Trimmed headline You have not seen anything stupid yet in your life until you read about the goings on in the Great Paris Climate Change Conference of 2013. What can you say? Article from the Daily Mail.
The Paris climate change deal spells the beginning of the end for cooking and heating with gas, experts claimed yesterday.
Within 15 years, British families may have to start phasing out gas cookers, fires and boilers if the UK is to meet new tougher targets aimed at halting rises in global temperature.
The United Nations agreement to stop global warming, approved by 195 countries at a summit in Paris after two weeks of intense negotiations, commits nations to reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 onwards to halt climate change.
It was hailed as historic by politicians. David Cameron said: âThis global deal now means that the whole world has signed to play its part in halting climate change.'
But Britain's energy plans will now have to be revised as our already stringent targets to reduce greenhouse gases are based on limiting global warming to a rise of 2C.
The new agreement is more ambitious, aimed at limiting warming to âwell below' 2C by the century's end.
The UK is âabsolutely committed' to the deal and will be âmaking sure we deliver on it', Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said yesterday.
Experts predict the stricter targets will mean the familiar sights of gas hobs and ovens and gas-fired boilers will become a thing of the past.
Jim Watson, professor of energy policy at Sussex University, said: âThis will affect the power sector first, but as we move through to the 2030s and beyond we'll have to find new ways of heating our homes and cooking our food.'
The French foreign minister, pictured waving, revealed the 'historic' legally binding agreement, which aims to limit global temperature rises, to more than 190 officials in Paris
+3
The French foreign minister, pictured waving, revealed the 'historic' legally binding agreement, which aims to limit global temperature rises, to more than 190 officials in Paris
The Government's Committee on Climate Change is pressing for alternatives to boilers such as heat pumps â devices which extract warmth from the ground or air.
It wants four million homes to be heated by such devices by 2030, despite each costing ÂŁ12,000, with installations accelerating after that until gas plays a minimal role in heating and cooking in homes by 2050.
All gas-fired power stations must also close by the mid-2030s unless they strip CO2 from emissions.
Professor Watson added: âGas has served us very well since the 1970s. Whatever we move to next, people will be moving to similar levels of comfort and controllability, which engineers need to get on with.'
Around 23 million British homes use gas, with a third of natural gas used in Britain burnt by domestic boilers, cookers or heaters.
UK LOBBIED FOR EXTRA POLLUTION ALLOWANCES FOR CAR INDUSTRY
The UK pushed for a weakening of air pollution limits after lobbying from the motor industry, papers reveal.
The Government urged the EU for car makers to be allowed to exceed limits of nitrogen oxide emissions until 2021, and to be allowed to go 40 per cent over the current limit after that.
The revelation came before a meeting of the European Parliament's environment committee later today. A Whitehall spokesman said: âThe Government is committed to taking action on emissions testing.'
Britain is already committed to phasing out coal fired power stations by 2025.
But gas power stations will have to be phased out next, unless a way is found of capturing the CO2 they create â known as carbon capture and storage.
Gas, although cleaner than coal, is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions â generating 169million tons of CO2 in 2014.
Bob Ward, who is policy director at the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change, said that to meet Britain's commitments the days of cooking with gas were numbered.
He said: âThe only possible use of fossil fuels that will continue is if they are used to generate electricity, but this will only happen if the carbon dioxide they create is captured and stored.
âGas cookers will be phased out, probably as soon as possible. I suspect manufacturers will simply stop making them.'
He added that in years to come some form of carbon tax putting up the cost of gas is inevitable â which will make electric cookers much cheaper than their gas rivals. And, pray tell, how are we going to generate electricity in the scale that will be needed without thermal plants?
CCC chief executive Matthew Bell said: âFor something like heating, by 2050 gas will be playing a much more limited role and a range of other technologies will have taken its place, meaning low-carbon sources of warmth â heat pumps and so on.'
What a load of rubbish! ROSS CLARK on how the lavish green summit in Paris created a mountain of waste and pollution
To adapt Winston Churchill, never before in the history of climate summits have so many people expended so many of the Earth's resources in the cause of so little.
In spite of world leaders at the Paris Climate Summit making the grandiose gesture of saying they want to limit the rise in the Earth's temperature to 1.5 Celsius instead of 2 Celsius, they have so far committed themselves to precious little practical action.
That's not to say that the implications aren't extraordinary. It has already been suggested that developed nations will together have to pay $100billion a year to smaller nations to help them combat climate change, so dire have been the predictions about the future during the endless Parisian discussions.
Greenpeace protesters tried to draw a yellow sun around the Arc de Triomphe during the talks that culminated in a historic deal on Saturday, but the ÂŁ130million conference has already cost the Earth, says Ross Clark
Greenpeace protesters tried to draw a yellow sun around the Arc de Triomphe during the talks that culminated in a historic deal on Saturday, but the ÂŁ130million conference has already cost the Earth, says Ross Clark
But how much have the 40,000 delegates who have attended the ÂŁ130million Paris summit already cost the Earth?
According to the French government, the carbon footprint of the ten-day summit will have been 21,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
That is itself as much as is emitted by 1,000 typical British families over the course of a year â taking into account running their home, their cars, their foreign holidays, the food and everything else they consume.
Air travel will have added an extra 40,000 tonnes of carbon emissions to the Paris total
Yet cheekily, the French government figure only included CO2 emissions created at the site of the conference. It excluded emissions from hotel stays and those generated by delegates travelling to and from Paris.
As many of the delegates will have traveled to Paris by air, this will have added a huge extra footprint to the event.
At least five world leaders â those of the US, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait â travel around in their own private jumbo jets.
According to Kornelis Blok, of Dutch environmental consultancy Ecofys, air travel will have added an extra 40,000 tonnes of carbon emissions to the Paris total.
As for carbon emissions from hotels, luxury hotels are voracious users of energy. A single room can consume almost twice as much energy as the average UK household, electricity and heating combined.
Taking everything into account, and on the assumption that the average delegate will have run up 9,000 air miles traveling to and from the event, the US technology magazine Wired calculates that emissions spewed out could reach 300,000 tonnes â the equivalent emitted in a whole year by a town the size of Aylesbury (population: 58,740). Laughably, the organizers of the summit based their carbon footprint figure on the assumption that delegates would arrive by bike or take up the offer of free passes for public transport â passes which cost French taxpayers ÂŁ56million.
