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Karzai orders US special forces out of Afghan province
Today's Headlines
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Veterans Receive Letters From VA Prohibiting Ownership or Purchase of Firearms
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 14:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is wrong on a lot of levels. It strains the notion of "due process." This happened to a Marine Viet vet friend who served two tours in Nam. He was also a cop for quite a few years. He was later diagnosed with PTSD. Once you are determined "incompetent," you play hell getting off that list. It is like a no fly list--once on, it is hard or impossible to get off. Losing your Constitutional rights is a disincentive to seeking help.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 15:01 Comments || Top||

#2  It's VA CYA. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/24/2013 15:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Well, it isn't actually true, either. What the letter says is that IF you are found mentally incompetent, you could be prevented from owning firearms. It goes on to explain to the veteran how to PREVENT being declared incompetent. This goes back to 2006, I think.

Basically the deal is this: If you are unable to manage your finances, you could be declared incompetent. If that happens, someone else will be designated to receive any veterans benefits you are entitled to and will be in charge of spending that money for you. They will be designated your "guardian". If this happens, your ability to own firearms could be impacted.

You might want to read this, particularly the last paragraph just before the comments start.
Posted by: crosspatch || 02/24/2013 15:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Yeah, It's a bit alarmist.
If the language gets any stronger it will be a real problem, but in essence I think most people would agree that a mental incompetent should not be buying guns.
Problem is, the govt would find about 99.3% of us "incompetent" if they could use that as a wedge.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 15:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Problem is, the govt would find about 99.3% of us "incompetent" if they could use that as a wedge.

I'm sure they're eyeing 49% from the last election as a start, using the old Soviet standards to declare dissidents individuals mentally ill.

BTW, given case law, doesn't the ADA prohibit this approach?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 15:50 Comments || Top||

#6  As per FOX NEWS this AM, may be in line wid newly proposed legislation to emplant ANY + ALL FED EMPLOYEES WID SO-CALLED RFID = "BIO-CHIPS".

As Fed retirees, these Personages could be recalled to duty or employment in times of contingency.

[INFAMOUS USDHS, FEMA BULK AMMO PURCHASES here].

ALso good for ANTI-US GLOBALISTS + ALIGNED AS PER OWG + NAU 2015, ETC. RELATED - once again, the USA is intended to suborned under ANTI-NATIONALIST, ANTI-SOVEREIGN, ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL WHERE SO-CALLED "BORDERS" IS JUST A LINE ON KIDDIE, ARCHAIC, OR "QUAINT" SCHOOL + UNIVERSITY TEXTBOOKS + CLASSROOM AIDS.

IOW, Washington needs to "mark" for SkyNet-Matrix any + all de facto legal US Citizens-Residents as opposed to any + all non-US residing + working widin the post-2015, OWG/NAU-suborned USA.

D *** NG IT, HOW CAN THE DRONES = GLOBAL SPAWAR MONITOR + ARREST YOU, OR FIRE A LR HELLFIRE, IFF THEY DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU + YOURS ARE AT 24-7-365 - INQUIRING CYLONS = "THE MACHINES/DALEKS" WANNA KNOW???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2013 18:28 Comments || Top||

#7  We can't emphazise this enuff - DON'T DATE ROBOTS!

Plus, your Gun is watching you???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2013 18:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Obama's Secret North Korea Talks Failed; Hagel Approach Ineffective
The Obama administration conducted two secret diplomatic missions to North Korea in 2012, according to reports in the South Korean press that were confirmed by the Los Angeles Times. The talks failed to dissuade the regime of Kim Jong Un to abandon that country's aggressive nuclear weapons program. President Barack Obama suggested such talks in 2007, as did Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel that same year.

On Feb. 12, in what looks increasingly like a direct and personal rebuke to Obama, the North Korean regime conducted an underground nuclear test on the same day that the president was to give his State of the Union address. In two previous State of the Union addresses, President Obama had touted progress in isolating North Korea (2010), and had called on the regime to keep "its commitment to abandon nuclear weapons" (2011).

In a 2007 speech to the libertarian Cato Institute, Hagel had said that North Korea was "moving in the right direction" because of increased willingness by the U.S. to engage in diplomacy. He offered a similar diplomatic prescription for making progress in dealing with the Iranian regime, the dictatorship of Bashar Assad in Syria, and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, suggesting talks would produce better result than confrontation.

However, the Assad regime is now killing thousands of civilians in a civil war, the Hamas organization rejects talks with Israel over anything except Israel's destruction, and Iran refused the Obama administration's offer of direct talks earlier this month. The failure of President Obama's diplomatic overtures to North Korea--which may date back to 2011, according to reports the Times could not confirm--are only the most dramatic example.
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 13:50 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
VIDEO: Topless Women Protest As Berlusconi Casts Ballot
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 13:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No pictures, move along, nothing to see here.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 15:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Alright, I lied, still not much to see here.
Can you imagine living with one of those types?
Whew!!!
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 15:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't they have to have women police to do that sort of thing? Aren't the feminists worried about the policemen getting their jollies roughing up the tootsies? I mean, what if they accidentally touch something ... sensitive? Won't they get sued for grabbing?

[shakes head] Another reason to stay home!
Posted by: Bobby || 02/24/2013 17:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Nuthin sez "equality" like a nightstick in the mouth...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2013 19:14 Comments || Top||

#5  It's all teatro, dontcha know...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/24/2013 19:53 Comments || Top||

#6  NOW that must have been a hard job for the police :-)
Posted by: Raider || 02/24/2013 20:23 Comments || Top||

#7  The best of Silvio Berlusconi
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 22:58 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Karzai orders US special forces out of Afghan province
[BBC.CO.UK] The Afghan president has ordered US special forces to leave Wardak province within two weeks over allegations of disappearances and torture.

The measures were being taken due to the actions of Afghans considered to be part of US special forces, said a front man for Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai.
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
The strategically significant, central province of Wardak has been the recent focus of counter-insurgency operations.

A US front man said it took all allegations of misconduct seriously.

But he said he could not comment specifically on this latest development.


In a hastily convened news conference, the presidential front man said US special forces would have to leave Wardak within the next two weeks.

"There are some individuals, some Afghans, who are working within these cells, within these [US] special forces groups" in Wardak province, said front man Aimal Faizi.

"But they are part of US special forces according to our sources and according to our local officials working in the province," he said.

These Afghan units are facing allegations of involvement torture and disappearances, says the BBC's Karen Allen in Kabul. A preliminary investigation also blamed them for beheading a university student in the province.

Wardak is seen as a gateway for the Taliban to target Kabul, our correspondent adds.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 10:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan

#1  Killing too many talibunnies
Posted by: Caesar Gray1629 || 02/24/2013 11:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Pull everybody back down to Kandahar and start flying them home NOW!
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 11:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Might as well pull everyone out. Our political leaders lost the fight years ago.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/24/2013 12:06 Comments || Top||

#4  One of the positives of an early withdrawal is that it advances the day we see Karzai upside down on a Kabul lamp post
Posted by: PCarroll || 02/24/2013 12:14 Comments || Top||

#5  My guess is that Karzai will step down and be living in Gay Paree before the Talibs retake the govt. It'll be his successor hanging from the lamp post.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 12:47 Comments || Top||

#6  One of the positives of an early withdrawal is that it advances the day we see Karzai upside down on a Kabul lamp post
And doesn't Karzi know it, so expect him to do a runner out of Afghanistan before the 20014 elections when everything will go tits-up.
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 12:52 Comments || Top||

#7  for all the US service people and civilians killed due to Caped President Feckless, we should make sure he doesn't leave Kabul alive. Let him know it
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||

#8  Come to think of it, Karzai DOES look a lot like Charles Middleton!!
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 02/24/2013 13:24 Comments || Top||

#9  One of the things I despised about GWB was his foreign policy implementation of "compassionate conservatism".

He seems to believe in cultural & moral relativism in that everyone is like a Euro Social Democrat if just given a chance.
Posted by: Alanc || 02/24/2013 13:35 Comments || Top||

#10  He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. When the count was in, he won(?) by something like 54%. However, the fix was in and the ballot boxes were stuffed. Chicago would be proud of Karzai.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 14:10 Comments || Top||

#11  ...see, he learned. However, his departure should also be a lesson to our own governing class, that stuffed ballot boxes aren't willing to give that 'last full measure of devotion' to keep you in power.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 15:41 Comments || Top||

#12  Somewhere there is a small village in France or Italy looking for someone to open a kebab place.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 02/24/2013 17:17 Comments || Top||

#13  Ditto as per NON-US NATO SPECOPS???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2013 18:30 Comments || Top||

#14  The last official act of his security detail should be to throw him out the door of the last chopper out.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/24/2013 19:03 Comments || Top||

#15  The last official act of his security detail should be to throw him out the door of the last chopper out.

"He tripped," tu. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 19:41 Comments || Top||

#16  Karzai's US security detail should be the first element pulled out.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 02/24/2013 20:31 Comments || Top||

#17  Heh, pull our guys out and watch the disappearances and torture increase.
Posted by: KBK || 02/24/2013 20:37 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Four Somali immigrants convicted of supporting militants
[MOBILE.REUTERS] Four Somali immigrants, including a popular imam at a San Diego-area mosque, were convicted by a U.S. federal jury on Friday of conspiring to provide material support to an al Qaeda-linked Islamist militia in the Horn of Africa nation.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, said that the men - the imam, two cab drivers and an employee at a money transmitting business - had conspired to raise and send money to Somali al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
rebels.

Al-Shabaab beturbanned goons want to impose a strict version of Islamic law in war-ravaged Somalia, but have lost significant territory in the southern and central parts of the country in the face of an offensive by African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
troops.

According to the evidence presented at trial, the men conspired to transfer funds from San Diego to Somalia through the Shidaal Express, a now-defunct money transmitting business in San Diego.

The U.S. Attorney's office said the jury had listened to intercepted phone conversations between one of the men, San Diego cab driver Basaaly Saeed Moalin, and an al-Shabaab leader who was later killed in a U.S. Arclight airstrike.

Aden Hashi Ayro implored the cab driver in those calls to send money to al-Shabaab, telling him it was "time to finance the Jihad."

"You are running late with the stuff. Send some and something will happen," Ayro told Moalin. He also repeatedly asked him to reach out to Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud - a holy man at the City Heights mosque - to obtain funds for the group.

U.S. warplanes killed Ayro, the Afghan-trained then-leader of al-Shabaab who was said to be al Qaeda's top man in the country, in 2008. Under Ayro, al-Shabaab had adopted Iraq-style tactics, including liquidations, roadside kabooms and suicide kabooms.

Prosecutors also presented a recorded telephone conversation in which Moalin gave the rebels permission to use his house in the capital Mogadishu. Prosecutors argued he was offering the home as a place to hide weapons.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 10:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  They're just doing the jobs that Americans won't do, my friends.
Posted by: Sen. John McCain, my friends || 02/24/2013 18:06 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
4 Arrested After Shooting Range Stabbing in Spring TX
The Good Samaritan must have been in a truly benevolent mood after a fine afternoon of shooting since he only stabbed the suspect rather than permanently airing him out. The exception that proves the rule: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
Posted by: BrujoTejano || 02/24/2013 10:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What a COMPLETELY misleading headline. It makes it sound like a bunch of shooters were stabbing each other at the range.

In reality, those involved were well outside the range and the person who stabbed the car thief wasn't even a shooter - or maybe he was. They simply list him as being in the parking lot.

Typical journalism.

Orion
Posted by: Orion || 02/24/2013 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  What a strange story.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/24/2013 17:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Who is B. Tejano?
Posted by: Injun Stalin7884 || 02/24/2013 17:54 Comments || Top||

#4  BrujoTejano has been commenting a bit recently, Injun Stalin7884. One assumes he is Texan, with a personal reason for the witch part.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 22:53 Comments || Top||


Government
The Big Gamble - How Much Will the Cuts Hurt?
With the ax set to fall on federal spending in five days, the question in Washington is not whether the sequester will hit, but how much it will hurt.

Over the past week, President Obama has painted a picture of impending disaster, warning of travel delays, laid-off firefighters and pre-schoolers tossed out of Head Start. Conservatives accuse Obama of exaggerating the impact, and some White House allies worry the slow-moving sequester may fail to live up to the hype.
Oh, dear! And whose hype is that?
In the long partisan conflict over government spending, the sequester is where the rubber meets the road. Obama is betting Americans will be outraged by the abrupt and substantial cuts to a wide range of government services, from law enforcement to food safety to public schools. And he is hoping they will rise up to demand what he calls a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that replaces some cuts with higher taxes.

