborating with the Pak occupation forces in committing crimes including genocide, rape and arson.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Africa North
Egypt Opposition Hardens Stance, Seeks Morsi Trial
[An Nahar] Egypt's main opposition group on Saturday backed calls to oust President Mohamed Morsi and demanded he go on trial after deadly festivities left the Islamist leader scrambling to contain fallout from footage of police brutality.

The opposition National Salvation Front demanded Morsi be prosecuted for "killings and torture" as it urged Egyptians to stage peaceful protests.

"The Salvation Front completely sides with the people and its active forces' calls to topple the authoritarian regime and the Moslem Brüderbund's control," it said in a statement.

It said Morsi should be put on trial after an "impartial investigation" and ruled out dialogue with the presidency until "the bloodletting stops and those responsible for it are held accountable."

But, in a possible sign of differences in a troubled coalition that comprises liberals and leftists, NSF members disagreed on the statement's intent.

"We are calling for the downfall of the regime of tyranny, not the regime," said Khaled Dawoud, the NSF's front man, explaining it meant "the abuse of citizens and torture and ignoring the demands of the opposition."

But another NSF member, Hussein Abdel Ghani, said: "I think this statement can be read to mean only one thing, which is to topple Morsi's government."

Clashes on Friday night between protesters and police outside the presidential palace left one dead, and police were filmed beating and dragging off another man, in the wake of festivities last week that killed nearly 60 people.

The beating was "an inhumane spectacle ... no less ugly than the killings of deaders, which is considered a continuation of the security force's program of excessive force," the NSF said.

A 23-year-old was rubbed out and 91 people were maimed in Friday's festivities, a medic said, while the interior ministry reported 15 of its men maimed by birdshot.

Police said they made 20 arrests, and they were filmed on television beating and dragging a naked man to an armored vehicle, outraging Morsi's critics who compared the incident to practices under deposed president Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim has ordered a probe to "hold accountable" the coppers who beat the man, his office said. He would resign if "that's what the people want."
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  When, if ever, do you think they'll come to the realization that the tyranny comes not from the person but from the culture/religion?

Tyranny is an inbred characteristic of any Muslim state, just the aesthetic details may differ.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/03/2013 8:37 Comments || Top||


Britain
NHS gathers private medical info without notification
Massive database on smoking, drinking, other habits as well as standard medical exam info. What could go wrong?
Combine that with death panels and you've got something to hold over people...
Posted by: lotp || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1 

Voluntary:
Section VI, Applicant group identification:

(___) Native American
(___) Hispanic
(___) White Non-Hispanic
(___) African American
(___) Other
(___) I'd rather not say

It began a very long time ago and nobody said much then either.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 1:56 Comments || Top||

#2  1) Oh yes some people did, Besoeker.

2) There's an important difference between race/ethnicity, which one inherits, and behaviors for which one bears responsibility.
Posted by: lotp || 02/03/2013 7:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Both now monitored by the government however.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 8:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Something to think about when you visit your local Dr. McCoy and sign the consent forms; somewhere in the fine print is your OK to release your information to 'others,' usually a long winded description that could include the local dog-catcher. Kinda kicks the patient Privacy Act to the curb.
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/03/2013 10:56 Comments || Top||

#5  If you read the the fine print,

"Required Disclosures. A covered entity must disclose protected health information in only two situations: (a) to individuals (or their personal representatives) specifically when they request access to, or an accounting of disclosures of, their protected health information; and (b) to HHS when it is undertaking a compliance investigation or review or enforcement action." Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule

you can request a list of all of those who have been granted access to your PHI. And if you didn't authorize it, well that is what lawyers are for.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 11:11 Comments || Top||

#6  ...number of government people prosecuted for FOIA violations? /rhet question. Laws are for little people.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 11:47 Comments || Top||

#7  ...number of government people prosecuted for FOIA violations?