It was fanciful, though, to imagine that the grandees of the climate change lobby would stoop to the level of using public transport. On the second day of the summit a bicycle rack for 50 cycles at Le Bourget was reported to have just two bikes in it, while footage showed world leaders arriving in their usual limousines.
SO WHAT'S IN THE AGREEMENT?
The draft agreement sets a global goal of peaking greenhouse gas emissions 'as soon as possible'.
Its key points include:
Limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an eye to making it more like 1.5C
Introducing a five-year review system to increase ambition on cutting emissions
Funding for poorer countries
It also calls for achieving a balance between man-made emissions and the Earth's ability to absorb them by the second half of this century.
A previous draft included a section on 'loss and damage' - an issue pushed by small island nations and vulnerable countries who wanted the deal to recognise there are some impacts of climate change they cannot adapt to.
However, an adjoining decision linked to the agreement in the final draft said the loss and damage article 'does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation'.
Wealthy nations will, however, need to continue to provide financial support for poor nations to cope with climate change, the report said.
Saving the environment isn't just about cutting carbon emissions, of course. Housing the conference cost a small forest. Rather than using existing buildings, the French government built a small city of pavilions at Le Bourget for the conference, seven miles north of the centre of Paris.
A total of 50 contractors worked for 40 days, knocking up 80,000 square metres of temporary buildings and fitting them out.
The centrepiece, a âplenary room' to seat 2,000 delegates, was supposed to be a model of environmentally-friendliness. Yet it alone required 900 trees to be sawn down. The organisers say they have replaced every one with a new tree â overlooking the fact that the new trees are saplings while the 900 sawn down were mature trees. While the delegates were trying to persuade each other to invest in renewable energy, the buildings were heated by a gas-fired boiler. Unbelievably, the organisers said this âhelps reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent' because they could have used an oil boiler, but didn't.
The Paris Conference made great claims that it would create âzero waste'. That was assuming the buildings, to be taken down after the event, could be used again. They might just struggle, though, to find many people in need of a 2,000-seater plenary room.
The organisers said that reusable coffee cups did away with the need for two million disposable plastic cups. Yet reusable cups are not nearly as environmentally friendly as the organisers would have us believe as washing them consumes a lot of energy. According to environmental consultancy Carbon Clear, a ceramic coffee cup would have to be used 354 times before it has used less energy than a plastic cup.
Hotel guests are particularly heavy generators of rubbish, what with all the little shampoo bottles, bars of soap, and uneaten croissants which are thrown out.
Over the ten-day summit, the 40,000 delegates would have produced 920 tonnes of rubbish. That is as much as is produced by 900 UK households in an entire year â so much for a âwaste-free summit'.
Many delegates would have headed home from Paris with a warm glow of satisfaction, thinking they had helped save the planet. Yet the truth is the environmental impact they caused will be many times that of the vast majority of the Earth's population.
For all the grand talk of âzero waste' and low-carbon buildings, the Paris summit has been a prime example of what wasteful lives the green lobby lead.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/15/2015
15:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Paris climate change deal spells the beginning of the end for cooking and heating with gas, experts claimed yesterday.
Gas? For crying out loud--what idiocy. These people are pushing such things hard don't get out much. Around East Tennessee, out in the country, there are many people who still cook and heat with firewood. In an adjacent county, the county cuts down deadfall from across the roads and turns it into firewood and give it to poor people for heating and cooking. It is a compassionate thing to do. We still have a fireplace and burn wood when necessary--when the power goes out due to a power outage. It doesn't happen very often but it happens. The people making decisions for others really don't understand that there are a great number of middle class and poor people who rely on gas, coal and firewood. So STFU John Kerry, Obozo and your ilk.
#2
That was assuming the buildings, to be taken down after the event, could be used again. They might just struggle, though, to find many people in need of a 2,000-seater plenary room.
Could always turn it into a Clinton Happy Camp for those who do not agree with The Greens. Burn some books for cooking heat.
#5
I prefer to heat with environmentalists....they whine a bit when you shove them into the firebox but since they only tell lies, how can you trust them that they're actually alive.
#10
Universal "No Carbon/Fossil Fuels" which I presum would also include natural wood which in turn will wipe out most or all of the Earth's remaining forests.
More bad news for Saudi Arabia - first an on-going worldwide oil glut, now may not be a "Gas-led Energy Superpower" as projected by Perts.
ALso, NO GLOBAL CONSENSUS BY GOVTS-PERTS ON WHETHER "PEAK OIL" [Peak Resources] IS REAL OR NOT, HENCE THE RISK OR SCENARIO IS THERE THAT BY CONTINUING TO INCREASE ITS OIL PRODUCTION THE SAUDIS + OPEC ARE JUST USING UP IN SHORT TIME WHAT "CHEAP OIL" [Reserves] THE WORLD HAS LEFT.
IOW, WE'RE [STILL] ALL NUKIES NOW - by extension, any + all Single-Family Residences, Housing Blocs are to eventually be integrated + heavily or completely remotely monitored???
D *** NG IT, YOUR INTERACTIVE VHD FAMILY + GROUP QUARTERS/BLOC MICROWAVE OVEN IS WATCHING ALL OF YOU.
#11
Insanity. What is the alternative to gas ranges? Electric? That's coal, and it's only 30% efficient as a heat source end to end, compared to 95% for gas.
Nuclear is the only final solution, assuming a solution is needed, and nuclear is anathema to the greens.
How about blankies and raw food? How about drippy caves?
#5
Ah yes, the TrackingPoint! You can also get a pair of glasses that talk to the scope and see what the scope sees. This means you can shoot by holding it around a corner or over a wall without exposing yourself. Have a look at their site.
An Nahar notices another bit of that Yahoo interview posted here.
[AnNahar] U.S. President Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... has vowed to push ahead with plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, despite evidence that a substantial number of former detainees have returned to the battlefield.
In an interview with Yahoo News that was published Monday, Obama said the strategic benefits of closing the notorious facility outweighed incidents of recidivism among "low-level" former inmates.
The White House itself admits that around 10 percent of those released from Guantanamo have resumed fighting for Islamic Lion of Islam organizations, but says it is more important to shutter a facility that has become a recruiting tool for myrmidons.
Obama's comments come as Sudanese myrmidon Ibrahim al-Qosi -- who was released in 2012 -- seemingly appeared in a recent video by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... "The judgment that we're continually making is, are there individuals who are significantly more dangerous than the people who are already out there who are fighting?" Obama said.