"The good news is, the world doesn't end March 2. The bad news is, the world doesn't end March 2," said Emily Holubowich, a Washington health-care lobbyist who leads a coalition of 3,000 nonprofit groups fighting the cuts. "The worst-case scenario for us is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens. And Republicans say: See, that wasn't so bad."
As long as the Trunks don't cave in.
Adding to the liberal angst is concern that the scale of the cuts may be overstated, at least in the short term. While the sequester orders the White House to withdraw $85 billion in spending authority from affected agencies in the fiscal year that ends in September, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that agencies will reduce actual spending by only about $44 billion, with the remaining cuts carried over into future years.
The White House has to withdraw the money? What if The One doesn't want to? Can't he just issue another Executive Command?
Compared with total 2013 discretionary spending, that's a cut of less than 4 percent.
I wish I could lose 4% of my body fat.
The impact will be magnified, however, because of certain exemptions -- military payrolls, for example -- and because it must be compressed into seven months rather than being spread out over 12. As a result, some agencies, notably the Pentagon, are contemplating cuts to nonexempt accounts of as much as 17.5 percent.

Still, managers at many agencies have been bracing for the cuts, postponing purchases and new hires so they can protect employees and the public from the very disruptions to core services that would draw headlines.
My wife lost a real estate sale this week when the buyer got a furlough notice.
"This is the Catch-22," said Richard Kogan, a former Obama budget official now at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "The problem would be solved faster if it was literally a disaster. But making it a disaster is not what agency managers really want to do."
Really? We'll see about that. I bet the White House gives bonus points for the biggest disaster.
Liberals complain that the White House has been slow to raise the alarm. Four months ago, Obama said during the final presidential debate that the sequester "will not happen." Throughout his reelection campaign, the White House refused to discuss the cuts or plan for their implementation.
More like slow to solve the problem; slow to lead.

The WaPo goes on at some length to describe the coming pain.
On Thursday, the National Parks Service announced that furloughs would curtail services at such popular destinations as Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. And on Friday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released a list of airfields that could close due to Federal Aviation Administration furloughs.

Conservatives were unimpressed. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan "fired more than 10,000 air traffic controllers. There could have been massive disruption. But there wasn't," said Chris Edwards, a budget expert at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Meanwhile, the screaming from state officials and private industry has also been muted. Governors in Washington for their annual winter meeting bemoaned the cuts, but while Democrats demanded an end to them, Republicans merely asked for more flexibility.

Chicken farmers in Delaware and Maryland are lobbying against cuts to food safety inspectors; the American Hospital Association is pushing to ease cuts to medical research; and defense industry executives have been prowling the halls of the Capitol for months.
Everybody is too important to have their trough reduced.
But there's no grand stop-the-sequester movement. And unless the public starts complaining, the AEI's Makin said Democrats' best hope for persuading Republicans to reconsider the sequester may be a new recession.
What's the Pubs best hope for convincing the Dims?
The sequester is forecast to slice 0.6 percentage points from economic growth this year, and destroy 750,000 jobs.
But just think how many would have been destroyed without the sequester! It doesn't work that way?
"By summertime, if the economy gets much weaker, then the pressure to do something starts to grow," Makin said. "Then the blame game will really get exciting, because Democrats will say if Republicans hadn't been so awful and mean, we wouldn't be having a recession now. And the Republicans will all panic."
Panic, unless they have a plan and a mouthpiece. And a platform to speak from.
With Congress headed back to Washington Monday, Republicans so far seem to be having no second thoughts. The Senate plans to vote this week on its proposal to replace the sequester through January in part with higher taxes on millionaires, but Democrats acknowledge the measure has no chance of passing.
Grandstanding, if the Pubs were doing it.
"Having no cuts at all is far, far, far worse," said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "So I see no alternative right now."
The Sequester - Halfway There.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/24/2013 08:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Rumor has it the DC and surrounding areas will be especially hard hit…snicker snicker.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2013 10:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Cuts will be implemented so as to inflict serious pain to the maximum number of people so they will demand their representatives 'fix' things by restoring spending cuts. It's how budget 'cuts' have been done for decades (that I know of) at all levels of government.
Posted by: Glenmore || 02/24/2013 11:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh yes, I'm the great pretender
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 11:56 Comments || Top||

#4  And of course there's:
The Other Sequestration That No One Is Talking About
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 13:30 Comments || Top||

#5  I have a simple solution: return all federal spending, social security excepted, to 2007 levels.

You remember how heartless 2007 was, right? How we weren't spending nearly enough money? Oh, right, that was Dubya's last full budget before the financial crisis, and even the Democrats were lamenting the spending and the $300 billion deficit.

Fact is, we managed to get by in 2007, and we could get by on 2007 spending today. We'd cinch a few belts.

The biggest complaint I have about the deficit and the spending today is this: not the amount of spending, not the size of the deficit, but the fact that I can't tell what we're getting for all that extra spending. We have a trillion-dollar plus deficit. Where's it all going?

If I max'd all my credit cards, took a signature loan, blew through all my savings, and cracked open my 401k, eventually I'd be flat busted and have to pay up. But at least I'd know where all the money went and what a good time I had before that day.

Where's all the money going? I'm reasonably good at reading a budget sheet, I do it at work frequently enough. But I look at a summary of the federal budget and then I look around me. The roads are a mess. The poor are still poor. The environment isn't any cleaner. The military is getting downsized. We have no green cars or green anything. Inflation is up, unemployment is up, personal and business spending are down.

Where's all the federal spending?
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 13:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Steve - The money has mostly been flushed down every rathole in every blue state mismanaged big city or its been blown away by a windmill stimulus investment thats why if you are a working person you can't see any evidence of it.
Posted by: warthogswife || 02/24/2013 16:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Myself, Steve, I like 1969. We had a large army fighting a war to protect us from Communism, landed a man on the moon, and were smack in the middle of the largest public works project in history - the Interstate Highway System. But the Feds only built the Interstates (80%) - the states have to maintain them. That's why they're falling apart.

Another big difference is that 1969 was - more or less - the start of the War on Poverty.

Many things cost more today - not just from inflation. Building and making things was a lot easier in 1969. Now the environment is a lot cleaner, but that cost goes to - who else? - the consumer. How many permits would it take to build an oil refinery? That cost, and the cost of all the extra hardware, also come to the consumer.

It's so easy to spend other people's money. That's the real problem.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/24/2013 17:20 Comments || Top||

#8  Bobby I'm thinking it's high time we went to the peace table with Poverty. Poverty's getting too damn expensive to fight and is a fierce foe.
Let's learn to co-exist with poverty, maybe even have a detente of some sort.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 18:51 Comments || Top||

#9  1969-War on Poverty
2013-War on Wealth
Posted by: Grunter || 02/24/2013 19:20 Comments || Top||

#10  "The money has mostly been flushed down every rathole in every blue state mismanaged big city"

Don't forget into the pockets of Bambi's cronies, warthogswife. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 19:45 Comments || Top||

#11  All it will really hurt is the Federal Employee. A few of which are overpaid, most of which are suitably paid, and more than a few that are underpaid for the type of work they are doing.
Contractors, politicians and the usual pack of rent seekers, ticks and interlocutors will still be right up front to slop around in the trough. So I'm a little confused why everyone is soooo excited about this. Mark my words, there will be no "savings" in monies spent, it will just go out another door as "entitlements" or some other horseshit giveaway. The muslim brunderband may get an aircraft carrier next year or something.
Other than that, you may well succeed in lowering the bar and making a Federal job as shitty as the lowest paying equivalent in the private sector, but then you'll get the same quality employee for the money.
Supporting your agency's mission is great and all, but it wont pay the rent in and of itself.
Be careful what you (collectively) wish for, it looks like you may just be going to get it.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 19:45 Comments || Top||

#12  FOX NEWS AM > POLITICAL INSIDER > PAT CADDELL, former Democrat Pol Strategist, Pollster for Jimmy Carter = opined that POTUS Bammer has the advantage because the GOP ...

- DOESN'T KNOW HOT TO FIGHT OBAMA + DEMS.
- ARE COLLECTIVELY "UNWILLING TO LEARN TO HOW TO FIGHT" OBAMA + DEMS - IIRC, the GOP-Right wanna do it their way + only their way even iff its NOT working.

CADDELL = the GOP will likely lose the Midterms + 2016, until they change NO MATTER WHAT CANDIDATE(S) THEY CHOOSE.

----------------

In the game of OWG-NWO ...

BOLSHEVIKS = WINNER.
MENSHEVIKS = LOSER.

We all know what the Bolsheviks did to the Mesnheviks, while Radical Islam will just behead the BOTH of 'em.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2013 20:58 Comments || Top||

#13  The thing is THE MOB now. Not competent in protection, but they spread your money out like RAIN!

Notice where the water cuts off? The only true legitimate operation of The Executive Branch.
Posted by: newc || 02/24/2013 22:53 Comments || Top||

#14  Be careful what you (collectively) wish for, it looks like you may just be going to get it.

Unfortunately, bigjim-CA, this is one of those pay now/pay later thingies. Or pain now/pain later, if you will. We've been borrowing from the kids for a couple of generations now, and the debt has gotten too big for the kids to absorb. We as a nation are going to finally have to make some decisions about what we are no longer willing to have the government do, and either turn it over to the private sector or give it up altogether. Unfortunately, the good, hardworking government workers like you, who are not responsible for the situation, happen to be the ones caught in the avalanche.

The alternative being to become a Greece, laughingstock of the world.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 23:21 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Rant Paul to block Brennan nom until drone question answered
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 06:59 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Arab by the name of Ammar Asim Faruq sought in Vegas, Bellagio shoot out
Sometimes uses the alias Harris and was said to be involved in human trafficking.
Doesn't look like an Arab in the mugshot that goes with the article. Looks like a street yo, complete with tattoos running up his neck.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 06:23 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Arab" is a linguistic term. If he speaks it, he is one. If not, a poseur.
Posted by: borgboy || 02/24/2013 16:09 Comments || Top||

#2  I would think, rather, a Black Muslim or a regular Muslim, converted during his last prison stay.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 19:35 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
New Russian Fleet For Cubana
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 05:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Throwing more money away are we. I guess its them or China these days.
Posted by: Dale || 02/24/2013 7:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Cuber still has a Russ gun at their head. Debts not forgive, fighting hard over how the debt should be denominated, old rubles, new rubles or Bolivars (LOL not really I made that one up).
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 12:02 Comments || Top||

#3  What, you expected Boeing?
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/24/2013 12:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Y'know, for a bunch of commies and "ex" commies the Russians are pretty good at squeezing money out of poor people in the third world.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 02/24/2013 13:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Tupolev Tu-204 is the Russian equivalent of a B757. The Il-96 is a wide-body plane. Neither is exactly setting the commercial aviation world on fire.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 13:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Iff the Cold War is any measure, Quba's debt is notsomuch "forgiven" as temporarily "set aside" as per bilateral concessions.

Despite the Chinese being back at Gwadar, I'm sure IRAN would still like a Russian fleet close-by - ANY CHANCE OF MILACTION AGZ IRAN'S NUCPROGS BY THE US-ALLIES IS GETTING MORE DIFFICULT BY THE HOUR.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/24/2013 18:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
The Bating Game: Obama Doubles Down
By law, on Friday the executive must begin to cut $85 billion from federal spending. Though, as is his wont, the president is blaming the Republicans for what he claims is a draconian measure. No less a Washington chronicler of events than Bob Woodward of the Washington Post considers that a gross distortion of the truth

[T]he automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of [Treasury Secretary nominee Jack] Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors -- probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Lying about who's responsible is only part of the story; the president, with the connivance of the press, is trying to scare the public about the effects of the necessary cuts and proposes yet another expensive, pointless program.

Lucianne.com characterizes the scare effort as threatening: "Dead babies in the water, poisoned milk, catburgers at Mickey Dee's -- anything is possible." That wisecrack's not far off the mark. Here's Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, chair of the DNC.

Well, everything is -- everything would be delayed. You're going to have massive indiscriminate cuts to education, to health care research, you're going to have research grants that won't get funded. I mean, the decisions that we make now, letting the sequester kick in, have short-term effects that affect people's daily lives, but they also have significant long-term effects. If a university isn't able to hire a researcher or -- because the grant doesn't come through -- that researcher never does groundbreaking work that could save thousands of lives later on down the road. I mean, this is dramatically irresponsible. It's irresponsible for our economy and the impact on it. It's irresponsible to, in terms of the impact it would leave on the middle class and working families. The only ones who get protected are the wealthiest, most fortunate Americans. But that appears to be the Republicans' goal. And it's just baffling. How could they possibly continue to only care about people who are already doing really well who are the only ones that would be shielded from the impact of sequester cuts?