Procopius2k,
Sigh. The Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights is responsible for enforcing the Privacy and Security Rules. You file a complaint with HHS' OCR, they investigate and if a criminal violation is deemed to have taken place, the case is turned over to DOJ for prosecution.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Edmund Burke

Or as commonly construed, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Nobody said that the triumph of good would be easy.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 12:11 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
EDITORIAL : Sectarian attack in Hangu
[Pak Daily Times] In the kind of tragedy the country seems all too familiar with by now, a jacket wallah has attacked a Shia mosque in Hangu, an area close to the tribal belt next to the Afghan border in northwest Pakistain, on Friday. The fatalities and casualties are devastating, with 24 dead and some 50 maimed. The bomber chose a location where Sunnis and Shias live in close proximity. The Shia mosque was close to a Sunni mosque and both sets of worshippers were at their respective places of worship. In what was no doubt a sectarian strike, the attack claimed the lives of many Sunnis as well, further proving that terror is indiscriminate. By attacking an area where both Shias and Sunnis so closely reside, the hard boyz may be trying to scare Sunnis away from associating and living with or near their Shia brothers. After such an attack, one would not be surprised if there were an exodus of entire Sunni communities from Shia populated areas. This attack was bloody and it did not discriminate probably in the hope that in the aftermath, Sunnis would be alienated from the Shias.

We are hardly a month into 2013 and already Pakistain has seen the worst kind of bloodshed of its Shia population. This is particularly worrisome because, when targeting a whopping 20 percent of the country's population, the crime moves on from being murder to being all out genocide. On January 10 of this year, twin suicide kabooms claimed the lives of 92 Shia Hazaras in Quetta in an attack that has been the worst human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
crime against the Shias in Pakistain's history. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
(LeJ) (a supposedly 'banned' Sunni terror group) grabbed credit for the attack on the Hazaras, claiming that they were infidels deserving of death. While no one has yet grabbed credit for the Hangu attack, one would not put it past the LeJ to have orchestrated another gruesome strike. If this is the trend that keeps continuing, 2013 could well become the bloodiest year for Shias in Pakistain. This blatant criminality and murderous rampage is worsening because of one simple fact: beturbanned goons have been emboldened by the sheer incompetence of those responsible for preventing such attacks. No one has ever been caught or punished for the murderous campaign against Ahmedis and other minorities in this country and no one has been tossed in the slammer
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
and brought to book for the killings of so many Shias. The government and our security agencies have failed to come up with efficient strategies to pre-empt terror threats. It is common knowledge that blunt weapons and brute military might cannot be used to counter terrorism in cities and urban areas. While military operations may work to some extent in the tribal areas against cut-thoat myrmidons, one cannot expect the army to go in and bomb entire cities. What is needed most urgently is precise and coordinated intelligence and police work. It is essential that our intelligence agencies predict and pre-empt any such deadly terror attack and work in tandem with the police to prevent suicide missions. Once a human 'bomb' is armed and off and running on his mission, nothing can stop him from carrying out his evil task, not even death. It is essential that the Centre work with the provinces to beat back the hard boyz from urban centres as there has been a rise in Shia killings in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
and Quetta, as well as the northern areas. Intelligence must be improved and the police must be better equipped to deal with the menace that has begun to seep its way into our heavily populated areas. We are witnessing a genocide and if we do not halt it, it will not be long before it proves the curtain raiser for further destabilisation of the state and society.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336103 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Big Data Predicts Super Bowl Outcome: Geeks Win
May your team play well, whichever it is. Even if, like me, you're really just watching for the commercials.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336141 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the website has already run 50,000 simulations of Sunday’s big game and has the San Francisco 49ers winning 66.9 percent of the time over the Baltimore Ravens with a final score of 28 to 21

Nate, you called the superbowl of politics. Stick to politics.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2013 8:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Nate was sports way before politics.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 8:56 Comments || Top||

#3  If I have the TV on tonight (I guess it's tonight?), it will be to watch the Puppy Bowl. :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 11:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Heck, I could've given 2:1 for SF, but been wrong about BA twice now.

Any rate, if the program doesn't take into account a player being so drug'd up they make a critical professionalism penalty, or just crappy refs, its just fluff.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/03/2013 14:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Not today it looks like...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 20:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe they can find a Geek to put the lights back on...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 20:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Daaad!

Mom's showing off her hooch again!

Hush dear, that's how we are paying for our new boat.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/03/2013 22:10 Comments || Top||

#8  28-19 BALTIMORE, as per Drudge.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 22:42 Comments || Top||

#9  Final score: Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 22:57 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Violence claims three lives in Karachi
[Dawn] Three people were killed in incidents of firing in different areas of Karachi, DawnNews reported on Saturday.