"What do they add? Do they have special skills? Do they have special knowledge that ends up making a significant threat to the United States?"
"And so the bottom line is that the strategic gains we make by closing Guantanamo will outweigh, you know, those low-level individuals who, you know, have been released so far."
Interesting that Yahoo's editors chose to transcribe one of those little verbal ticks that make the speaker sound less than highly intelligent.
The Republican-controlled Congress has thwarted Obama's repeated efforts to close Guantanamo.
Obama came to office in 2009 vowing to shutter the facility, which opened under his predecessor George W. Bush to hold terror suspects after the September 11, 2001 attacks and became known for harsh interrogation techniques that some have said were tantamount to torture.
Obama is soon expected to put forward a new plan that would speed the release of inmates and transfer the most dangerous ones to U.S. soil.
The plan is likely to accelerate the release of low-level detainees to foreign countries and move the most dangerous prisoners to a specialized facility in the United States.
Because of a congressional ban on funding US transfers, Obama has suggested he may have to resort to an executive order to close the prison. This would ignite a political and legal firestorm.
"I'll cry if I want to," sobbed Nero.
"I used to be saboteurs' hero
But can't hold a candle
To newfangled vandals,
Your skilled fiddlefarters like Zero."
#12
Small difference between 'hoax' and 'credible threat'. As TSA and inner-city school security portals have shown us, reactive behavior is expensive.
#3
The best part of Spaceballs is how they mocked the marketing of the Star Wars franchise. If anyone thought Lucas was shameless in the marketing just watch what Disney can do.
[Gateway Pundit] Swiss authorities said Saturday that two people of Syrian origin had been arrested on suspicion of transporting "explosives and toxic gases" as part of a probe into a terror threat.
The two suspects arrested Friday are accused of the "manufacture, concealment and transport of explosives and toxic gases", the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
They are also under suspicion of violating Swiss law prohibiting "groups like Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and similar organisations", it added.
Several Swiss media reported Friday that two people had been arrested in the Geneva region and that traces of explosives were found in their car, as the western city remained on alert due to an increased jihadist threat.
Geneva's public prosecutor has announced a news conference for later Saturday.
#5
They are also under suspicion of violating Swiss law prohibiting "groups like Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and similar organisations" There is a law who's time has come.
[PJmedia] Three House committees have formed a joint task force to probe allegations that intelligence was manipulated to paint a rosier picture of the fight against ISIS.
The House Intelligence, Appropriations and Armed Services committees announced the joint investigation today. "In addition to looking into the specific allegations, the Joint Task Force will examine whether these allegations reflect systemic problems across the intelligence enterprise in CENTCOM or any other pertinent intelligence organizations," Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said in a joint statement.
Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), and Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) will lead the investigation.
"Preliminary results" are expected "early next year," say the chairmen.
Thornberry told Fox whistleblowers have been coming forward to Congress; he said the committees have "talked to a variety of people and the allegation is that intelligence about ISIS was intentionally changed to make ISIS look better than it is."
[Wash Times] In a secret project tied to the overall U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, intelligence officials have spent months mapping out known physical locations of media safe houses where the extremist group's operatives are compiling, editing and curating raw video and print materials into finished digital propaganda products for dissemination across the Internet.
Most of the locations are embedded in heavily residential areas in Syria, Iraq and Libya and are not being targeted by U.S. airstrikes because of Obama administration concerns about civilian casualties, according to sources who spoke to The Washington Times only on the condition of anonymity.
#4
Obama is not interested in taking out these propaganda centers even though they have a lot to do with recruiting. Things won't get better until he is out of office. He is the Manchurian Candidate. Hillary is an extension of Obama's administration. More of the same. She is not to be trusted either.
#6
And POTUS Bill Clinton rly really REALLY R-E-E-L-L-Y told Americans = future Amerikans the Truth when he knowingly and wilfully lied and deceived, them, etc.
[STNG's CAPT. JEAN LUC PICARD = "WE HAVE NOTHING TO LEARN HERE, NO.1"].
Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as "Death Valley," and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. "Healthy men became like babies, helpless," Ted said. "Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible." Thirty to forty a day were dying. "It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this," Ted said. "But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans."
Ted used all the experience he had gained as a Holocaust survivor in helping keep himself and other prisoners alive. "I did it because I was an American," Ted told me, "and because it was a mitzvah. Regardless of color or nationality, they were my brothers." Food was vital for survival, so he began to steal rations from the enemy, who had little enough themselves. Fellow POW Sergeant Carl McClendon stated, "every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of. He crawled back and distributed the food that he had stolen and risked his life."
He had learned desperate arts in the Nazi concentration camp, such as how to use maggots to stop the spread of gangrene, [biographer Daniel M.] Cohen said. Cohen said Rubin told him that the POW camp was "a cakewalk" compared with Mauthausen.
Decades later, when the writer reached one of his camp mates on the phone, "the first words out of his mouth were, 'Rubin saved my life,'" Cohen said.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/15/2015 9:34
Comments ||
Top||
#4
In those days those who'd escaped were grateful for the opportunity to put on a uniform and fight against the evil overtaking the world -- all my mother's male cousins and her (future) first husband did the same after they'd got their families out, though none were also concentration camp survivors. This is one reason I have no patience with the current wave of migrants -- they have no intention of helping defend the society they've fled to against what they've fled, even the ones who sincerely want to work hard and do well in a democratic, secular society.
#5
TW, thanks to your relatives for serving their chosen country. Today, it is not just immigrants who don't put on the uniform, many born-here citizens don't either. In fact, these days, it a very small percentage of Americans who have volunteer to serve in the military.
[Daily Beast] The action director's new film tells the story of the Benghazi attack based on a book that made the CIA look bad, but he also had a hush-hush meeting with the agency. When the Central Intelligence Agency met with party-boy, explosion-obsessed Hollywood filmmaker Michael Bay this year, the agency said it was on a matter of national security.
In January, Paramount Pictures is releasing Bay's new film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, an action flick dramatizing the story of six security-team members who defended the U.S. compound and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, at the time of the 2012 attack.
Bay is, of course, famous for helming rowdy, big-budget fare such as Bad Boys II and The Rock, and movies starring beautiful women and loud killer-robots. (For his Transformers franchise, Bay worked closely with the Pentagon to secure access to warships, helicopters, F-22 stealth fighters, and many more military assets.)