It's not as if the trillions in debt racked up by the administration have accomplished much more than feeding Obama's cronies and buying him political support with our money. The examples are too numerous to do the topic justice in this space. Let's review some that even the media has not been able to fully erase from the short-lived memories of a significant number of voters, so that Republicans who need to make a more forceful case for necessary cuts can credibly note the monumental waste.

Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 05:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The only ones who get protected are the wealthiest, most fortunate Americans....

...or people living in Blue States which Champ will not punish.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 6:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Need to organize the Citizens Brigade again to flood the internet with counter images (photo and textual) of stupid and inappropriate stuff the government is continuing to spend money on when the WH and the Media make the big propaganda push of the 'effects' of the cuts with the usual 'poor and suffering' lies. Time to pull the curtain away to show the real wizard at work manipulating the story.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 8:49 Comments || Top||

#3  $85 million? That is chicken feed by Washington standards. What is that about a day's worth of spending? You'd think the world was coming to an end with all the hype and hysteria the Donks are putting out.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 14:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Hype and hysteria? I forgot to add "lies."
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 14:52 Comments || Top||

#5  JohnQC: looks like about an hour and a half.
Posted by: KBK || 02/24/2013 21:53 Comments || Top||

#6  But that would be 23 million, not 23 billion. So, like bullets purchased, it's easy to lose track of an exponent or three...about two days, half a percent.
Posted by: KBK || 02/24/2013 21:59 Comments || Top||

#7  s/23/85/g
Posted by: KBK || 02/24/2013 22:00 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Multiple insurgents captured in raid targeting IMU leader
Afghan and coalition troops captured six insurgents during a raid two days ago that targeted a leader from the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The security forces launched the raid in northern Afghanistan in Kunduz district, Kunduz province. This is the seventh operation targeting the group so far this year, based on ISAF press release compiled by The Long War Journal.

ISAF did not release many details regarding the operation or the target but did indicate that the targeted leader "is allegedly instrumental in manufacturing, procuring and distributing improvised explosive devices for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in the province." ISAF did reveal to The Long War Journal that the fighters arrested were Afghan and affiliated with the IMU.

However, ISAF said that "there are no indications of foreign involvement" which contradicts their affiliation with the IMU, who's leadership is based in Pakistan's tribal agency of North Waziristan. When questioned by The Long War Journal on IMU's foreign ties, specifically with its leadership in Pakistan, a spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) responded as follows:

Speaking from my USFOR-A perspective, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US Department of State in 2000. This FTO designation plays a critical role in our fight against terrorism and helps us curtail support for terrorist activities.

This is a great indication that ISAF believes Afghanistan remains a central front in combating foreign terrorist networks, however lacks clarity of how al Qaeda and its affiliates, such as the IMU, are operating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

ISAF has indicated numerous times in the past, in its own press releases, that the IMU's leadership cadre is based in Pakistan, and the Afghan IMU network takes direction from those Pakistan-based leaders. For instance, when IMU's top leader for Afghanistan was captured in 2011, ISAF said he was "a key conduit between the senior IMU leadership in Pakistan and senior Taliban leadership in Afghanistan."

"He assisted both groups by directing insurgent movement for training and operations between the two countries, coordinating suicide, explosive device, and mortar attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout northern Afghanistan," ISAF stated in the press release announcing his capture.

Based on The Long War Journal's study of the IMU, the group continues to exercise control of the network in Afghanistan. Abu Usman Udil, the previous leader of the IMU who was killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan in April 2012, was instrumental in ramping up the IMU's operations in Pakistan. His successor, Usman Ghazi, is said to be equally committed to the fight in Afghanistan.

It may be the case that the six IMU fighters captured two days ago were Afghan, but it is highly unlikely that the network they are involved with is not receiving support and guidance from across the border in Pakistan.

Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 01:12 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
The Debate We Have to Win, Otherwise We Lose the Country
Recently a discussion of this story about DC Comics being pressured by homosexual activists to fire one of its writers because he’s on the board of the National Organization of Marriage prompted vigorous debate on my Facebook wall. While perusing through the various comments, it was obvious there still exists much confusion in our country today about the term “rights.”

There are two types of rights: unalienable and contractual.

Sometimes referred to as a natural right (i.e. “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” reference from The Declaration of Independence), an unalienable right is a right that comes from God and thus can be accessed in your natural state without consent from another party because it existed before you were born, and will still exist in nature after you die. It’s inherent to being made in the image of God.

Should another party attempt to stop you from accessing your unalienable (or natural) rights they are guilty of a crime, oppression, tyranny, or all of the above. For example, I do not require anyone’s consent to breathe air for it is foundational to my natural state of being. However, should you attempt to stop me from breathing then you are guilty of assault, battery, manslaughter, or murder if you’re ultimately successful.

If it requires consent from another party to access it then it is not an unalienable (aka natural) right, because you have to impose upon someone else’s unalienable (aka natural) rights in the process. Taking someone else’s person or property without their consent is what we call a crime.

Nowadays some are claiming unalienable (or natural) rights that don’t exist.

For example, you do not have an unalienable (or natural) right to marry or have sex with whomever you want, because partaking of each of those activities requires consent from another party. We call people who believe they can have sex (aka “physical intimacy”) with whomever they want rapists and put them in prison whenever we can. We call people who believe they can marry whomever they want cult leaders, sultans, kings, and tyrants because they’re acquiring harems and concubines.

Likewise, you also don’t have a natural right to live where you want as I’ve heard some claim on issues like immigration. To believe that requires you to believe that private property doesn’t exist. You can’t have it both ways. If you believe I have the right to defend my own property (which our founders absolutely did), then you also have to believe that “we the people” have the right to defend our own property as well. In a “government by the consent of the governed” that property in this case are the borders and lands of these United States of America. We own them and they are our private property. Therefore, we have a right to possess and police them accordingly.

Rights that require the consent of another party are contractual rights.
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 00:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The one problem---you ain't gonna win this debate with words.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/24/2013 1:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Interestingly, I am told "same sex couples" [married or otherwise] have now been granted the "right" to military spousal benefits.

It was never about equality, was it ?

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 2:40 Comments || Top||

#3  ..no, it was and is about power. All else is a rationalization. It's part of the urban bubble civilization that no longer understands its dependency upon the non-urban environment to sustain it and merrily goes about undermining and destroying the very source for its own existence.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 8:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Usually after a big social backlash the offending parties are "brought low".
They should really consider the course they have taken, and I mean that of all "activists".
History repeats, we have lived in a time of gentile western behavior, but it has not always been like this.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 15:31 Comments || Top||


Europe
'When will struggle begin against that sacred cow Israel?'
The extension of Hitler's anti- Semitism dressed up as pro-Palestinian ideology in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s plays an important role in a new book on terrorism and anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic.

The book's title is a quote from left-wing terrorist Dieter Kunzelmann: "When Will the Struggle Begin Against that Sacred Cow Israel?" and is splashed across the hardcover edition of the massive tome. The subtitle reads "On the anti-Semitic Roots of German Terrorism."

The nearly 900-page book by Dr. Wolfgang Kraushaar hit bookstores and magazine shops on Friday, triggering riveting reviews in the German media about the origins of leftist anti-Semitic terrorism.

Kraushaar is a political scientist at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research.

Die Welt headlined its article on Friday, "The repressed murder of Jews during the 1970s."

"Why is this chapter of German history not well known?" the article asks in connection with Kraushaar's book. "In 1970, 55 people died within 11 days caused by bomb package attacks, an arson attack and attempted plane hijackings." The goal of the attacks, writes Mara Delius, from Die Welt, was to kill "Israelis and Jews."

The arson attack took place at the Jewish community center in Munich and the attempted hijacking of an El Al flight at the Munich-Riem airport. A Palestinian terrorist group detonated hand grenades and killed a young Israeli passenger. Nine other people were severely wounded.
Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 00:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Good Morning
Posted by: badanov || 02/24/2013 00:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Claire Cooper [English][Filmography](age 34)



Bangers & Mash

English Women Who Bathe


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 02/24/2013 2:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I'll be taking dinner in the Stanhope. Extra onion gravy please, and tell Ms. Cooper not to forget my Jameson's.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 2:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Intelligent design.

There, I said it.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/24/2013 3:21 Comments || Top||

#4  "Most stately homes just use a rope barrier to stop the public going upstairs but not this one."
(see lower right comment in photograph)

nice looking "barrier" - wolf sound
Posted by: Cleating Ebbavish1197 || 02/24/2013 8:32 Comments || Top||

#5  Looks like Ms. Cooper could use a little extra trainng in stairway safety; i would be happy to offer my assisstance.......
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/24/2013 11:17 Comments || Top||


Africa North
65 Islamic Rebels, 13 Chad Troops Killed In Mali
[Ynet] The Chadian army says that its troops killed 65 Islamic bully boy rebels and destroyed five vehicles in fierce fighting northern Mali.

The Chadian military said in a statement Saturday on state broadcasting that 13 Chadian soldiers were also killed and six were maimed in the fighting Friday in northern Mali. The statement said the festivities were in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains of northeastern Mali.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Report: Rebels Lay Siege To Scud Launching Site
[Ynet] Battles between Assad's forces, rebels continue to claim victims from both sides with civilians caught in the crossfire; dozens killed on Saturday

The ongoing Syrian civil war saw dozens of Syrians killed on Saturday with no sign of the violence dying down after more than two years of fighting.

Al Arabiya TV reported that 79 people were killed across Syria Saturday and some 90 other bodies were taken from underneath the rubble in Aleppo following army Arclight airstrikes.

Meanwhile,
...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system...
locals active on social networks quoted Al Arabiya as saying that rebel forces were laying siege to the 155th brigade in the outskirts of Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
where the army is launching Scud missiles at the north.

On Friday, rebels reported that the Syrian army had bombed two districts in the city of Aleppo. According to the reports, the army targeted civilian homes burying entire families under the rubble.

Video footage showed buildings on fire and victims being rushed to hospitals in cars. A British human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
activist said that 30 houses had been destroyed in the shelling.

According to another report, rebels broke into the Baath Party headquarters in the city of Khan Aranbe in the Golan Heights, several miles from the Syria-Israel border.

Sources said the rebels killed locals, seized weapons, set the building on fire and captured a ruling party member.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  I'm loving the repeling devices in the illustration. Were they real? Off frame left is a giant safe on a wooden crane......
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 1:49 Comments || Top||

#2  A good man could climb to the underside and generally avoid the timber baskets. The boiling water and flaming tarred arrows were a bitc* however. Fok the ladders. Spent my time on the arbalests.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 3:36 Comments || Top||


Science
F-35 grounded due to engine problems
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe this doesn't help either.
The F-35 Could Explode In Midair If Struck By Lightning
Where do they get them from, import from China through K-Mart?

Posted by: tipper || 02/24/2013 5:33 Comments || Top||

#2  And it ain't cheap. Talk about defense cuts, someone has to pay for pushing programs that are not financially sustainable. By projection of cost of system, one day they'll reach a point where they'll only be able to afford one aircraft. I guess they'll switch between days for it to be shared by the air force and navy, with the marines getting it on leap day once every four years. [file under - self inflicted wound]
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 9:06 Comments || Top||

#3  OBIGGS is not new technology; so it appears to be a tweaking of the output. It's cousin, OBOGGS is used in all front line fighters today. Both systems separate oxygen and nitrogen molecules, keep one and dump the other overboard.
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/24/2013 11:29 Comments || Top||

#4  I think that an F-22 is pictured.
For 1 F-22 we could buy 5 F-15.
For 1 F-35 we could buy 8 F-15.
Posted by: irishrageboy || 02/24/2013 16:06 Comments || Top||

#5  According to reports of exercises, if we buy one F22, it doesn't matter how many F15s the other side has, until we run out of air-to-air missiles or the F22 pilot has to pee.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 02/24/2013 20:23 Comments || Top||

#6  ...or needs untainted oxygen.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 21:46 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan to contact Interpol over Maulvi Faqir: Rehman Malik
[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
on Saturday said Pakistain would soon be contacting the Interpol for the handing over of Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, a senior commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) recently captured in Afghanistan, DawnNews reported.

The Taliban capo was captured on Monday by Afghan intelligence personnel in a border area and the Foreign Office had on Thursday asked the Afghan government to hand him over to Pakistain.

On the issue of dialogue with the TTP, Malik said the Pak Taliban had been speaking of holding talks with the government but did not appear serious on the matter.

The minister advised the TTP to adopt the path of peace and to constitute a team which could be delegated the task of holding a dialogue with the government.