One person was gunned down in the city's Agra Taj Colony area.

In another incident, one person was shot dead near Karachi's Burns Road.

Moreover, one person was killed and another was injured in an incident of firing in Karachi's SITE area.

Separately, the funeral of a man who was gunned down in the city's Liaquatabad area was held at the Rizvia imambargah today.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
The U.S. needs a completely different approach to Iran
Rooters. Submitted without editorial comment.
Negotiations with Iran, the Obama administration and policy elites across the political spectrum talk as if America is basically in control of the situation. Sanctions, we are told, are inflicting ever-rising hardship on Iran's economy. Either Tehran will surrender to U.S. demands that it stop enriching uranium or, at some point, the American military will destroy Iranian nuclear installations.

This is a dangerous delusion, grounded in persistent American illusions about Middle Eastern reality. Because of failed wars-cum-occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan; a war on terror that has turned Muslim societies ever more firmly against U.S. policy; and de facto support for open-ended Israeli occupation of Arab populations, America's position in the region is in free fall. Increasingly mobilized publics will not tolerate continuation of such policies. If, in this climate, the United States launches another war to disarm yet another Middle Eastern country of weapons of mass destruction it does not have, the blowback against American interests will be disastrous. Nonetheless, that is where our current strategy -- negotiating on terms that could not possibly interest Iran while escalating covert operations, cyber-attacks, and economic warfare against it -- leads.

For its own interests, Washington must take a fundamentally different approach. President Obama needs to realign U.S. relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran as thoroughly as President Nixon realigned relations with the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s. Simply "talking" to Iran will not accomplish this.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336103 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So Rooters is in favor of returning Saddam to power in Iraq and the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. And taking notice of terrorist attacks on the US has turned Muslim populations even more against America. Oh yes, Israel should decamp from lands that they occupy only as a direct result of Arab attacks on Israel. And the logical conclusion of all this is that the US should recognize the basic goodness of the Iranian revolutionary guards and align US policy to them.

Did I miss anything?

"It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane."
-- "Emmanuel Goldstein", George Orwell, 1949
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 1:38 Comments || Top||

#2  ....and de facto support for open-ended Israeli occupation of Arab populations, America's position in the region is in free fall.

Can't blame the Obama administration for that one. Cham has done nearly all he could to properly distance himself in that area. [sarcasm off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 2:07 Comments || Top||

#3 
Posted by: Threater Flusoper9823 || 02/03/2013 5:39 Comments || Top||

#4  "America's position in the region is in free fall".

True.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 10:10 Comments || Top||

#5  "Nevertheless, there should be no illusions. The enemies of coexistence, led by Iran and its sponsorship of Hizbullah and Hamas, are trying to do all in their power to sabotage any prospect for peace. The Teheran regime, in its declared intention to “wipe Israel off the map,” has perverted Islam into a totalitarian political manifesto merely masquerading as a religion. It is determined to perpetuate a resolvable conflict into a future of despair. Syria, as well, is undermining Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, through its support of terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose operational headquarters are located in Damascus.

There is no insurmountable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Rather, there is a common denominator in the desire for peace, supported by all moderate states in the region that understand that the real threat to peace comes from the extremist states that support terrorism.

There are moderates in the Palestinian Authority who could be Israel’s partners for peace, who believe a future Palestinian state should be based on democracy and understanding - as opposed to the extremists, whose basic totalitarian idea is to deprive others of their rights.

While Israel will continue to defend its population against Hamas terrorism, it is ultimately the role of the moderates among the Palestinians to confront Hamas."
Israel, the Conflict and Peace: Answers to frequently asked questions

Add to this that any moderate Paleo who signed a peace deal with Israel would undoubtedly be assassinated by a "Hamas' [] advocating violence, opposing a two-state solution, and denying Israel's right to exist, as well as its direct involvement in terrorism." pretty much guarantees that there will not be a peace deal until Iran is removed from the equation.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 02/03/2013 10:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran ....