The Benghazi attack, which claimed the lives of four Americans, has become one of the more bitterly divisive and partisan issues of the Obama era, spawning multiple congressional investigations and various un-killable talking points for conservative media.
Bay has promised that there is no political agenda whatsoever driving 13 Hours. "I show both sides of the story," he said at a French film festival. "I met with the CIA on this movie and I show the whole situation."
An Islamist fascist murdered people on this day last year in a cafe right in the middle of Sydney. He forced hostages to hold up the black flags of IS in the windows for more than 12 hours.
And yet the Sydney morning herald reports the anniversary thus -
But we still do not know exactly what motivated the gunman, Man Haron Monis, to hold 18 people captive in the 17-hour siege.
The actions of the Iranian refugee - how is it relevant that he was from Iran? He declared he did it for IS, he forced people to stand in the windows holding black IS flags and he had been seen at Hizb ut-Tahrir rallies. He had 5000 followers on his FaceBook page on which he regularly let fly his theocratic Islamist fascist views.... and yet Islamism is not mentioned. Here is the reporter listing every other possibility other than the bleeding obvious...
and former well-to-do Tehran businessman left two people dead: 34-year-old cafe manager Tori Johnson and one of his regular customers, 38-year-old mother of three and well-known barrister Katrina Dawson. Their families, surviving hostages and all the police who were there seeking to end the siege carry with them scars that cannot be healed.
We don't know why Monis fled Iran under suspicion of black marketeering beyond evidence at the inquest that he always sought notoriety and had written a book of liberal-ideology poetry that failed to sell. We cannot say how he passed immigration checks or became so Islamist? no...
anti-authoritarian in Australia.
We don't know why Monis was out on bail on scores of sexual assault charges and for being an accessory to his wife's murder. Ummm this is only relevant because Islamists believe they skip judgement when they murder for allah and get straight into paradise...
His latest bail application had been granted by consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Questions linger, too, about why ASIO deemed him no threat just days before the siege, despite his conviction for writing abusive letters to the families of Australian solders who served in Afghanistan. Monis had lost a High Court appeal against the conviction three days before he took the hostages. And for all the bravery of the officers involved, we do not know whether the police response reflected best practice.
Some of the answers will emerge in the new year when Coroner Michael Barnes releases his report.
Crucial will be recommendations on how to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents or better equip security agencies to handle them.
In the meantime debate rages as to whether Monis was a terrorist or a mentally ill criminal with a vendetta against the justice system dating back to a long running battle in the Family Court. PEOPLE DIED the least thing a news organisation can do to honour their memory is to report the facts straight. But no, their deaths have to become part of a cheap propaganda campaign to cover for the Islamist ideology of the man that killed them.
h/t Jerry Pournelle
New analysis from the British Council, based on British intelligence dossiers and academic research, finds that college degrees in technical areas like engineering create the perfect Islamic terrorist, "intelligent and curious, but unquestioning of authority" since they require "precisely the passive acceptance of right and wrong, and the faithful reproduction of knowledge learned by rote that jihadism seems also to require," versus the critical examination and debate liberal arts degrees that could stop the creation of future jihadis.
Analysis from Oxford University also shows a large number of Islamic terrorists are highly educated professionals, and do not come from the ranks of the uneducated poor, as analysts and Administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have asserted. "Many Islamic radicals are not economically dispossessed, are often better educated than their peers, and quite a few went to university," Oxford says.
There is no more unpleasant manifestation of public feeling than the deification of mere "smartness." as it is termed--of mere successful cunning unhampered by scruple or generosity or right feeling. If a man is not decent, is not square and honest, then the possession of ability only serves to render him more dangerous to the community.
#3
college degrees in technical areas like engineering ...., "intelligent and curious, but unquestioning of authority
>"unquestioning of authority" er. Maybe the degree does that, but the best engineers and scientists (CAGW Lysenkoists auto-excluded from this group) never take anyone's word for it.
#4
And of course with the preferred placement programs there are always the US gov guaranteed student loans and food or housing stipends with tax subsidized minimum wage part time jobs from which they cannot be dismissed without a discrimination suit.
[AnNahar] Italian police have tossed in the slammer Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a Syrian on suspicion of being a member of the so-called Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS), clapping him in cuffs shortly after he arrived by boat along with hundreds of refugees, media reports said Monday.
The man, reportedly in his 20s, was arrested by officers in Sicily after Italia's special operations division discovered incriminating material on his mobile phone.
The suspect had videos and photographs which appeared to be of IS attacks along with a text message which read "Allah is great, but ISIS is even better", according to the reports.
The local Corriere di Ragusa daily said the images contained "corpses, wounds and lots of blood."
The Syrian arrived on December 4 on a wooden fishing boat carrying 500 people, and had been staying at the reception center in the southeastern Sicilian port before his arrest.
If there is one in this 500, and nearly a million have come thus far this year, ...500 into 1,000,000 is like 5 into 10,000 or... about 2,000 jihadis and jihad fanboys. Let's be generous and assume that not all of them will actually act on their admiration, or will get caught at the planning stage. How many Parises would be successfully executed?
There have long been concerns in Italia and Europe of would-be jihadists entering the country and the rest of the continent on the rickety boats of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa.
At least one of the men involved in the Gay Paree attacks last month, which left 130 people dead, is believed to have traveled through Italia on his way to La Belle France.
Q.E.D.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano praised police, describing the arrest as "proof of the prevention system's efficiency."
That's,certainly one way to describe it.
"Our work never stops, night nor day. We are on the ground with our best investigative teams and our best men."
I don't doubt it. How much sleep do your people get?
Since the Gay Paree attacks, which were claimed by IS, there have been reports of a drop in the number of people attending crowded events or places in Italia -- from Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican to shopping centers.
Rome's Prefect Franco Gabrielli said it was necessary to "beat the fear which is gripping the city and the country in the fatalistic anticipation that something will happen."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/15/2015
02:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
clapping him in cuffs shortly after he arrived by boat along with hundreds of refugees
Aren't they all suspects?
[Ynet] Hamas' military wing in Gaza is paying tens of thousands of dollars each month to Islamic State's Sinai branch, in exchange for the group's help with smuggling
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' military wing in the Gazoo Strip has been transferring tens of thousands of dollars a month to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's Sinai branch over the past year, via one of its emissaries.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 17:02
Comments ||
Top||
#2
There are many countries and organizations that fund Hamas such as Iran and the Gulf States. Fund raising goes on in the U.S. and Europe as well. Hamas funding. Indirectly, we fund ISIS through aid provided to Hamas via Palestine. Not too smart. We are funding the barbarians who lop off heads, burn victims, and shoot them in the back of their heads when their hands are bound.