Malik moreover said that the armed forces and intelligence agencies were doing an outstanding job and requested politicians to refrain from suggesting intelligence failures in the wake of terrorist attacks.

He said the principal target of the forces of Evil was Islamabad and added that the government would act with full force against those involved in terrorist activities in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Hazaras demand joint parliamentary session over Quetta killings
[Dawn] The Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) has demanded of the federal government to convene joint session of the parliament to discuss the killings of ethnic Shia Hazaras in Quetta.

Addressing a presser on Saturday, HDP Central Chairman Abdul Khaliq Hazara said that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf should summon the intelligence agencies to brief all political forces on what he called "the genocide of Hazaras in Quetta".

"We have buried more than 1,200 people during last few years," Hazara told news hounds. He claimed that the victims of assassinations and suicide kabooms also included a large women and kiddies.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Two ASWJ men among seven shot dead in city
[Dawn] Seven men, including two holy mans said to be associated with the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and an equal number of coppers, were bumped off in the city on Friday, police said.

They said that Maulana Dilfaraz Mauavia, 45, and his associate Haji Usman were targeted by two men riding a cycle of violence near the Denim Chowrangi within the remit of the SITE-A cop shoppe.

The two men suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where Maulana Mauavia was pronounced dead on arrival while Haji Usman died during treatment, said SITE SP Ali Asif.

He said that the ASWJ claimed that Maulana Mauvia was associated with the party, while the second victim was said to be a former student of Jamia Binoria.

An ASWJ front man said that Maulana Mauvia was a leader of the party's Baldia Town chapter and he along with his associate Haji Usman was heading home after offering Friday prayers.

Late Friday night, two ASWJ activists were targeted in the Gulbahar area, the police said.

The officials said that Naveed Ahmed and Muhammad Sohail were sitting near a shop in Phoolwali Gali where they were fired at in a drive-by shooting. The maimed were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where Naveed died during treatment. The killings took place at a time when ASWJ workers were staging protest demonstrations in different parts of the city over assassinations of its activists and supporters.

Two coppers bumped off

Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, the spittle had reached unprecedented levels...
two coppers were rubbed out in different areas of the city, officials said.

They added that police constable Akhtar Ali was bumped off in the Metroville area of Site.

The police said that the police constable was heading home from work on a motorbike when he was targeted by gunnies riding a cycle of violence.

The victim was posted in the Site-B cop shoppe.

The police shifted the body to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

A young police official was rubbed out in Manghopir on Friday night, officials said.

They added said that police constable Nadeem Baloch, 28, was riding a bike when he was targeted within the remit of the Manghopir bazaar cop shoppe.

The police said that the victim was not in uniform.

They shifted the body to the Civil Hospital 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...
'>Bloody Karachi for medico-legal formalities.

Killing in North Bloody Karachi

A young man was bumped off in what the police described as a targeted attack in North Bloody Karachi on Friday.

The police said that gunnies riding a cycle of violence fired at Maqsood Ali, 32, who was returning home after offering Friday prayers in Sector 5-C-2 within the jurisdiction of the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri cop shoppe.

He was rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
He's dead, Jim!
on arrival, they said.

North Bloody Karachi SP Syed Salman Hussain said that the victim was not active in any political or religious party. However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
the victim's elder brother, Hafiz Ahmed Ali, was an office-bearer of the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability...
in Bloody Karachi.

Man rubbed out

A young man was rubbed out in the New Bloody Karachi Industrial Area on Friday evening, police said.

They said that Mohammad Kashif and his friend Faisal were having tea outside an auto-workshop when gunnies riding a cycle of violence pulled up there, pumped two bullets in Kashif's head and rode away, said North Bloody Karachi SP Hussain.

It was not immediately clear whether the victim had affiliation with any political or religious party, the police said.

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

Killing in Korangi

A middle-aged man was killed in Korangi on Friday, police said.

They said that gunnies riding a motorbike opened fire on a jeep near Singer Chowrangi within the remit of the Awami Colony cop shoppe and rode away. The bullets hit Abdul Sattar, 40, who was rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where he was pronounced dead.
He's dead, Jim!
on arrival.

The police were not sure about the motive for the killing.

They said that the victim was previously affiliated with the proscribed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain
...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts...

However,
a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth...
the ASWJ, believed to be the reincarnation of the banned SSP, did not own the victim as their worker or supporter.

Minor girl found 'raped', murdered

The body of a six-year-old girl was found at a desolate place in Gulshan-e-Iqbal on Friday.

Police said that the girl had gone missing on Thursday noon in Sikandar Goth and her father, a tailor by profession, lodged a report regarding her disappearance with the Sachal cop shoppe after he failed to find her.

He informed the police that his daughter was playing outside the home but did not return.
On Friday evening, the body was found in a deserted lane within the remit of the Mobina Town cop shoppe. The body was shifted to the JPMC for a post-mortem examination.

Although, the findings of the post-mortem examination were not immediately known, the police suspected that the little girl had been subjected to a sexual assault before being murdered. There were marks of strangulation around the neck, the police said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan


Africa Subsaharan
US deploys Predator drones to Niger
WASHINGTON: The United States has deployed several Predator drones to Niger to fly surveillance missions in support of French forces in Mali, a US defence official said Friday.

The unarmed robotic aircraft are flying out of Niamey at a base with a 100-strong contingent of Air Force personnel, the defence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Consistent with our partners in the region, this decision allows for ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations within the region," the defence official said.

President Barack Obama announced earlier on Friday that the US troops were sent to the West African country to provide "support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region."

Officials insisted the drones sent to Niger would not be equipped with missiles and instead would be used purely for spying on militants in Mali.
Sure. Here, pull my other finger...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Notice they didn't use. the words bombs, guns or lasers?
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 02/24/2013 17:19 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has safe havens in Punjab
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday said Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) had safe havens in Punjab.

The Punjab government should take action against the criminals of the banned outfit, he told reporters at a ceremony at Police Lines.
Hunt down terrorists? What a great idea! Mr. Minister, sir, how do you do it?
The interior minister said Pakistan will soon request the Interpol for repatriation of Tehrik-e-Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir from Afghanistan. Maulvi Faqir was arrested by the Afghan forces from border area a few days ago.
I'm sure Karzi will just hand him right back to you. You can then stash Maulvi in the Abbottabad Hilton until it's safe for him to go back to the Frontier...
Malik said that Maulvi Faqir was involved in a series of terror attacks in the country. “We want his deportation to Pakistan so that action can be initiated against him in accordance with the law,” he added.

Replying to a question about Taliban’s dialogue offer, Malik said first they (Taliban) should demonstrate seriousness for talks by surrendering their arms.
His staff continued to laugh at the minister's joke long after the press conference was over...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi


Police mobile attacked in Nowshera; one killed
[Dawn] A policeman was killed in a hand grenade attack on a police mobile in northwestern Pakistain's Nowshera town, DawnNews reported on Saturday.

The incident occurred on the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
-Islamabad motorway near Rashkai.

According to district police officer (DPO) Mohammad Hussain, one policeman was killed and three others injured in the grenade attack. He added that the attackers also opened fire on the mobile after throwing the grenade at it.

Furthermore, DPO Hussain said two snuffies were killed in a counterattack by the police.

Sources say that a search operation was underway in the area to search it for more thugs.

In a separate incident in Peshawar, unknown assailants murdered a community police officer in an area falling within the limits of the Khazana cop shoppe.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Europe
Embrace Moderate Muslim Leaders
[Ynet] Prominent rabbi writes that increased willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to denounce attacks on Jews mustn't be overlooked

The delegates to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations deserve our united applause for travelling to Gay Paree last week to express solidarity with French Jewry, which has endured a rising number of violent anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, including the horrific incident in Toulouse
...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France...
last March in which an Islamist bad turban shot up a Jewish day school, killing three schoolchildren and a rabbi.

In that context, it is also significant that the Presidents' Conference delegation visited the Shoah Memorial in the suburban community of Drancy in the company of Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy. Imam Chalghoumi was among 70 European Mohammedan and Jewish leaders who took part in the First Gathering of European Mohammedan and Jewish Leaders, which was initiated by The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and held in Brussels in December, 2010.

At that historic event, the first conference bringing together Jewish and Mohammedan leaders from across the continent, participants resolved to work together to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan bigotry and defend ritual practices sacred to both faiths like male circumcision and ritual slaughter that have been under attack in recent years by courts and legislative bodies in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

The encouraging reality is that in the past several years, many top Mohammedan leaders in La Belle France and across Europe have been speaking out against anti-Semitic attacks, even when carried out by fellow Mohammedans, and vowing to stand together with their Jewish counterparts in opposing anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan bigotry. Many Jews are unaware that in the wake of the killings in Toulouse, large numbers of French Mohammedans took part in interfaith demonstrations and candlelight vigils in Gay Paree, Marseilles, Nice, Lyon, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Lille and other cities. Major French Mohammedan organizations, including the French Council of the Mohammedan Faith and the Great Mosque of Gay Paree strongly condemned the attack as being antithetical to the fundamental precepts of Islam.

Working through organizations like the Amitie Judeo-Musulmane de La Belle France (Jewish-Mohammedan Friendship Society of La Belle France), many French imams have made trips to Auschwitz and subsequently issued moving statements denouncing Holocaust denial. In a compelling gesture of reconciliation, 15 French Mohammedan leaders followed the lead of 10 American Mohammedan leaders in sending an open letter to the chairman of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, Khaled Mashaal, urging that Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit, who had been held by Hamas for more than five years, should be released on humanitarian grounds. Shalit was released just over a month after the letters were dispatched.

La Belle France is hardly the only European country in which this positive Mohammedan engagement with the Jewish community has been taking place. The willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to speak out publicly against violent anti-Semitic attacks carried out by their co-religionists began in the United Kingdom in January 2009, when in the wake of an upsurge of attacks on Jews by Mohammedans during the Israel-Gazoo war of that year, more than 20 prominent British Mohammedans signed a joint letter denouncing anti-Semitic attacks and calling for continued Mohammedan vigilance against anti-Semitism.

In the Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea, local Jews and Mohammedans from the Crimean Tatar community have formed an alliance to fight rising hate crimes against both communities. Only a week ago, leading Mohammedan and Jewish leaders gathered in the German city of Osnabruck for an event in which they strategized on how to work together to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan bigotry and to ensure that ritual practices sacred to both faiths are not circumscribed.

In short, while the growing number and growing violence of anti-Semitic attacks by Mohammedans in Europe is a deeply troubling phenomenon that must be combated, let us not overlook the greatly increased willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to denounce attacks on Jews and to stand with Jewish leaders against religious bigotry. Ongoing efforts to strengthen Mohammedan-Jewish relations by leaders in both communities play an indispensable role in protecting the security and well-being of Jews in countries in Europe and around the world with large and growing Mohammedan populations.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There ARE NO MODERATE MUSLIM leaders.

End of argument.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2013 1:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Is there any?
Until they teach their followers to live peacefully alongside other religions there will be no peace on this earth.
Posted by: Snomomp Schwarzeneggar3438 || 02/24/2013 4:22 Comments || Top||

#3  RJ, EMBRACE OXYMORONS.

Eschew inanity.
Posted by: Alanc || 02/24/2013 8:46 Comments || Top||

#4  It would appear, in Muslim culture, the definition of Moderate is just a tich above their savage brethren. That segment doesn’t engage in violence and at times will even denounce senseless individual acts. Now, ask the same folks if the Paleo’s blowing up population centers (aka; ‘Right to Resistance’) is justified and see it matches your definition of moderate.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2013 10:35 Comments || Top||

#5  I would give them credit if they say the same thing in Arabic, without a wink-wink
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 11:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Ok
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/24/2013 13:14 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
IRGC hacks foreign spy drone during military exercises
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared hacking of another foreign spy drone during the first day of Payambar-e Azam 8 (The Great Prophet 8) wargames, IRNA reported.

'For the first time, our special modern warfare task forces are conducting specialized operations,' Spokesman of the wargames added.

Sarkheili said the IRGC forces also tested targeting hypothetical enemies' drones, and used different types of UAVs in the wargames.

'In the other phases of the wargames, the reconnaissance as well as suicide drones, which are capable of attacking the enemies, have been used and their operational capabilities came under assessment,' the spokesman noted.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
Arab militia kills 50 in Darfur
KHARTOUM: An Arab militia firing heavy machine guns killed more than 50 people in Sudan’s Darfur region on Saturday, residents said, continuing unrest that has caused the largest displacement of people in years.