(Sung to the time 'Barbara Ann')
Posted by: gorb || 02/03/2013 16:17 Comments || Top||


Africa North
French mission in Mali not over, says Hollande
[FRANCE24] French troops will withdraw from Mali only once they had completed their mission of helping the country regain full control of its territory, President François Hollande said Saturday during a visit to Timbuktu, where was cheered as a saviour.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336118 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  From what I can tell, the French have wisely used an economy of force approach to accomplish well established, achievable goals and objectives. They have selected specific targets and partnered with host nation forces to move on an axis of advance to successfully engage each target and kill as many of the enemy as possible. Their intelligence effort appears to be focused to support the maneuver commander in a logical, sequential manner, which will lead to the defeat of the enemy, eventual victory, and deployment home.

I doubt the French will get bogged down in some costly and meaningless, civil-military extended peace keeping mission or police action which attempts to train host nation forces, build schools, and establish western governance. I doubt their intelligence effort will be fragmented into a provincial structure of FBI style [ten or one hundred most wanted] quasi warranted searches feeding a dozen different customers [some military - some not], each refusing to share information.

I suspect the French will reject the strategy of 100 little "hearts and minds" wars in favour of a speedy conflict focused on the killing and defeat of as many of the enemy as possible and victory.

I commend the French and wish them much success.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 7:08 Comments || Top||

#2  ^^^^^^ That.
Drop in, kick ass, scare the hell out of everyone and leave before they see you are human.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 8:52 Comments || Top||

#3  More vid, which you won't get from the lame stream media [aka Donk Ministry of Truth].
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/03/2013 11:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Merci beaucoup P2k. Airborne! :-)
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 12:10 Comments || Top||

#5  As per the MSM-NET, looks like French forces will be in Mali through 2013, i.e. at least most or all of this year.

Unless the Mali + Euro-Jihadis start a fracas back in Metropolitan France.

VERSUS

* WAFF > MUTINY IN THE FRENCH ARMY? |[Voltairenet] HOLLANDE [+ predecessor Sarkozy] IS AFRAID OF HIS ARMIES.

ARTIC = many in French military believe that, since 2008, both Hollande + Sarkozy had diverted the French Armed Forces to serve PRIVATE, FOREIGN, OR US-ISRAELI INTERESTS + AGENDUMS, NOT FRENCH.

Lets all give a hearty welcome to FRANCE + FRENCH MILITARY to anti-Sovereign, anti-Nationalist, anti-Constitutional OWG "Globalism"???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 22:40 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lavrov Wants 'Regular Contact' with Syrian Opposition
[An Nahar] Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday he wants to keep in regular contact with Syria's opposition after holding his first direct talks with the coalition's leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, Russian news agencies reported.

"I reminded Khatib that after the creation of the coalition and the appointment of their leader, we immediately demonstrated our interest in maintaining regular contact," Lavrov said after the meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

"We will make that happen," he added.

Lavrov had earlier Saturday held separate talks with U.S. Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden
The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body...
and U.N.-Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
envoy Lakhdar Brahimi amid strong disagreement between Moscow and Washington about ways to end the Syria conflict.

Khatib, elected as the head of the coalition late last year, made a surprise announcement Wednesday that his group was ready for dialogue with the Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
regime under certain conditions. He renewed the proposal in Munich, while rejecting the presence of leaders he said had "blood on their hands."

Lavrov said Moscow "welcomed" the initiative, adding: "If we take into account the fact that the coalition was founded on the refusal to engage in a dialogue with the regime, it's a very important step."

The minister said it meant that "realism prevails," adding that "thinking is headed in the right direction."

Russia's top diplomat also said Moscow shared Washington's concern about the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria but considered the situation to be safe at this stage.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


-Obits-
Navy SEAL Chris Kyle murdered in Dallas

Rest in peace, sailor.
Not safe for work interview on Opie and Anthony


Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336146 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is very tragic. I just started listening to Chris' autobiography on audiobook this afternoon. Very honest story. He was a remarkable man and a patriot. Very sad to have been murdered right near home. Pray for his widow Taya and their children.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/03/2013 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  RIP Chris. Thanks for your service to the USA.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/03/2013 8:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Graveside eulogies which mention... "he never talked much about his service in WWII, Korea, or Vietnam" are not uncommon. Perhaps there is a reason.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 8:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Sad loss to the families involved, and sad loss to America.
Have heard various stories already and can only conclude that we don't know what happened. Was Routh the shooter? Had he been deployed? Did he suffer PTSD? Was PTSD the cause? Was Kyle the target? Or was there a 'cheating' thing with the other guy and Kyle was just collateral damage? And that's without even starting on all the tinfoil hat stuff (which, though unlikely, is not impossible.)
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2013 11:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Yes, definitely the senseless loss of a warrior and hero. We need more like him, not fewer.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 11:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Investigators said that Routh, a former Marine who sources said is believed to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, shot Kyle and the second victim at point-blank range. No information was available on the second victim late Saturday.