[Ynet] Terrorist from East Jerusalem rams his car into people waiting at a bus stop near the Chords Bridge at the entrance to the capital; he was rubbed out before he could leave his car; ax found in his vehicle.
Eleven people were maimed in a vehicular attack next to the the Chords Bridge at the entrance to Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. The attacker was rubbed out at the scene.
Eight people were taken to Sha'are Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, three of them in moderate condition, and six people in light condition, some suffering from shock.
Six were taken to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem, five of them lightly hurt. A one and a half-year-old baby, who was moderately maimed and suffering an injury to his leg, was initially taken to Sha'are Zedek and later transferred to Hadassah in an effort to save his leg, where his condition deteriorated.
The attack happened shortly before 3pm local time. The attacker, 21-year-old Abdel Muhsan Hasuna from the neighborhood of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, arrived in a private vehicle to Herzl Boulevard and proceeded to drive into a bus stop, driving onto the sidewalk and hitting several people, as well as a fire hydrant.
A security guard and a member of the security forces saw what was happening and shot the attacker before he could get out of his car.
Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj.-Gen. Moshe Edri said that "Their quick and precise action that neutralized the terrorist prevented a bigger attack."
An ax was found in the terrorist's car.
An Israel Radio news hound said she had seen the car mount the pavement and strike people before shots rang out.
"I was about to turn left to Tel Aviv, suddenly a car went up onto a bus station, shots immediately opened up ... There are people in the station... A number of people simply lifted up the car, because there were people underneath it," Miri Krimolovsky told her station.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing the wave of attacks as "a new type of terror by individuals which challenges us and other countries," praised the quick response of people at the scene whose actions "prevented far more serious tragedies."
"We are acting constantly to fight this terror and I have no doubt that eventually we will overcome it," Netanyahu told a Likud party meeting moments after the attack.
Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... referred to the recent period as "a justified popular uprising."
"We cannot ask the youth why they are going out (to revolt)," Abbas said Monday. "They just despaired of the two-state solution."
In the West Bank, two Israelis were lightly maimed on Monday evening when large rocks were thrown at their car near the settlement of Beit Aryeh.
Kosta Poliakov, whose mother was maimed in the attack, said "a rock weighing 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) was thrown straight onto the windshield. The windshield shattered, and mom was maimed in her face."
Poliakov said the driver of a vehicle that was behind his mother's car pulled out his weapon and tried to fire at the stone-throwers, but was unsuccessful.
A poll published by the Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research indicated that 67 percent of respondents supported stabbing attacks against Israelis and that, if the attacks were increased, it "would serve Paleostinian national interests in ways that negotiations could not."
More on that poll here. Separately, according to The Times of Israel, fourteen were injured in the Jerusalem car ramming, and also:
A member of the security forces, a security guard and an armed civilian who saw the attack taking place shot the attacker before he was able to get out of his car and approach the civilians. The civilian was the first to respond, and shot the driver, Channel 2 said.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, speaking at the scene of the attack, said that the municipality will soon install protective posts to prevent car-rammings at bus stops in the city, focusing on areas where there is the greatest risk of attacks.
Jerusalem has been one of the two focal points of terror attacks since the latest wave of violence began in October, with the West Bank city of Hebron being the other. More than 20 Israelis have been killed since the start of the violence, and hundreds more have been maimed.
[IsraelTimes] Critique is quoted in New Yorker profile of John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... , in which secretary also claims Israeli PM balked at 2010 chance for deal with Assad
It's not the first time for this kind of déclassé nonsense. Either they feel confident their Jewish donors have been pacified, or they're trying to forestall imminent criticism.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/15/2015 15:03
Comments ||
Top||
#11
Back a few months ago, Netanyahu addressed the UN. I happened to catch a few minutes of the speech in the cafeteria at work. I remember thinking "I wish we had a president who spoke so strongly and eloquently about the right of our country to exist."
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/15/2015 15:09
Comments ||
Top||
#12
I trust Obama about as far as I can throw my thumb.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/15/2015 16:36
Comments ||
Top||
#13
A failing old nutter of Qatar,
Great Pharaoh, Retired, and tut-tutter,
Would mutter, "It's easy,"
And sputter, "I'm Preezy!"
A-flailing the sand with his putter.
[AnNahar] Two protesters were killed Monday in festivities with police in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir amid growing tensions over a days-long curfew, security sources said.
The two demonstrators, aged 21 and 25, were rubbed out in violent festivities that erupted over the curfew that has been in place in the city's central Sur district almost uninterrupted since December 2, a security source told AFP, asking not to be named.
The circumstances of the deaths were not immediately clear. At least two other people were maimed and some 40 tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Police had used tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters seeking to march towards the Sur district, which is currently under a security lockdown.
The authorities have allowed only a single break in the curfew of less than a full day on December 11, allowing some trapped residents to leave the area.
The curfew in Sur was imposed shortly after prominent Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci was killed in broad daylight in the narrow streets of the district on November 28, in a crime that remains unsolved.
The Turkish government has been waging a relentless offensive aimed at crippling the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has staged a string of attacks against security forces in Turkey since a two-year-old ceasefire fell apart in late July.
The authorities have in recent months imposed curfews lasting up to two weeks in several towns in the southeast to back up military operations against the PKK.
The measures have proved controversial, with activists saying they deprive residents of vital services and put their health at risk.
But the government insists the curfews are needed to ensure the safety of citizens during essential operations.
[AnNahar] The Czech government said Monday it had decided for the first time to accept 37 Christian families fleeing the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in Iraq.
"They are members of the Christian minority who found themselves in a very difficult situation following the Islamic State aggression in Iraq and asked the Czech Republic for help," said Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka.
He said that the refugees, numbering 153 in total, were based in Iraqi Kurdistan and Leb and should arrive in four groups between next January and April.
"In our country they should get international protection, a chance to integrate and start a new life in safety," said Sobotka.
They will be the first refugees being taken in by Prague aside from the several dozen who have followed formal asylum procedures.
Last week, a group of 149 Assyrian Christians from Iraq arrived in neighboring Slovakia after being offered aid by the government there.
Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, former communist eastern European countries that joined the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... in 2004, have rejected the EU's system of quotas for distributing refugees amid the current migrant wave.