“They came on Land Cruisers, used Dushkas and they burned 30 houses killing 53 people,” said one resident of El Sireaf town, to which most of the 100,000 people displaced or severely affected by the earlier tribal fighting had fled. Another resident, who said he was wounded, also gave a figure of 53 dead.

The two said the attackers belonged to a militia of the Rezeigat tribe, which has been fighting rival Arabs from the Beni Hussein group since early January in the Jebel Amir gold mining area of North Darfur state.

“We are in the cemetery burying these people,” the first resident said, adding that the dead included two women and two children. The second said he had been wounded in the leg and when he went to the town’s hospital he found it filled with others who had been hurt in the attack.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian opposition to boycott international talks
Protesting the lack of global condemnation for atrocities in Syria, the country's main opposition coalition said Saturday it would not attend upcoming talks in Italy, Russia and the United States, DPA reported.

"Due to this shameful international position, the coalition has decided to suspend its participation in the Friends of Syria Conference of international powers due in Rome on Thursday and talks in Russia and the US," the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said.

The boycott decision came a day after dozens of people were reportedly killed in a missile attack by troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against a residential area in the northern city of Aleppo.

At least 80 people were killed on Saturday, including 31 in the embattled city of Aleppo, said activists. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops were using surface-to-surface missiles to drive rebels out of their strongholds in Aleppo. Both sides have been battling for months for control of Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Diyala governor wounded by splodydope
BAQUBA: The governor of Iraq's restive Diyala province was wounded in a suicide car bombing on Saturday, while a provincial elections candidate was killed in another attack, police and a doctors said.

The suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at Governor Omar al-Humairi's house in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, wounding him, killing two of his guards and injuring six more, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor said.

Humairi, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, became governor of Diyala, a province that suffers frequent attacks by militants, in September.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Sunni militants linked to the Al-Qaeda franchise in Iraq often target the security forces and government officials, and suicide bombings are a hallmark of the group.

Also on Saturday, Sheikh Hassan Hadi al-Janabi, a provincial elections candidate in Babil province, was killed south of Baghdad by a magnetic "sticky bomb" along with two of his relatives, a police captain and a doctor said.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran says it has brought down a spy drone 'of the enemy'
[Jpost] Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency says Iran's Revolutionary Guards brought down foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise; Pentagon front man notes that the Iranian did not specifically claim that the drone was American.
Iran has lots of enemies, and nowadays many of them have drones.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iran has lots of enemies, wonder which one?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2013 1:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Toys-R-Us says it's one of theirs.
Posted by: Grunter || 02/24/2013 8:26 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia New PM Starts Work on Forming Government
[An Nahar] Tunisia's prime minister-designate, Ali Larayedh, was to start work Saturday on forming a new government after his predecessor and fellow Islamist Hamadi Jebali stepped down in the face of a political deadlock.

Rached Ghannouchi, who heads the two men's Islamist party Ennahda, said the efforts were focused on enlarging the three-member ruling coalition to add another two parties.

The alliance currently groups Ennahda with two secular, center-left parties: President Moncef Marzouki's Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakatol.

The Ennahda leader said on Friday night that the aim was to bring Wafa, which is made of CPR dissidents, and independent Islamists of the Freedom and Dignity group into the government.

But a sticking point remains the attribution of the key posts of interior, justice and foreign ministers -- portfolios which the government's opponents want to go to independents, Ghannouchi acknowledged.

"The questions of neutrality... and the candidacy of members of the new government have not yet been resolved," he told the official news agency TAP.

Larayedh, the interior minister tapped by Marzouki to become the next prime minister, pledged on Friday to form a cabinet representing all Tunisians.

"We are going to enter the phase of forming a new government that will be for all Tunisian men and women, taking into account the fact that men and women have equal rights and responsibilities," he said.

Larayedh "will have 15 days to form a new government and present its plan" to the head of state, Marzouki's front man said, adding that the president urged him to do so "as quickly as possible because the country cannot wait any longer."

Ennahda had put forward Larayedh's name after its consultative council selected him on Thursday night.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Morsi Changes Elections' Date as ElBaradei Urges Boycott
[An Nahar] Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei
Egyptian law scholar and Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. After stepping down from his IAEA position ElBaradei attempted to horn in on the 2011 Egyptian protests which culminated in the collapse of the Mubarak regime. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization's Executive Committee.
on Saturday called for a boycott of Egypt's upcoming legislative elections, as the president rescheduled the first round after Copts complained it would clash with a Christian holiday.

"Called for parliamentary election boycott in 2010 to expose sham democracy. Today I repeat my call, will not be part of an act of deception," the Nobel Peace laureate and former head of the U.N. atomic watchdog wrote on Twitter.

Former foreign minister Jerry Lewis doppelgänger Amr Moussa
... who was head of the Arab League for approximately two normal lifespans, accomplishing nothing that was obvious to the casual observer ...
, another leader in the National Salvation Front (NSF), said many members of the opposition bloc were inclined to boycott the four-round election, but a final position had not yet been taken.

"There is a large group that wants a boycott, but it has not yet been discussed, and no decision has been taken," he told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Initially the election had been set to begin on April 27, with a new parliament to convene on July 6.

But the dates conflicted with pre-Easter and Easter holidays, prompting Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to announce new ones "in response to requests by Christian brothers," a reference to the Coptic Church, his office said Saturday.

A statement said the new starting date for the election would be April 22-23 instead of 27-28 which fell on the Christian holidays of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday.

The second round will take place on April 29-30 instead of May 4-5, to avoid interference with Easter weekend, the statement said, adding that as a result of the changes parliament was now set to convene on July 2, instead of July 6.

Earlier Father Rafiq Greish, the Catholic Church's front man in Egypt, told AFP that he spoke with the presidency, which "accepted" rescheduling the first round.

Many Copts fear that Morsi and his Islamist allies seek to marginalize the minority community which represents six to 10 percent of Egypt's 83-million population of mostly Sunni Moslems.

ElBaradei, who did not elaborate about his boycott call on Twitter, raised suspicion that the vote might be rigged, as was the case in a 2010 election under ousted long-time president Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
Leaders of the NSF, an alliance that brings together liberal and secular leaning groups, have previously proposed a postponement of the vote.

The coalition organized massive protests against Morsi in November and December after he adopted now-repealed powers that shielded his decisions from judicial review.

But anti-Morsi protests have slowed since he pushed through an Islamist-drafted constitution in a December referendum, with the mass rallies giving way to smaller, and often violent, protests.

The opposition, less organized than Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund, has insisted the president appoint a new government before the election while the presidency says the new parliament should have the right to appoint the cabinet.

The Brotherhood and Islamist allies dominated the last parliamentary election in 2011 that resulted in an Islamist-majority house which a court annulled on a technicality before Morsi's election last June.

But due to increased anti-Morsi sentiment, Hamdeen Sabahi, another NSF leader, has said the opposition coalition could now win up to 50 percent of seats in parliament if it chose to contest the election.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Army Deployment in Beirut's Cola after Bomb Exploded in the Region
[An Nahar] A bomb thrown by faceless myrmidons went kaboom! on Saturday in Beirut's Cola neighborhood, LBCI television reported.

MTV added that heavy gunfire was heard in the region after the bomb went kaboom!.

"Following the incident, army patrols have been deployed in the Cola neighborhood," LBCI said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I thought the Cola district was banned by Bloomberg.
Posted by: bman || 02/24/2013 11:42 Comments || Top||

#2  "Zam Zam district" was specifically exempted by Nanny Dipshit
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 12:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Allah Vodka all around!
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 18:36 Comments || Top||


Man Accused of Attacking Karami Convoy Handed Over to ISF after Being Released from Hospital
[An Nahar] Mohammed Youssef, a man under arrest for allegedly being involved in the shooting at Youth and Sports Minister Faisal Karami's convoy, was handed over to the security forces on Saturday after he had been shortly released by gunnies from the Islamic Hospital in the northern city of Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
, LBCI television reported.

Earlier on Saturday, an gang stormed the northern hospital and released Youssef by force, LBCI said.

The National News Agency elaborated: "The masked men came in two separate cars and threatened people present at the hospital with guns".

"They striped the security forces guarding Youssef's room of their weapons and rushed out with the locked away
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
man," it detailed.

OTV added: "The attackers headed towards (the northern region of) Bab al-Tabbaneh".

Minister Karami told radio Voice of Leb (93.3) that the gunnies "invaded the hospital, frightened everyone present there and attacked the coppers".

He remarked: "They fired gunshots into the air after releasing Youssef".

A car part of Karami's convoy was engulfed in flames in January following a grenade attack in Azmi street in Tripoli.

Karami had stated that the convoy was passing in the area when several cars came under gunfire

He told LBCI that "five of the bodyguards were maimed."
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Mosul Murders Mounting
A total of nine people were killed Saturday during clashes and in a blast in northern Iraq, where an alleged senior member of al-Qaeda was arrested, police said, reported dpa.

Five gunmen were killed during an exchange with police forces in Mosul city, which is located 400 kilometres north of Baghdad. The clashes erupted after gunmen began attacking the security checkpoint with grenades.

In western Mosul, two policemen were shot dead by an armed group while a roadside bomb killed two soldiers.

The incidents took place as troops arrested an alleged senior member of al-Qaeda in Mosul, home to one of the most diverse mix of ethnic and religious groups in the country.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq

#1  What are they trying to do - top Chicago's record?
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 0:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Mosul and LA, sister cities.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 3:05 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel Grapples With Terror Threats To Its Tourists In Nearby Countries
[Times of Israel] Ahead of Passover vacation rush, security officials working with Greek, Cypriot, Bulgarian counterparts to counter possible Hezbollah plots

Amid reports of new Hezbollah terror plans, Israeli security officials are working with their counterparts in several Mediterranean countries to ensure the safety of Israeli tourists ahead of the Passover holiday vacation rush.

Channel 10 News reported Friday that as testimony comes out of the Cyprus trial of Lebanese national Hosem Taleb Yaacoub, who confessed to being a member of the Hezbollah terror organization and staking out areas frequented by Israeli tourists, Israeli officials are visiting the Island and its neighbors, taking measures to thwart future attacks.

"Hezbollah considers its attack in Bulgaria last summer as a success and is eager to carry out additional attacks of a similar nature in the future," Channel 10 reported Friday night.

In July, a Hezbollah jacket wallah killed five Israelis and a local bus driver in the resort town of Burgas. The bomber took advantage of the fact that Israeli tourists were grouped together in buses transferring them from the airport to their hotels.

According to defense officials, Hezbollah has established terror infrastructures in Cyprus, Greece, Crete and Bulgaria, where cells, similar to the one Yaacoub belonged to, are already gathering intelligence to strike again.

Israelis traveling to those destinations are being urged to be extra cautious and vigilant, and to avoid gathering in large numbers.

"Right now Israel's main focus is on meeting with police and security officials in those countries, mapping out terror threats, gathering information and making their presence felt," the Channel 10 report said.

With regard to travel to places like Turkey and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Israelis are being strongly urged to stay away altogether.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran Probes Diplomat's Defection in Norway
[An Nahar] Iran said Saturday it is investigating the reported defection of one of its diplomats in Norway, with a front man suggesting it was due to personal problems, Mehr news agency said.

"Despite completing his mission, an administrative staffer at our embassy in Oslo has not yet returned to Tehran due to some personal problems, such as his child's education and family problems," said the foreign ministry's Ramin Mehmanparast.

"The issue is still being pursued," the front man said in a statement, adding the diplomat's mission was over and his successor was sent to Norway "a while ago".

He did not name the diplomat nor did he elaborate further.

Joergen Loevdal, the diplomat's lawyer, said on Friday that his client, who wished to remain anonymous, did not want to "comment in public on his reasons for doing this".

Posted to Norway in 2009, "the man is now seeking asylum," Loevdal said.

The Iranian embassy in Oslo did not comment on the issue when contacted by Agence La Belle France Presse on Friday.

The man is the fourth Iranian diplomat have sought protection in a Nordic country in three years.

Iran had rejected that the previous defections were politically motivated, despite reports suggesting the diplomats sought asylum to join opponents of President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad's 2009 disputed re-election and to protest human right abuses.

An Iranian MP had accused the three diplomats of having mental problems.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran

#1  not yet returned to Tehran due to some personal problems, such as his child's education and family problems,"

Kid needs a decent education and the wife said hell no I'm not going back to that hellhole.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  A severe case of lutefisk addiction?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/24/2013 13:04 Comments || Top||


Saqr Demands Questioning of al-Asir over Possession of Arms
[An Nahar] State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr demanded on Saturday Sidon cop shoppe to interrogate Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir over the possession of arms.