Kyle grew up in Texas and spent much of his time riding horses and participating on the school rodeo team. His life quickly changed when he decided to go into the military and became a Navy SEAL. He deployed four times to Iraq. Kyle held the record for number of kills by an American sniper. The Pentagon has confirmed more than 150 of his kills. The previous record was 109.

"When I grew up, I only had two dreams,” he told The News in January 2012. “One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses. I went to college and was working at a ranch up there. Sunup, sundown, I was in a saddle. By the time I was 24, I decided it was time to go into the military and try it out. It wasn’t exactly the SEALs I was looking for at the time. I just wanted to go into the military and be the best.”
Posted by: wr || 02/03/2013 11:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Pee esS whY Oh Pee
Posted by: Woodrow Barnsmell4369 || 02/03/2013 11:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Aye esS esS In Aye iN Aye inN Aye Tea I Oh eN
Posted by: Woodrow Barnsmell4369 || 02/03/2013 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Fair winds and following seas sailor udt/seal RIP
Posted by: Spomomble Jutle5385 || 02/03/2013 12:23 Comments || Top||

#10  Actually he was shot a range west of Dallas.
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/03/2013 13:55 Comments || Top||

#11  Very tragic loss. Prayers for his family. I'll have to read his book.

Public ranges in the USA can be dangerous. I saw a report that Kyle's companion was a woman. So I'm wondering if this is basically a three-way romance .... things like that have a habit of causing someone to wind up dead.
Posted by: Raider || 02/03/2013 14:06 Comments || Top||

#12  Wasn't a woman, second victim was 35-year-old Chad Littlefield of Midlothian. Chris was apparently helping out with a Wounded Warrior thing and mentoring PTSD soldiers, taking them to the range, ect. The shooter was apparently one of the patients in the program. Routh then stole Kyles truck and fled, being chased down and captured by police thereafter.

Something went horribly wrong here, a PTSD patient at a gun range? Either somebody misdiagnosed how sever it was, or there's another reason for the shooting we don't know yet.
Posted by: Charles || 02/03/2013 14:14 Comments || Top||

#13  I do not subscribe to the government being involved whatsoever in gun control. I don't trust them enough to require registration of guns with them.

BUT, mental illness and guns don't mix. The sound of gun fire again may have made this guy snap.
Posted by: Dino Shomomp7692 || 02/03/2013 14:40 Comments || Top||

#14  I think we can safely conclude that firearms training is NOT the way to reach or bond with the mentally impaired.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 15:33 Comments || Top||

#15  The killer was already a Marine, so your statement that firearms training is not an option does not apply.
Posted by: badanov || 02/03/2013 17:20 Comments || Top||

#16  Oh please. The admin has been floating a no vets policy pertaining to guhns with the catch that they (all) have PTSD or some other "mental" situation that would prevent them from owning wepins. So no one with recent military experience allowed, unless loyal to the O. This was a two-fer. One crack disloyal sniper gone and one agenda furthered.
Posted by: Woodrow Barnsmell4369 || 02/03/2013 18:22 Comments || Top||

#17  Or, a guy who was in bad shape snapped.

Conspiracy theories belong on the X-Files, not in rational discussions. Particularly when more mundane explanations are a million times more likely.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 02/03/2013 19:19 Comments || Top||

#18 
Posted by: Clort Elmorong6031 || 02/03/2013 20:15 Comments || Top||

#19  FUCK you CE
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2013 20:20 Comments || Top||

#20 
Posted by: Clort Elmorong6031 || 02/03/2013 20:21 Comments || Top||

#21  Surely a trip to the zoo is a safer day out for a psychotic loon? I wouldn't want to be standing next to a dude with a gun when he's off with the fairies.
Posted by: Clort Elmorong6031 || 02/03/2013 20:22 Comments || Top||