The two countries that formed the Czechoslovak federation until 1993 have accepted the Christian groups under voluntary programs unrelated to the EU quotas.
Within the current migrant crisis, few asylum seekers have chosen to stay in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with a majority heading to wealthier Germany and other western EU states.
[AnNahar] Greece sells 14 airports in privatization drive
Greece said Monday it agreed to sell 14 regional airports to a German operator, the first major privatization move for the country's left-wing government.
The Greek privatization agency said it was selling the airports to German airport operator Fraport for 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion).
The deal includes the airports of Thessaloniki, Greece's second-biggest city, and those of island tourist hotspots Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu, the agency said in a statement.
The deal showed that Greece is "regaining the markets' confidence step by step and re-embarking on the path of growth," agency chief Stergios Pitsiorlas said.
Greece in July accepted a three-year, 86-billion-euro ($93-billion) EU bailout that saved it from crashing out of the eurozone, but the deal came with strict conditions.
They include an ambitious privatization program, featuring the planned sale of ports, airports and other state assets.
Parliament is to vote on Tuesday on the modalities of a partial privatization of the Admie electricity utility, 49 percent of which is to go into private hands.
[AnNahar] Deadly festivities erupted between the military and Shiite Muslims in Zaria, northern Nigeria, which also left the group's headquarters and the home of its leader destroyed, witnesses said Sunday.
Armed soldiers carried out crackdowns on the pro-Iranian Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) following an incident on Saturday involving the convoy of the chief of army staff.
The IMN, which seeks to establish an Islamic state through an Iranian-styled revolution, has been at loggerheads with Nigeria's secular authorities, leading to occasionally violent confrontations. The group's leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky, has periodically been incarcerated for alleged incitement and subversion.
Northern Nigeria is majority Muslim and largely Sunni.
IMN front man Ibrahim Musa claimed dozens of the group's members were killed when soldiers opened fire and "hundreds more were maimed and incarcerated Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! " when Zakzaky's home and the sect's mosque were attacked.
Zakzaky's deputy and the group's head of security were among the dead but the whereabouts of Zakzaky and his family was unknown, he added.
There was no independent confirmation of the corpse count, although army front man Colonel Sani Usman said Sunday evening there was "loss of lives," without specifying numbers.
Local residents said soldiers backed by tanks invaded the Gyallesu area of Zaria and fought running battles through the night with hundreds of IMN members trying to block troops from reaching Zakzaky's home. Hundreds of sect members had mobilized from different parts of the north in response to an appeal on social media from the IMN leader for protection.
"Throughout the night gunfire rang all over the neighborhood as soldiers kept opening fire on hundreds of Shia followers who kept trooping to the house of their leader to guard it," said local Balarabe Gwargwaje. "The house has since been demolished."
On Saturday, Shiite faithful blocked the main road outside their Husseiniyya religious center, where hundreds had gathered for a ceremony.
The crowds obstructed traffic, including the convoy of Nigeria army chief Tukur Yusuf Buratai, witnesses and the military said.
The military claimed the Shiites attacked Buratai, which left soldiers no option but to retaliate. The army said IMN members, who set barricades and bonfires on the road, were armed with "dangerous weapons" in a "deliberate attempt to assassinate the chief of army staff and members of his entourage."
"The troops responsible for the safety and security of the Chief of Army Staff on hearing kaboom and firing were left with no choice than to defend him and the convoy at all cost as well as open up the barricaded road for law abiding citizens," it added.
Buratai was on an official visit to the city, the statement issued late Saturday said.
IMN front man Musa, however, said there was "no reason" for opening fire and the group was made up of "defenseless people out to perform a religious ceremony."
[Ynet] Iran's state TV is reporting that the country's Foreign Ministry has summoned the Nigerian Charge d'Affaires to protest the killing of Shiite Muslims in northern Nigeria.
The broadcast says a senior Foreign Ministry official condemned the killings and said the Nigerian government is responsible to protect Shiite Muslim lives and properties. Iran is the world's largest Shiite Muslim state.
Nigerian soldiers raided the home of Ibraheem Zakzaky, leader of the Shiite Islamic Movement, this weekend in Zaria, a town in northern Nigeria. The movement says soldiers killed hundreds of Shiite Muslims after their group stoned the convoy of Nigeria's army chief. Other reports put the number of dead at about 20.
[Tolo News] Unknown gunmen killed eight members of one family in eastern Nangarhar province on Sunday night, local officials confirmed Monday.
According to officials, the incident occurred in Mirza Qala village in Behsood district.
So far no one has been arrested in connection with the incident but police have started their investigations.
One survivor said eight members of his family were killed by three men who had been staying with them at the time.
The head of the family, Yusuf, his mother, his wife and five children were all killed, said the survivor Parwiz.
According to him: "Among the dead are my nieces, sister and brother-in-law. They were killed by three men who were guests in the house. These men fled after the shooting."
Meanwhile a tribal elder from the village, Malik Nemat, said: "The incident happened during the night and we heard the news this morning. We quickly informed the security forces."
Local officials said the police have started investigations.
Attaullah Khogyani, a provincial governor's spokesman, said: "The police have visited the scene but so far no one has been arrested but police are looking for the murderers."
However, the survivors have called on government to ensure justice is carried out.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ARA News]. QAMISHLI – Fierce clashes took place in Kobane suburb in northern Syria between Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and militants of the Islamic State (ISIS), military sources reported on Monday.
The clashes centered in the vicinity of Sarrin town south of Kobane.
“Daesh terrorists targeted our security centers in Sarrin with several mortar shells, which lead to the outbreak of clashes in the vicinity of the town,” leadership of the YPG said in a statement on Monday evening, using another acronym for ISIS.
This comes after ISIS militants tried to infiltrate into the YPG-held town of Sarrin subsequent to receiving military reinforcements from Jarablous city west of Kobane on the border with Turkey.
The Kurdish forces have reportedly repelled the ISIS attack and forced the militants to withdraw towards Jarablous following fierce clashes with heavy weapons, during which casualties have fallen on both sides.
“The terror group has also tried to use car bombs in order to infiltrate into Sarrin, but our forces targeted the cars before reaching the town,” YPG spokesman in Kobane, Hebun Osman, told ARA News.
At least eight ISIS militants were killed in Monday’s clashes. On the other hand, three Kurdish fighters lost their lives after being hardly wounded.