"Al-Asir will be questioned over the arms that were in the possession of his supporters on Friday," LBCI television said.

Later on Saturday, Asir issued a statement commenting on the call to interrogate him: "We urge concerned authorities to first put (Speaker Nabih) Berri and (Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hasan) Nasrallah on trial for their crimes".

Al-Asir, the imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah Mosque, and his supporters deployed Friday with their weapons around the Mosque, amid a heavy deployment by the army and security forces.

The anti-Hizbullah Salafist holy man said in a statement that "a number of young men who belong to the (Hizbullah-affiliated) Resistance Brigades, accompanied by members of 'Iran's party' (Hizbullah), roamed the area around the mosque while carrying visible weapons."

"They made provocative moves, prompting the mosque's guards to go on alert," al-Asir added.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Salafists


Home Front: Politix
Hagel's Damaged Brand
[Times of Israel] While they will no doubt lose the confirmation battle, Republicans already achieved victory in the policy war.

Few issues have focused Washington's contentious energies in recent weeks more than the nomination of former Nebraska senator and maverick Republican Chuck Hagel to the post of defense secretary.

Republican senators have delayed, chastised and publicly humiliated the nominee at every opportunity. Democrats, while quietly toeing the line for the president, have expressed their own reservations and even, discreetly, asked the White House if there wasn't a better candidate available.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hagel was not appointed to 'Preserve, Protect and Defend' the United States. He was appointed to dismantle the Armed Forces so the Defense Budget can be used for Obamacare and other highly successful social programs.
Posted by: Griter Crart8496 || 02/24/2013 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Not exactly. Panetta could have done that.

Hagel was nominated so that he could do all that and, when people complained, Champ could point out that it was all 'bipartisan' since Hagel is supposedly a Republican.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 0:48 Comments || Top||

#3  ...well, the breed known as a Beltway Republican, and while that has the highest endorsement of the RNC, it's just considered a social club of the DNC.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 9:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Hagel has been an outspoken critic of many of the signature Republican foreign policy positions of recent years…

I’m opposed to Hagel’s confirmation because he seems like a dimwit.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 02/24/2013 9:42 Comments || Top||

#5  I’m opposed to Hagel’s confirmation because he seems like a dimwit.
Posted by: DepotGuy


A charitable assessment I'd say. Quite charitable.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 11:07 Comments || Top||

#6  he was an awful appointee. His confirmation hearing was the most uninformed, ignorant, incompetent and embarrassing I've ever seen. He was appointed to be the "Republican that cut Defense" shield for Zero, and that's failed. He's shown that he has little if any Repub support, and anything he does will reflect back on Zero, not the GOP
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 11:21 Comments || Top||

#7  I'm opposed to Hagel's confirmation because he seems like a dimwit.

There is historical precedent though: didn't the Emperor Caligula appoint a horse to the Senate? OK, a horse and an ass are different, but let's not be pedantic.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/24/2013 11:43 Comments || Top||

#8  How about compromise? A "Horse's Ass".
Posted by: Sgt.D. T. || 02/24/2013 13:38 Comments || Top||

#9  Last I checked Horses will carry a Jewish man to safety, so not exactly a fair comparison.
Posted by: Charles || 02/24/2013 17:35 Comments || Top||


Africa North
ElBaradei calls for boycott
Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei Saturday called for a boycott of the forthcoming elections as a means of protesting against the government.

"Boycotting the election is the fastest way to expose fake democracy and confirm our credibility," he wrote on Twitter.
Also a great way to ensure you're not at the table after the election. Boycotts rarely work.
"(I) called for (a) parliamentary election boycott in 2010 to expose sham democracy. Today I repeat my call, (I) will not be part of an act of deception," he added.

ElBaradei is a leading member of the main opposition bloc, the National Salavation Front, which has yet to say if it will boycott or participate in the polls.

Egypt has been without a lower house of parliament since June, when the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the electoral rules were unconstitutional. The previous election had returned a vast majority for Islamist lawmakers. The Shura Council, or the upper house of parliament, temporarily holds legislative authority until the legislature is elected.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
Gunmen kill 5 in northeast Nigeria
Terrorists Gunmen on motorcycles have shot dead five people and injured several others in northeast Nigeria, the latest attack in the restive region, police said yesterday.

"Five people were killed in the attack on a group of people playing cards by terrorists gunmen riding on a motorcycle," said the police commissioner in Gombe state, Mohammed Sule.

He added that the attack in the Bagadaza neighbourhood of the state capital, Gombe city, was carried out by two terrorists assailants and that several people were injured, without providing figures.

Gombe has seen a series of targeted terrorist shootings in recent months, with some blamed on Boko Haram terrorists Islamists, an extremist terrorist group based in the neighbouring state of Borno.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram


India-Pakistan
Action against militants
[Dawn] THE demand for cracking down on beturbanned goon organizations has picked up in the wake of the Quetta blast last week which killed more than 90 people. The federal government has been taken to task for failing to protect lives and as tough questions are asked, the army has been heard denying any ties with the 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 ...
which grabbed credit for the attack. There has been a build-up of public anger and a number of statements and newspaper articles have pointed out the urgency of all parties closing ranks to defeat terrorist strikes carried out in the name of religion. But even if this mood is seen as holding out hope for a concerted drive against the beturbanned goons, in practical terms there is insufficient support by key players. News reports have gone to the extent of shaming political parties over striking convenient alliances with Islamic fascisti for political gains -- something which unfortunately is bound to be repeated when elections are held. There have been impassioned pleas for provincial governments, too, to come out of their comfort zones and contribute to the fight against the beturbanned goons. The government of Mian Shahbaz Sharif in Punjab has been a particular target of criticism on this count, and this criticism has increased after Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
stated the kaboom used in the Quetta blast had been procured in Lahore and renewed his call to the Punjab government to launch an operation against the LJ.

PML-N circles have reacted to the 'allegation' with the standard two-pronged argument. Party members have as per routine countered accusations of links with beturbanned goon groups by blaming opposing parties of having connections with the same beturbanned goons. On the administrative level, a PML-N front man used an old tactic when he lamented the failure of Rehman Malik and his government to share with Punjab crucial information, gathered by the federal intelligence agencies, about a possible strike. This was a typical exchange between two governments that remain at loggerheads. On the whole it is politics that reeks of disrespect for the dead and apathy for the people of Pakistain whose lives are in peril.

Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Afghanistan
Half of freed Afghan fighters return to Taliban
At least half the Afghan Taliban recently freed from Pakistani prisons have rejoined the insurgency, a Pakistani intelligence official says, throwing into question the value of such goodwill gestures that the Afghan government requested to restart a flagging peace process.
The other half just haven't yet been identified as being in the field...
The development underscores the difficulties in reaching a political deal with the Taliban before the end of 2014, when NATO and US troops are scheduled to have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Taliban released from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay have also gone underground.

Despite some recent signs from the Taliban that they are willing to share power and want to avoid a civil war, the militants may well be playing for time until 2014. That's also when the Afghans are scheduled to elect a new president to succeed Hamid Karzai, whom the insurgents consider an American puppet.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Taliban

#1  ...the militants may well be are playing for time until 2014 when the U.S. and Karzai are scheduled to leave.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 14:33 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistani Shiites Demand Trial of Extremist Leader
[An Nahar] Pak Shiites on Saturday demanded that the head of a banned Sunni thug group be put on trial, a day after he was tossed in the clink
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
following deadly sectarian attacks in the city of Quetta.

Malik Ishaq, the leader of 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 ...
(LJ), was held on Friday after two recent bombings in the southwestern city targeting the Shiite Hazara minority killed more than 180 people, sparking nationwide protests.

The outlawed thug group, linked to both al-Qaeda and the Pak Taliban, grabbed credit for both attacks.

"We have always been demanding arrest of all those involved in any act of sectarian violence, irrespective of their party affiliation," said Abdul Khaliq Hazara, leader of the Shiite Hazara Democratic Party.

"Ishaq must be brought to justice and punished for involvement in violence," he added.

Ishaq, who has been arrested before, was released by a court on bail in July 2011, even though he has been implicated in dozens of murders.

He was enjugged
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
briefly in 2012 for inciting sectarian hatred and has also been accused of criminal masterminding the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, which maimed several players and killed eight Paks.

His latest arrest -- which came a day after the Mighty Pak Army denied any links to LJ -- should not be an "eye wash", said Sajid Naqvi, another Shiite party leader.

"We demand his trial and the authorities should provide protection to witnesses who would like to appear in the court," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Former mayor "too stupid" to know $100,000 salary was illegal, sez lawyer
Once again the British newspapers bring us what the Democratic-controlled media won't...
The former mayor of Bell, California, was too stupid and uneducated to know his $100,000 salary for the part-time city job was illegal, his lawyer argued today.

Oscar Hernandez
...who is a Democrat, though even the Brit papers force you to play "Name That Party!"...
is illiterate, has no high school degree and didn't even finish elementary school, defense attorney Stanley Friedmand told jurors.
One could crack jokes about him being a perfect Democratic mayor, but I shall endeavor to resist the temptation. This defense is pathetic: even an illiterate person knows money. And an illiterate person knows that 100 large is a lot of money.
Hernandez and five former members of the Bell City Council are on trial, accused of stealing $1.3million in exorbitant pay from the working-class city of 35,000. All six elected officials drew salaries of up to $100,000 for serving on boards that seldom met and accomplished little.

Defense lawyers painted the officials as ignorant pawns of city manager Robert Rizzo and city attorney Edward Lee, who both advised them that massive pay raises were legal.
The officials, of course, never bothered to get a second opinion...
The attorneys for the former officials also blamed the city's financial advisory firm, which never advised the town to pare back the salaries, they say.
Were the advisors in on the scam?
Deputy District Attorney Edward Miller, though, said the officials all had important jobs in the community before their election. Hernandez owned a grocery store.
See? You'd best believe he knew money, even if he didn't know his ABCs...
Former council member Teresa Jacobo was a real estate agent and former councilman George Mirabal had worked as a city clerk.

The officials are accused of appointing each other to boards, some of which met only once a year, in order to skirt public pay laws. In the midst of the recession, the officials were earning $100,000 from the city - three and a half times the median income of the citizens they were elected to represent. The average salary for part-time elected officials at other California cities of similar size was $4,800
Posted by: Pappy || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Oscar Hernandez is illiterate, has no high school degree and didn't even finish elementary school"

So he was illiterate; was he innumerate too?
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 0:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Were the advisors in on the scam?


Probably, make ALL pay the cash back, no bankruptcy permitted.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2013 1:18 Comments || Top||

#3  And the lawyer's too stupid to know a losing ploy.

Bad Lawyer, no fee for you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2013 1:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Who gets to hire these folks as 'advisors' first, Obama or Illinois?
Posted by: Griter Crart8496 || 02/24/2013 1:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Give the lawyer half a break. He's playing the hand he's got.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 02/24/2013 6:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Doesn't say much for that "working-class city of 35,000" who put him in office, but then again, look what we have in the White House.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 7:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Too illiterate to know the difference between 10 cents and 10 dollars? Too illiterate to punch in the numbers on a phone? Too illiterate to read traffic signs? Too illiterate to even pass a driving test? /rhet question.

How stupid is your councilmen? So stupid that....
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 8:45 Comments || Top||

#8  Bell became a charter city in about 2005 when a referendum passed mostly on absentee ballots, some of which were pretty sketchy (because very few people voted). Hernandez became mayor in about 2007-2008 and then also in about 2010. The voters overwhelmingly backed a recall in 2011 which removed some of the nefarious folk from office (including Hernandez).
Posted by: lord garth || 02/24/2013 9:47 Comments || Top||

#9  This...city council...do they:
Have access to the checkbook, and able to sign their own checks?
Able to figure in their withholding and other tax liabilities?
Many municiples have a balance system where any check over a certain amount must be reviewed by the county/city attorney, what is the balance system here?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/24/2013 11:15 Comments || Top||

#10  Ignorance of the law is no an excuse?

Wiki; In July 2010, two Los Angeles Times reporters, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, wrote an investigative journalism article on possible malfeasance in the neighboring city of Maywood, California. In their exposé, they revealed that the city officials of Bell (a small blue collar community) were receiving salaries that were reported as the highest in the nation. Subsequent investigations found atypically high property tax rates, allegations of voter fraud in municipal elections and other irregularities which heightened the ensuing scandal. These and other reports led to widespread criticism and a demand for city officials to resign.