#22  off with the fairies

It's PTSD, not "UK citizenship".
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 20:46 Comments || Top||

#23  The young man's mother asked that Chris Kyle take time with her son, who killed Chris and Littlefield. What she may have failed to disclose is that there are several police reports of people who have asked for help in handling Routh's extremely phsychotic behavior on occasion while they were in his presence. Local news in Dallas are awaiting copies of those police reports from several police agencies. He was supposed to have been subscribed medication by a local VA hospital. Whether he was on that medication is not known.
Posted by: Dino Shomomp7692 || 02/03/2013 22:16 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistani armed forces among the best in world: governor
[Pak Daily Times] Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Asif Sandhila called on Punjab Governor Makhdoom Ahmad Mahmood on Saturday and discussed various national issues.

On the occasion, the governor said that the country's armed forces are considered "one of the best forces in the world", adding that they have great capabilities to protect geographical boundaries of the country.

He also stated that the present government is completing its tenure in a "dignified manner and is determined to hold free and transparent election".

Earlier, a seven-member Indonesian media delegation met the governor. The governor told the delegation that media is "totally independent and free in Pakistain".
And then his lips fell off...
"The media has played a pivotal role for democracy in the country, restoration of independent judiciary and strengthening of parliament."
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Several Residents Arrested as Leb Army Draws Tight Dragnet Around Arsal
[An Nahar] The Lebanese army arrested several residents of the northeastern town of Arsal on Saturday a day after two soldiers were killed when gunmen ambushed a military patrol, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said the men were arrested either for the possession of illegal arms or for failing to stop at several checkpoints set up by the military at the entrances of the town.

The agency said the military sent armored vehicles to the northeastern Bekaa valley starting 3:00 am, drawing a tight security dragnet around Arsal by 8:00 am.

Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn reiterated on Saturday that it was unacceptable to attack the military a day after an army communique said Friday that a patrol was ambushed by Arsal gunmen as it was hunting a man wanted for several terrorist acts.

The clashes that ensued left an officer with the rank of captain, Pierre Bashaalani, and Sergeant Ibrahim Zahraman dead, and several military personnel wounded, it added.

NNA said Saturday that the patrol's vehicles were carrying military license plates unlike what several residents of Arsal claimed to be plainclothes men in humvees.

Zahraman's relatives blocked for a short period on Saturday al-Sheikh Mohammed and Halba roads in the northern district of Akkar with burning tires to protest the failure to hand over several of the gunmen involved in the ambush.

Bashaalani's family had also blocked al-Mreijat and Tal Amara-Riyaq road in the Bekaa.

Zahraman was laid to rest on Saturday afternoon while Bashaalani's funeral will be held on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Christians Forced To Leave Libya
[Tripoli Post] Christians are being driven out of eastern Libya by Muslim fundamentalists, the Catholic Church's main clergyman in the country said.

The situation was "critical" and the "atmosphere very tense" in the Cyrenaica region, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli said in the interview with the Vatican missionary news agency Fides.

He said two religious communities are leaving "after being pressured by fundamentalists", adding that the Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi was cautioned to take shelter ahead of a large-scale demonstration on 20 February.

"In past days, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Spoleto who had been there for nearly 100 years were forced to abandon Derna," east of the main eastern city of Benghazi, he said.

"In Barce [located between Benghazi and Derna] the Franciscan Sisters of the Child Jesus will leave their home in coming days."
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336136 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Well, I'm surprised!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Nothin' but goodwill toward people of the book.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 9:14 Comments || Top||

#3  How about the Jews of Libya - how are they doing?
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/03/2013 9:16 Comments || Top||

#4  UNPOSSIBLE! Islam is the religion of tolerance!

(/SARC: Sorry - just couldn't say that with a straight face...)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/03/2013 9:30 Comments || Top||

#5  "How about the Jews of Libya"

Are any left in Libya? (Alive, I mean.)
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 11:16 Comments || Top||

#6  barbara

officially, Libya has been Judenrein since 2004 or so

in 2011 there was an attempt to repair a historic synagogue and one or two former Libyan Jews came for it but that effort ended about a week after it began and has not been restarted
Posted by: lord garth || 02/03/2013 11:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Judenfrei, LG
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2013 11:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Judenfrei = 'free of Jews' could be
-if no Jews were ever there or
- if they were there and left on their own or
- if they left under coercion

Judenrein = cleaned of Jews would be if there were Jews and they left under coercion

In the case of Libya, the Govt claimed there was no official written coercion policy and I acknowledge that this claim is probably correct so, by their standard the correct word would be Judenfrei.