In the meantime, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition conducted several airstrikes on ISIS fighting positions west of Kobane, killing several militants and destroying two ISIS armored vehicles, the YPG leadership reported on Monday.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] An evangelical preacher from Northern Ireland who branded Islam satanic has been charged with spreading a "grossly offensive" message.
In a May 2014 sermon, James McConnell told worshippers at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in Belfast: "Islam is heathen. Islam is satanic."
The sermon was streamed online, and 78-year-old McConnell has been charged with transmitting the message over an electronic communications network.
Prosecutor David Russell told Belfast Magistrates' Court Monday that the case had "nothing to do with religion or freedom of expression."
He said McConnell "characterizes the followers of an entire religion in a stereotypical way. And that's grossly offensive and that's not protected from saying it from a pulpit."
McConnell denies the charges, and told police he didn't intend to offend, insult, arouse fear or stir up tension.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ireland was always famous for its prophetic visionaries.
[Guardian] Bodies discovered aboard drifting vessels believed to be those of soldiers turned fishermen, as Japanese authorities concede puzzle may never be solved. Long article at the link. But the bottom line is speculation that Pudgy's army is so desperate for food that inexperienced soldiers are being ordered to risk their lives in rickety old fishing boats on stormy seas.
[ABCNEWS.GO] Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's case has been referred to a general court martial, where he could face a life sentence if convicted of misbehavior before the enemy and he could face five years of prison time if convicted of desertion.
"The U.S. Army Forces Command's Commanding General referred two charges today, Dec. 14, in the case of United States vs. Sgt. Robert B. Bergdahl to a General Court-Martial," the Army said in a statement.
"The two specific charges referred under the U.S. Armed Forces' Uniform Code of Military Justice are: (1) Article 85: 'Desertion with Intent to Shirk Important or Hazardous Duty;' and (2) Article 99: 'Misbehavior before the Enemy by Endangering the Safety of a Command, Unit or Place,'" the statement added.
Bergdahl's attorney, Eugene Fidell, said in a statement that Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of U.S. Army Forces Command, did not accept the recommendation from a pre-trial hearing that Bergdahl's case should be referred to a special court martial that would have limited prison time for a conviction to a year. Instead, Abrams decided to refer Bergdahl's case to a general court martial for which he could get five years if convicted of desertion and a life sentence if convicted of misbehavior before the enemy.
"The convening authority did not follow the advice of the hearing officer who heard the witnesses," said Fidell, noting he "had hoped the case would not go in this direction."
"We will continue to defend Sgt. Bergdahl as the case proceeds," Fidell said. "We again ask that Donald Trump cease his prejudicial months-long campaign of defamation against our client. We also ask that the House and Senate Armed Services Committees avoid any further statements or actions that prejudice our client's right to a fair trial."
The date of the arraignment hearing at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will be announced at a later date.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
Congrats to General Abrams for avoiding the Fix
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 7:27
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Congrats to General Abrams on your impending 'retirement.'
Posted by: Mae West ||
12/15/2015 14:39
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Semi-retirement. GOs are subject to 'recall' at the behest of the Secretary. Might have a new one in January 2017. Might see the return of a number of former 'stars'.
#7
I can see several ways this could play out:
1. It gets slow walked so that the actual trial doesn't happen until after Jan 2017. Bergdahl gets convicted and sentenced to life.
2. It gets fast tracked, Bergdahl gets convicted and Obama pardons him on his last day.
3.It goes at a normal pace, and Bergdahl gets acquitted due to "command influence" - from the White House.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/15/2015 15:04
Comments ||
Top||
#8
Well Done Gen Abrams, this was shaping up to be a huge stain on the Honor and credibility of the service. Regardless of what happens now, the fix cannot be made without it becoming even more obvious. My guess is slowwalking the trial to minimize impact until the remaining few weeks/months of the Obumble disaster.
#9
FWIW, my bet is on a slow grind too. Military prosecutors hate losing as much as any others, and will plod along carefully to be sure their case is airtight. Also, defense lawyers whine about how "justice delayed is justice denied," but strangely they're the ones who request as many delays as they can. A case this high profile makes everyone nervous nellies who will drag things out as long as possible.
#10
the Defense lawyer is whining that "the Command disregarded the investigating Officer's recommendation" that was obviously political/too lenient/could've been written by the defense
Suck it. Sometimes political cover doesn't override honor and integrity (something unknown in this administration and their prostrate brass)
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 20:54
Comments ||
Top||
#11
Defense lawyers defend. They whine and bitch and huff and puff. That's their job. The Art. 32 officer's recommendation is just that: a recommendation. Nothing more. The decision is the CG's alone, and all the relevant players know that. The rest is just noise.
Saudi warplanes and Apache helicopters killed 68 senior rebel officers in attacks on their positions across the border on Monday to avenge the death of one of its field army commanders, Saudi newspapers reported on Tuesday.
“The Kingdom’s warplanes and Apache helicopters turned the areas of the coup rebels into an open mourning for their high-ranking officers,” ‘Sabq’ newspaper said.
Sabq and other papers quoted military sources as saying the aircraft attacked rebel positions across the border and other areas and that 68 coup brigadiers and colonels were killed while 233 were injured.
The report said 43 rebel snipers and seven Scud missile experts from the Iranian-backed insurgents were also killed by the raids and Saudi artillery and missile shelling.
It said the attacks following the martyrdom of Saudi Colonel Abdullah Al Sahyan and UAE officer Sultan Al Kitbi on Monday "while they were carrying out their duties in supervising operations to liberate Taiz.
[Dhaka Tribune] The recent statements from Islamabad claiming that the Pakistain government and its allies and auxiliaries were not guilty of war crimes and atrocities in 1971 serve as a grim reminder of the need to keep the memory of December 14, 1971 alive forever.
Our liberation war is long past and we have been living as a proud, free, and independent nation for more than four decades. It is right that we face the future, not the past, and focus more on what is to come than what has been.
But we can never forget the sacrifices of the deaders that won our freedom, nor the pain that we had to incur as a nation and a people to wrest our independence from the bloody hand of our oppressors.
We can live in peace and amity with all nations of the world, even with Pakistain, and we are perfectly willing as a nation to move on from 1971 and try to forge strong bonds of friendship with anyone who extends the hand of friendship to us.
In an effort to move forward, in the spirit of magnanimity, we can even forgive the wrongs that were done to us in 1971, and do our best to put the past behind us.