There are still a few real reporters and news types instead of puppets and parrots.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 14:48 Comments || Top||

#11  I bet there are a lot of drug dealers who know money are illiterate and know money better better than most on wall street
Posted by: chris || 02/24/2013 17:22 Comments || Top||

#12  ..not to mention real supply and demand vs manufactured paper speculation.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 18:11 Comments || Top||

#13  I know its obscene, but was it actually illegal?
They can change the law, but unless it was illegal at the time I don't see why this is even being prosecuted?
Gross injustice to the taxpayers, definitely.
Illegal???
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 02/24/2013 19:50 Comments || Top||

#14  Wow.
The TOO STUPID defense.
Really??

That one makes all other legal defenses look positively brilliant by comparison :-)
Posted by: Raider || 02/24/2013 20:29 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
JI to attend JUI-F sponsored grand tribal moot
[Dawn] The Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It 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...
(JI) has decided to participate in a soon-to-be-held grand tribal moot sponsored by Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability...
-Fazl (JUI-F) to discuss the FATA situation and search out ways and means for restoring peace.

This was announced by JI chief Syed Munawar Hassan
... The funny-looking Amir of the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami. He joined the National Students Federation (NSF), a lefty student body, and was elected its President in 1959. He came into contact with the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) Pakistan and studied the writings of Mawlana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, The Great Apostasizer. As a result, he joined IJT in 1960 and soon he was elected as President of its University of Karachi Unit and member of the Central Executive Council. He was Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistain in 1992-93, and became Secretary General in 1993. After years of holding Qazi's camel he was named Amir when the old man stepped down in 2009...
at a joint presser with his JUI-F counterpart Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ...
on Saturday

Rehman visited Mansoora- the JI headquarters in Lahore- to invite the JI leadership at the All Parties Conference (APC) scheduled for Feb 28 in Islamabad.

Speaking to media representatives, Syed Munawar Hassan said the prevailing law and order situation called for a decisive dialogue with the Pak Taliban for restoration of peace. He said the government's attitude of ignoring the offer of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and taking it as a sign of weakness was the worst example of indifference.

The JI chief said the federal as well as the provincial governments have failed to discharge their duties, therefore, the national leadership should step forward for restoration of peace in the country.

He said the country was facing terrorism and lawlessness, adding the whole nation wanted to get rid of terrorism at the earliest. The menace of terrorism had also given rise to the problems of price hike, energy crisis, unemployment and more, he said.

Hassan appreciated Fazlur Rehman's peace efforts and accepted the Islamabad moot invitation.

To a question, he said the JI had recommended the name of justice (retd) Nasir Aslam Zahid as caretaker prime minister and added that now it was for Leader of the Opposition in NA Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to meet the prime minister and ensure the formation of caretaker setup.

Speaking on the occasion, Maulana Fazlur Rehman informed that the FATA tribes have formed a "Grand Jirga" for restoration of peace, and the Jirga had expressed the desire to meet national leaders for putting forth their proposals.

He said law and order was the biggest issue in the country. Houses are being demolished and innocent people are being killed in drone attacks, said the JUI-F chief. If the national leadership did not step forward, someone else might take the lead for selfish interests, he added.

The JUI-F delegation also included Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri
...Central Secretary General of JUI-F, member of the Pak senate, formerly provincial minister of Balochistan. He has a master's degree in Islam and runs a madrassah...
, Maulana Attaur Rahman, Maulana Amjad Khan and Riaz Durrani.

JI deputy chiefs Dr Muhammad Kamal, Sirajul Haq, JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, and JI KP chief Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan were also present on the occasion.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Caribbean-Latin America
Durango governor sacks Durango's top cop

For a map, click here. For a map of Durango state, click here

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Less than 24 hours after five Gomez Palacio, Durango transit police agents were gunned down in the La Laguna region, Durango's Secretaria de Seguridad Publica Estatal (SSPE) has stepped down, according to Mexican news accounts.

Jesus Antonio Rosso Holguin was "relieved" as a news report in El Siglo de Durango news daily reported the news Saturday morning. According to the translation, the news was released by Durango's Fiscalia General del Estado (FGE) or attorney general's office. Rosso Holguin's replacement was named as Roberto Flores Mier, who was sworn in Friday.

Roberto Flores Mier, a veterinarian by trade, has served with the Durango FGE and SSPE for 19 years.

The departure of Rosso Holguin was reportedly part of a minor shakeup of Durango governor Jorge Herrera Caldera's cabinet. A second folio was changed as well: Juan Francisco Gutierrez Fragoso of Durango's Secretaria de Desarrollo Economico was replaced by Ricardo Ociel Navarrete Gomez, who had held a private foundation job in the state.

State cabinet shakeups are not unusual in Mexican local politics. Indeed, as Governor Herrera Caldera enters the third year of his six year term, so some changes are expected. Changes in Mexican state top security postings are rare, however.

For example, Durango's current FGE, Sonia Yadira de la Garza Fragoso took the attorney general's spot before the second year of her predecessor, Ramiro Ortiz Aguirre, was complete. Ramiro Ortiz Aguirre was murdered almost a year ago, a few hours after FGE Garza Fragoso pulled Ortiz's security detail. Ortiz presided over the nearly year-long discovery of mass graves in Durango state which eventually totalled 331 dead.

Another example would be the resignation of Brigadier General Ubaldo Ayala Tinoco, the SSPE of Tamaulipas, who left his post two years ago, just as the mass graves in San Fernando were coming to light. Those graves contained a total of 193 dead.

Rosso Holguin leaves in his wake a weakened but only recently revived security program in La Laguna and the oncoming pressure imposed by the newly elected federal government requiring that all police working in Mexico will be certified or lose their jobs by November, 2013. Many state and local police corporations have already begun the tests and transition to the new requirement, including Durango state.

The far eastern Durango municipality of Gomez Palacio lost almost 160 police agents earlier this month because of an internal investigation, and because those police agents refused to take part in training offered to them, according to Mexican press accounts.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Posted by: badanov || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "bring in....the Vet!"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 10:44 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Video: Kim Jong-un Style
Not sure what the point was, but it's funny
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Kimmie shot the juche box.....
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/24/2013 18:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
The Bill of Rights for dummies, with emphasis on the 3rd Amendment
Interesting hypothesis.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  NOT A HYPOTHESIS.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 02/24/2013 1:32 Comments || Top||

#2  An even more radical interpretation is from Gary North, who described the creation of the U.S. Constitution as an illegal coup, with the following points:
The Convention was assembled under false pretenses.
All attendees took a vow of lifetime silence.
They held their meetings on the second floor: no eavesdroppers
The press was barred from attending.
The legislatures’ (Congress as stipulated by the Articles of Confederation) instructions were deliberately violated.
The Confederation Congress refused to challenge the Constitutional Convention’s deliberate
overturning of the Confederation Congress’ own authority and also the rules governing
the amending process that were specified in the Articles of Confederation.
Instead, on September 28, 1787, the Confederation Congress passed along
copies of the proposed Constitution to the state legislatures, which in
turn authorized the calling of state ratification conventions that would
be completely independent of the legislatures, thereby transferring sovereignty to state conventions.
An interesting, although long, read.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/24/2013 2:32 Comments || Top||

#3  ..problem with the argument is that it was ratified and recognized as legitimate by all the states involved. North was imposing modern judicial and social standards to something that happened over 200 years ago. Does he throw in that there was no 'universal franchise' and 'slavery' in his argument as well, because where is there 'consent of the governed' in that combination?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 8:53 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran confirms progress in Arak nuclear plant project
Fereydun Abbasi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, confirmed the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding the Arak 40MW reactor, saying that side facilities of the reactor are being prepared normally. The main container of the reactor has been built and is ready to be installed, he said, adding that the reactor will be commissioned next year.
This is the 'research' reactor that they built.
At present, 150 fuel centers are ready to be transferred to Arak. News about installing advanced centrifuges was reported to foreign media due to the fact that the IAEA security system is weak and cannot save such data. That was not a clandestine issue, because the IAEA presides over Iran's nuclear activities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a confidential report issued to member states late on Feb.22 that Iran has almost completed installation of cooling and moderator circuit piping in the heavy water plant near the town of Arak, Reuters reported.
Nuclear analysts say this type of reactor could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed, something Iran has said it has no intention of doing. Iran has said it "does not have reprocessing activities", the IAEA said.
That they talk about...
In its previous report on Iran, in November, the Vienna-based U.N. agency said installation work at Arak was underway, without giving any indication of how far advanced it was.

Iran says it plans to begin operating the facility in the first quarter of 2014, the IAEA said. Tehran last year postponed the planned start-up from the third quarter of 2013, a target that Western experts said always had seemed unrealistic.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Opponents Vote to Send Egypt's Morsi into Space
[An Nahar] Opponents of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi are voting to send him where no Islamist leader has gone before: outer space.

Morsi on Saturday was leading the field in Egypt in an online contest sponsored by deodorant makers Axe to send a lucky few on a shuttle operated by space tourism company Space Expedition Corp.

Egypt's opposition movement April 6 entered Morsi into the competition.

"With God's help, and under His care, Morsi will soon be launched to the moon," the group said on its Facebook page, along with a picture of the president in a spacesuit.

The presidency has not responded to the campaign on behalf of the former engineer and self-professed "Planet of the Apes" fan.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [2 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  deodorant makers Axe
Send for Don Draper nao.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 2:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Could a golfing, half-Kenyan constitutional lawyer tag along as well ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 3:02 Comments || Top||

#3  PIGS IS SPAAAAAACE!!!!


Well, someone had to say it.
Posted by: Alanc || 02/24/2013 8:39 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Tension in Akkar after Man Dies by Syrian Gunfire, Shells Land in Northern Villages
[An Nahar] A man was killed on Saturday in the northern village of Wadi Khaled by gunshots fired from Syria's side of the border, as Syrian shells have landed in al-Dbabiyeh and al-Noura towns of the northern city of Akkar, the National News Agency reported.

The NNA said that a state of rage and anger was felt in the north after Hussein Ismael's death.

It revealed: "An armed presence was also detected in the region".

Ismael's body has reportedly been transferred to al-Salam Hospital in the town of Qobayat, according to the NNA.

Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address...
the agency also said that shells coming from the Syrian side of the border fell in al-Dbabiyeh and al-Noura towns of Akkar.

Since the eruption of Syria's festivities in 2011, Leb's northern cities have been witnessing several security incidents, the latest of which was in October 2012, when heavy Syrian gunfire targeted the border town of al-Abboudiyeh, forcing residents to flee the area en masse.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Paleo hard boy dies in Israeli jail
A Palestinian prisoner died on Saturday in an Israeli jail, a prison spokeswoman said, with a Palestinian official charging he was killed during questioning and demanding an international probe.

“Arafat Jaradat... was arrested a few days ago. He was killed during the investigation,” the Palestinian minister in charge of prisoner affairs Issa Qaraqaa told AFP. “We demand the creation of an international commission of inquiry to probe the circumstances of his death."
Shot trying to escape?
Fell down elebenteen flights of stairs?
Acute cirrhosis?
Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman said Jaradat, a 30-year-old from the West Bank city of Hebron, died suddenly on Saturday at the Meggido detention centre in northern Israel.

“I can confirm that a Palestinian prisoner died today in the Meggido prison. It was probably acute cirrhosis a cardiac arrest. I don’t have additional details at the moment,” Weizman said.
Ah-ha! Acute cirrhosis! Just as I suspected!
News of his death comes a day after nearly 100 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli security forces during demonstrations in the West Bank to demand the release of the four hunger-strikers.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Arafat Jaradat

I'm surprised he lived that long with that name. Acute Alliteration, Dr. Quincy
Posted by: Frank G || 02/24/2013 10:39 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL. That's not funny that's mean. No... wait, that is funny.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 11:56 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Clan Feud Kills 11 in Somali Port
[An Nahar] Clashes between rival Somali clan militias in Kismayo killed 11 Saturday, witnesses said, in the worst unrest since Kenya-backed pro-government forces recaptured the southern port from Islamist beturbanned goons last year.

The fighting erupted when a clan leader died at a cop shoppe, prompting pitched battles between Marehan and Ogadeni clansmen, two of the three groups that have traditionally fought for control of Kismayo.

"I saw at least 11 people, especially fighters, killed in these battles," a Kismayo elder, Mohamed Ga'al, told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"It's the worst fighting since the Shabaab left the city, and even if the situation is calm now, the two sides continue to regroup," Ga'al added by telephone from capital Mogadishu.

Another witness, Ali Moalim SLearned Elders of Islamn, said three of the people killed were civilians caught in the exchange of fire, adding that six other civilians were maimed and taken to hospital.

In a statement Saturday, Somali Prime Minister Abdi Said Shirdon called on the two clans to lay down their arms.

"We are shocked to learn that two fraternal clans are fighting and spilling innocent blood, while residents await the establishment of a regional government."