However, almost everybody acknowledges that the neighborhoods in which the Jews lived had become hostile and the Jews were getting threat and taunts frequently and that the sermons in the mosques were getting harsher and more anti-Jewish. By that, it would be Judenrein.
Posted by: lord garth || 02/03/2013 14:47 Comments || Top||

#9  The Government of Libya rounded up and deported the Jews of Libya many years ago. They were sent by plane I believe, to Italy.
The correct term is therefore Judenrein.
Posted by: djk || 02/03/2013 16:07 Comments || Top||

#10  my correction stands correction then :-)
Posted by: Frank G || 02/03/2013 16:40 Comments || Top||

#11  Apparently 'Responsibility to Protect' isn't an inclusive policy.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/03/2013 20:35 Comments || Top||

#12  Its any + all non-Islam + anti-Sunni, aka SHIA.

The fact that Syria's Govt. is in formal alliance wid Shia Iran seemingly means little or nothing to ordinary Syrian Sunnis + anti-Assad Rebels.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/03/2013 22:26 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Three killed, ten injured in attack on Thai farmers
Two farmers were gunned down and 10 others wounded in Pattani province, where a third man was also killed in a separate incident late Friday.

The attack on the farmers occurred about 5 p.m. on a rural road in Yaring district. It could lead to a shutdown of the promising state project which aims at reviving rice farming in the deep South. The farmers said they will return home and relatives began arriving on Saturday to take them out of the South.

Witnesses said that 12 farmers from Singburi were traveling in a pickup truck when gunmen riding pillion on two motorcycles fired on them with assault rifles. The attackers then fled.

Saneh Khunnain and Ekarin Homchoey were hit several times and died on the spot. Their ten colleagues were injured and taken to the hospital. Police blamed separatist terrorists militants.

The farmers from the central region were working with the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC) to teach rice growing techniques to local farmers. The SBPAC started the project to rehabilitate abandoned rice fields in the three southernmost provinces.

A separate attack on Friday night in Yarang district took the life of a local villager.

Pol Lt Col Thawatchai Sangkamitkol, the deputy chief of Yarang police station, said he received a report of a shooting on a local road about 9:50 p.m. He led a police team to the scene where witnesses said that the victim, Abdularsi Sa, had been shot several times and taken to the hospital. He was later pronounced dead.

The witnesses said that Abdularsi was walking to a teashop in the village when gunmen in a pickup truck fired on him with M16 and AK47 assault rifles. The assailants then fled.
Posted by: ryuge || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency


Arabia
Yemen Troops Kill 12 'Qaida Militants' in Restive South
[An Nahar] Yemen's armed forces killed 12 suspected al-Qaeda bully boyz in an assault on their mountain hideout in the country's restive south, an official in the region said on Saturday.

The military used artillery and aircraft to target the hideout near Shaqra, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the 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...
capital of Zinjibar, in the operation late on Friday, the official said.

Among those killed was Belidi Tawfiq, the brother of one of al-Qaeda's leaders in Abyan province, the official added.

Luhishi Hussein, a leader of a paramilitary unit that supports the military against the jihadist network in southern Yemen, said the operation resulted in "more than 10 deaths in the ranks of al-Qaeda."

The bully boyz had been holed up in the area after being driven out of cities and towns in the region following a military offensive launched in June last year.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336138 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hizbullah Buries Member in Arabsalim, Says Died Performing Jihadi Duty
[An Nahar] Hizbullah held a funeral on Saturday for Hussein Mohammed Nether in the southern town of Arabsalim, a member who died while "performing his Jihadi duty", the party said in a released statement.

"The funeral procession marched from Ragheb Harb Hospital in Nabatieh towards Arabsalim where the martyr was buried," it explained.

The procession was lead by party official Ali Daoun and the member of the central political bureau Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, in addition to prominent figures in Hizbullah.

The party has been accused of allegedly sending members to fight alongside the Syrian army in the neighboring country's conflict.