Several clans have fought for control of Kismayo since September, when a Kenyan army contingent drove the Shabaab -- an Islamist bully boy group with ties to al-Qaeda -- out of its main stronghold.

Witnesses said the Kenyan soldiers still stationed in Kismayo did not intervene to end the festivities.

Prior fighting between the militias had resulted in several deaths in December in Kismayo, which as Somalia's second largest port is vital to the country's economy.

The Kenyan troops, from the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), drove out the Shabaab with backing from Somali forces, including the Ras Kamboni militia.

The militia, mainly made up of Ogaden clan members, is commanded by warlord Ahmed Madobe, who switched from supporting the Shabaab to fighting alongside the African Union

Other clan militias have since been deployed in Kismayo, with clan rivalries posing one of the greatest threats to a return to peace in Somalia since AMISOM significantly weakened the Shabaab.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria Kurd Women Set up Battalion
[An Nahar] Around 150 Kurdish women in the war-wracked northern Syrian province of Aleppo have set up a fighting battalion, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

"The Kurdish popular committees have set up the first women's battalion, comprising some 150 women fighters. The battalion is named the Martyr Rokan Battalion," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"While women are now fighting alongside the rebels, pro-regime forces and Kurdish militia, this is the first women's battalion as such," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory circulated an amateur photograph of the battalion, showing scores of members in military fatigues, standing in rows before their female leadership.

"Women are now playing a major role in the fighting in Syria," Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse.

The women's battalion was announced in Ifrin, the scene in late 2012 of violence pitting Kurdish fighters against Arab rebels fighting the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
Assad's troops pulled out from majority Kurdish areas in 2012, and while Kurds have been split over the anti-regime revolt in Syria, most have chosen to remain neutral in the conflict.

An agreement in Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border last week brought an end to fighting between Kurds and Salafist tough guys, though some activists have described the agreement brokered by a prominent Christian dissident as fragile.

The announcement of the Kurdish women's battalion comes a month after pro-regime forces set up the National Defense Forces, a paramilitary unit in which women of all ages have been asked to volunteer.

Anti-regime activists have also distributed images of women fighters joining rebel ranks.

"Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though it's possibly the Islamist rebel ranks that have the fewest women taking part in them," the Observatory's Abdel Rahman said.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  "though it's possibly the Islamist rebel ranks that have the fewest women taking part in them"

Gee, I wonder why?
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Now Assad's really in trouble, he done pizzed off the wimmenfolk.......Ain't seen no trouble like what's gonna rain down on his sorry ass now.....
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 02/24/2013 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  he done pizzed off the wimmenfolk.

What the Muslim world needs is a female Martin Luther to nail 95 scrotums to the mosque door to kick off the Muslim Reformation.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/24/2013 13:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Isn't 150 generally considered a company-sized unit? Maybe the "Martyr Rokan Company" doesn't quite have the same ring.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/24/2013 14:17 Comments || Top||

#5  ..yes, a company. Roughly 40 per platoon, 3 platoons per company, plus company overhead [ones and twos for supply, maint, admin, trans, med, etc].
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/24/2013 15:44 Comments || Top||

#6  A Special Forces Company or "B Team" is comprised of a small HQ element [Company Commander, XO, SGM, S-3, S-4, Supply Sergeant, a few other enlisted] and 4 to 5 "A Team's" of twelve men each. Less than 80 folks if my memory serves me correctly.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 15:50 Comments || Top||

#7  Kinda like English Regiments

(out of date but you get deh picture)
Posted by: Shipman || 02/24/2013 18:41 Comments || Top||

#8  We used to call it a Commando, and then 9 Troop disappeared. Wasn't there no more. Political, I guess.
Posted by: Injun Stalin7884 || 02/24/2013 19:15 Comments || Top||

#9  About the 95 -- shouldn't that be an even number? I am becoming concerned...
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 20:05 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Firing on ASWJ rally injures seven in Quetta
[Dawn] At least seven persons were maimed Saturday when gunnies opened fire on a rally of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ)
The false nose and mustache of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain...
here at Liaquat Baazar, downtown area of the picturesque provincial capital, police said.

Deputy Inspector General Police Operations Fayyaz Sumbal said unknown motorcyclists shot up a crowd in the bazaar, injuring seven people, including a child.

Sumbal said the injured were rushed to hospitals for medical treatment. He added that the assailants had managed to escape from the site of the incident.

Soon after the shooting, leaders and workers of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) reached Civil Hospital Quetta and staged a sit-in to protest against the incident.

Reacting to the incident ASWJ activists also blocked Jinnah Road.

The ASWJ has announced it will take out further demonstrations on Sunday blocking all major national highways linking Quetta to 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...
Bloody Karachi, Jacobabad, Taftan and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israel Approves Drilling For Oil In Golan Heights
The times, they are a-changing.
Israel awarded the first license to drill for oil on the Golan Heights, local media reported Thursday. A New Jersey-based company was awarded the license, covering half the area of the Golan from the latitude of Katzrin in the north to Tzemach in the south.
Israel considers it Israel proper no matter what the Syrians think.
Sources informed ''Globes'' that, a few days ago, the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources' Petroleum Council recommended awarding the license to Genie Energy Ltd., headed by former minister Effie Eitam. Shareholders include chairman Howard Jonas, Lord Jacob Rothschild, and Rupert Murdoch. Former US Vice President Dick Cheney is an adviser.
The JPost has to work in Cheney, Murdoch and the Rothschilds so that you'll know whose side you're supposed to be on...
The process of granting the license began following geological tests, which indicated a large potential oil discovery in the southern Golan Heights.
Seems like there is oil just about everywhere there. Plenty of oil and NG in the eastern Med basin between Israel, Lebanon and Cyprus, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there is oil in the Golan. What about in northern Israel? Find oil there and the Israelis could really have something.
On the basis of the findings, last summer, Minister of Energy and Water Resources Uzi Landau declared the Golan as open for oil and gas exploration and production activity. Following the announcement, two license applications were filed with the Petroleum Commissioner for the southern Golan, an area of thousands of hectares.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That ought to get quite a few turbans in a knot.

More, please. :-D
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 0:33 Comments || Top||

#2  And maybe a neighborly directional drilling into Syria would take the cake.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/24/2013 4:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Victori spolia. Drill baby drill!
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/24/2013 6:47 Comments || Top||

#4  The Israelis "really have something" just with the E. Med basin alone. They also played it smart by cutting in the Russians to buy a little protection and by R&D in underwater threat sensing. Benefits are not only financial but diplomatic as Europeans will continue to need to buy natural gas. Most economic means of export would probably be by building a pipeline through Turkey, but with Turkey governed by Moslem extremists that seems unwise (and unlikely).
Posted by: Odysseus || 02/24/2013 15:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Israel seems to have streamlined the drilling permitting process. Bibi and his administration must not be unfriendly towards business and Israel must not have an EPA, a BLM, Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Interior. There must be some other agencies that I have missed that have to sign off on drilling in the U.S. as the process is so bottlenecked by politics and bureaucracy.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/24/2013 15:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Israel does have regulatory bodies that, correctly, regard environmental protection as important. However, energy is even more of a national security issue for Israel than it is for the US and, as a smaller nation, they have to look at the trade-offs more intelligently than we do. Due to all our accumulated advantages we can afford inefficiency and gridlock, but we'd be better off if we came to our senses.
Posted by: Odysseus || 02/24/2013 16:46 Comments || Top||

#7  "Due to all our accumulated advantages we can afford inefficiency and gridlock"

Not anymore, we can't. :-(
Posted by: Barbara || 02/24/2013 19:38 Comments || Top||

#8  Good work, good timing.
Posted by: newc || 02/24/2013 22:33 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Patriots in Turkey send clear warning to Syria
It's essentially a PR piece, but it does show the Germans to be relative serious in defending their traditional good friend Turkey.
Germany's defense minister inspected Patriot missile batteries close to the Syria-Turkey border on Saturday and said they delivered a "clear warning" to Damascus that NATO would not tolerate missiles being fired into Turkey, Reuters reported.

Thomas de Maiziere and his Dutch counterpart Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert travelled to the Turkish cities of Adana and Kahramanmaras to inspect the batteries provided by their countries at Turkey's request. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was scheduled to visit the same area on Sunday when she begins a two-day visit to Turkey.

The United States has also sent Patriots.

"Our presence here serves to make sure that Syria doesn't turn its capabilities into action," de Maiziere said, while also saying that the risk of attack was "minimal". "We can see from here that Syria is using rockets - often several times a day."

Syria is believed to have more than 1,000 rockets with a range of up to 700 km, and around 1,000 tons of chemical weapons material.

"The Patriot system is strictly for defense, and placing them on our soil within the NATO framework was to protect our people and our soil against possible attack," said Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz, travelling with his Dutch and German counterparts.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Jamaat demeans Islam
The Jamaat-e-Islami is demeaning Islam through its violent activities, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said yesterday.
You'd think that would be an obvious, universally accepted idea...
Islam is a religion of peace, which does not allow activities like attack, killing and damage, but Jamaat uses Islam in committing such acts, he said. The party has no right to do politics in Bangladesh.

The minister talked to reporters after attending the annual general meeting of Bangladesh Registration Service Association at the Institute of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh.

In a democracy, every body has the right to form and join political parties or organisations. But if any organisation is involved in extremism, destroys public properties and attacks law enforcers and media workers, it has no right to co-exist in the society or state, Shafique said.

Replying to a question, he said a writ petition challenging the legality of Jamaat's registration with the Election Commission was now pending with the High Court.

The High Court may dispose of the petition within two to three weeks, passing a directive on Jamaat's politics, the law minister said. And then would follow a decision to ban Jamaat.

Bangladesh Tariqat Federation filed the appeal in 2009, challenging the legality of the EC registering Jamaat as a political party in November 2008.

Following the petition, the HC issued a rule upon the EC and the Jamaat ameer and the secretary general, asking them to explain why the registration of Jamaat should not be cancelled.

Meanwhile, National Human Rights Commission Chairman Mizanur Rahman urged the government to take steps immediately to ban Jamaat, saying it is a terrorist organisation.

Jamaat and student body Islami Chhatra Shibir has taken an anti-state and anti-liberation stance, which was very clear from the Friday's countrywide mayhem, he said.

"They (Jamaat-Shibir) have defamed the state through burning the national flag and vandalising Shaheed Minars." All these acts are tantamount to sedition, Mizanur said.

The NHRC chief also called upon all the pro-liberation political parties to be united for fighting against the terrorist organisation.

Jamaat-Shibir killed intellectuals, tortured women and looted properties during the 1971 Liberation War and tried to justify them, using religious sentiments, Mizanur said.

"We have seen similar activities last Friday."

Now, the government has to make a bold political decision to resist Jamaat, the NHRC chief said.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/24/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami

#1  Islam is a religion of peace, which does not allow activities like attack, killing and damage,

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! LMAO, ROFL, LoL, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
Posted by: Alanc || 02/24/2013 8:36 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
34[untagged]
4Arab Spring
2al-Qaeda in Pakistan
2Govt of Pakistan
2al-Qaeda in Iraq
2Govt of Syria
2Jamaat-e-Islami
2Lashkar e-Jhangvi
2Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
1Salafists
1TTP
1Taliban
1al-Shabaab
1Boko Haram
1Govt of Iran
1al-Qaeda in North Africa

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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2013-02-24
  Karzai orders US special forces out of Afghan province
Sat 2013-02-23
  Syrian Rebels Claim To Seize Nuclear Facility
Fri 2013-02-22
  Boko Haram Denies Ceasefire, Pastes Threat Posters In Borno
Thu 2013-02-21
  Bombing in Indian Hyderabad, at least 11 killed
Wed 2013-02-20
  French nationals kidnapped in northern Cameroon
Tue 2013-02-19
  Mortars land near Syrian presidential palace
Mon 2013-02-18
  Five killed in attack at government office in Peshawar
Sun 2013-02-17
  Egyptian police publicly beat to death man suspected of killing officer
Sat 2013-02-16
  Bomb kills at least 20 in Pakistani city
Fri 2013-02-15
  Meteorite Hits Urals, Up to 500 Injured
Thu 2013-02-14
  Pakistan asks Taliban to announce 30-day cease-fire for talks
Wed 2013-02-13
  Syrian rebels say they captured military air base near Aleppo
Tue 2013-02-12
  KCNA confirms: Pudgy sets off a nuke
Mon 2013-02-11
  Seven killed, 11 injured in attacks across southern Thailand
Sun 2013-02-10
  Syrian troops, rebels clash over Damascus highway

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