The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported in January that around 1,500 men are receiving salaries and being trained in the Bekaa camps to fight in Syria and defend Shiite villages and towns against the rebels.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment...
the Saudi al-Watan daily had reported that some 5,000 Hizbullah members have been fighting alongside regime troops in the restive suburbs of Damascus.
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the fighters crossed the border into Syria last month. But they said that around 300 of them were killed in the fighting in the past few days.

Battles have flared in areas around Damascus as rebels seeking to topple Assad try to push into the city itself.
Posted by: Fred || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336096 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Got a bit hot in Jamarya did it ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/03/2013 2:23 Comments || Top||


Syria Releases Images Of Site 'Targeted By Israel'
[Ynet] Syrian State TV airs images of Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
-adjacent research center allegedly 'flattened' by IAF
Video at link. Lots of shattered windows and very dead cars and trucks. That must have been a heck of a convoy...
Syria's state-run television channel aired first images of the site allegedly targeted by Israel last week.

The images, aired on Saturday, show the damage caused by what Syria claims was an overnight air raid against the Jamraya scientific research base on the outskirts of Damascus.

Jamarya is located several dozens of miles northwest of Damascus. Time magazine reported Friday that "The center was flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist snuffies fighting to topple the government of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Horror of Homs...
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, said the raid targeted a convoy of trucks carrying surface-to-air missiles from a military complex suspected of housing chemical agents towards the Lebanese border.

While both Jerusalem and Washington refrained from commenting on reports of the alleged strike, US security officials were quoted by several top American media outlets as saying that Israel informed the US about its intentions, adding that the target was a shipment of SA-17 anti-aircraft weapons that could cut into Israel's ability to fly reconnaissance flights over Leb.

SA-17s are highly sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, which would be strategically "game-changing" in the hands of Hezbollah.

Syria, Leb and the rest of the Arab world, were unanimous in their condemnation of the alleged strike.

Damascus announced it "reserves the right to retaliate," adding that numerous air-defense battalions - particularly those deployed in the area stretching between the Syrian capital and the Lebanese border -- were placed on high alert.

Iran said that it will "Lend its full support to Syria to keep it strong. The Arab world has to do everything it can to minimize the suffering of the Syrian people as they fight against Israel's aggressions and the international community's arrogance."
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/03/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336104 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Happy Groundhog's Day !
Posted by: junkirony || 02/03/2013 2:10 Comments || Top||

#2  A kindergarten & baby milk factory, or a petting zoo?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/03/2013 5:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Childrens hands on Science Museum and Christian Widows home.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/03/2013 8:55 Comments || Top||

#4  "A kindergarten & baby milk factory, or a petting zoo" "Childrens hands on Science Museum and Christian Widows home"

All with English signs outside - in a non-English-speaking country.
Posted by: Barbara || 02/03/2013 11:07 Comments || Top||

#5 
Posted by: junkiron || 02/03/2013 13:36 Comments || Top||

#6  What's with the goofy music on the clip?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/03/2013 15:57 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Thai Insurgency
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1Palestinian Authority
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2013-02-03
  Yemen Troops Kill 12 'Qaida Militants' in Restive South
Sat 2013-02-02
  Syria Suicide Attack on Regime Kills 53
Fri 2013-02-01
  Binori Mosque cleric among 10 killed in Karachi
Thu 2013-01-31
  Boko Haram 'commander' declares ceasefire
Wed 2013-01-30
  Mali and Niger forces retake Ansongo
Tue 2013-01-29
  Sahel jihadist groups splinter
Mon 2013-01-28
  Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts
Sun 2013-01-27
  French and Malian troops begin restoring control in Timbuktu
Sat 2013-01-26
  Green-on-green clash in Khyber tribal region kills 32
Fri 2013-01-25
  AQAP #2 killed for the THIRD time in Yemen
Thu 2013-01-24
  US drone strike near Sanaa kills 7 hard boyz
Wed 2013-01-23
  Nuristan Airstrike Kills 14 Insurgents
Tue 2013-01-22
  French seize control of Diabaly, Douentza
Mon 2013-01-21
  Nigeria: Gunmen attack Kano emir's convoy
Sun 2013-01-20
  Algeria crisis: Hostage-takers 'taken alive' at gas plant

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