But to do so we must first demand, at the very least, honesty and openness about the atrocities that were committed. Without an honest and truly remorseful admission of guilt, there can be no forgiveness.
And for certain wrongs, such as the killing of the intellectuals on December 14, 1971, for the genuinely remorseful, forgiveness should never even be sought, much less granted.
As we honour our martyred intellectuals, this does not mean that we must nurture bitterness in our breast nor hatred in our heart.
That we can move forward and look to a glittering future instead of always looking to the past and the bloodiness of our birth speaks well for the nation and for our prospects.
But even as we look ahead, there are some things which can never be forgiven, much less forgotten.
The killing of the intellectuals on December 14, 1971 was one such incident.
It must therefore live on in the nation's collective conscience, and we must forevermore be nurtured by the memory of the sacrifices that made our freedom possible.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Thought this was going to be about 911 and all the other terrorist activities over the years. Oh, it is.
[WASHINGTONPOST] German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... 's refugee policy has attracted praise from all over the world. Time magazine and the Financial Times newspaper recently named her Person of the Year, and delegates applauded her for so long at her party's convention on Monday that she had to stop them.
The speech that followed, however, may have surprised supporters of her policies: Multiculturalism remains a sham, she said, before adding that Germany may be reaching its limits in terms of accepting more refugees. "The challenge is immense," she said. "We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably."
Although those remarks may seem uncharacteristic of Merkel, she probably would insist that she was not contradicting herself. In fact, she was only repeating a sentiment she first voiced several years ago when she said multiculturalism in Germany had "utterly failed."
"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'Let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other.' But this concept has failed, and failed utterly," she said in 2010.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably."
#2
well what the hell is this? merkel is the one who threw open the borders and caused this mess
how is that consistent with this position?
how is she going to change multiculturalism now? very difficult -- especially with thousands upon thousands of migrants who are radically different in cultural terms and feel a sense of entitlement never to change their ways
It is a clear and obvious lie. She cannot do anything about it now. She woumld have rioting in the streets from the violent thugs of the hard left and the fifth column she just imported
it would be civil war. it is impossible and she does not mean what she said or she wouldnt have set up these conditions in the first place.
Ebbert G -- i do not think it is correct to bring up auschwitz in response to merkel saying she would reign in multiculturalism.
What are you saying ? That if a country wishes to keep its borders, if they wish to keep their own culture, that if they ask immigrants to give up their own culture and integrate that is equivalent to auschwitz?
you must be an internationalist who does not believe in borders
well nor does Islamofascism and look at the violence that brings
that only leads to the worst kind of war - civil war, where ordinary people kill each other in the streets
state on state warfare is preferable because there is some discipline and rules of war, eg geneva convention
internationalism is in some ways worse than nationalism
#6
Ebbert G -- i do not think it is correct to bring up auschwitz in response to merkel saying she would reign in multiculturalism.
I didn't directly mention Auschwitz or any of the other Camps by name.
What are you saying ? That if a country wishes to keep its borders, if they wish to keep their own culture, that if they ask immigrants to give up their own culture and integrate that is equivalent to auschwitz?
I'm not saying that at all. Merely positing that it might ONE solution that could be studied. An effective one at that. So that others may learn.
The smart thing would have been to never let them in, however, that ship has sailed. For all of us. What remains is to finally accept that they need to be confined to their Muslim 3rd world crapholes by force if necessary.
#7
you must be an internationalist who does not believe in borders
well nor does Islamofascism and look at the violence that brings
that only leads to the worst kind of war - civil war, where ordinary people kill each other in the streets
Oops! I missed this. I'm NOT an Internationalist by any stretch. American, Southerner, hard core right-wing Nationalist. Willing to accept hard decisions and ruthless action to save my country from the Left and the Islamists. Including civil war.
Borders? I definitely believe in them. Just haven't seen them enforced for decades, past time for that to end.
Because, sometimes civil war is just what the doctor ordered.
#9
This is like Obama going over the Potomac to the five sided building and proclaiming we're winning against ISIS. Cheap theater for the masses who are becoming dangerously restive.
#10
Reciprocal Cultures can mix with each other without problem and often to mutual benefit.
Tribal cultures such as those found in islam infested areas cannot reciprocate and thus very little excess wealth can be created there, and thus civilisation is not possible.
#11
Good luck getting folks that came to your country for the nice benefits to suddenly develop a German work ethic.
Hopefully the US will change our own immigration quotas to allow lots of Germans in when the time comes and they decide their nation is lost. We could use an injection of hard work ethic DNA in our national character again.
#15
Multiculturalism is a sham. She got that right. Unfortunately, her epiphany was a little late in coming. Universities have raised multiculturalism to the level of a deity. Multiculturalism is not worth the candle--particularly if the cost is giving up your own culture.
#16
multiculturalism only works for those cultures based on Enlightenment principles that are secular in nature.
So for example - germans, portuguese, italians, greeks, english, indians, sri lankans, irish, americans, canadians, south africans all get along great in australia
those cultures that did not come from an enlightenment background but are at least secular and have a hard work ethic also rub along quite well - Iran (secular Iranians most fled when the ayatollah took over) chinese, thai, christian lebanese, secular muslim pakistanis, korean, japanese, vietnamese - all get along great in Australia
African blacks have only just begun arriving but so far the Kenyans are getting along great but the somalis less so ... guess why the somalis are less so....
But those from Islamic countries who themselves are Islamist, who view Islam as supreme and who wish for sharia - they have caused nothing but problems. muslim lebanese of southwest sydney, theocratic iranians, theocratic indonesians, somalis, theocratic pakistanis, theocratic turks... any Islamist immigrants = BIG problem
[HOLLYWOODREPORTER] In an announcement that expresses Hollywood’s deepening apprehension over Donald Trump and the state of national politics, Democratic elder statesman Norman Lear told the sold-out crowd at People for the American Way's annual Spirit of Liberty dinner Saturday night that the organization will launch a major issues-oriented effort tied to the 2016 election cycle.
"I'll let you in on a little secret," the organization's 93-year-old founder told the Beverly Wilshire audience. "At a board meeting this very morning, People for the American Way decided to devote a major effort to the issue of hate speech and anti-Muslim rhetoric," both of which have become staples of the current Republican presidential race.
"I've never seen our country so confused, so removed from anything resembling an American dream, heading in a direction that scares the hell out of me," Lear said. "Trust me in 93 years, one sees a lot."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Didn't he make conservative statements a month or so ago? I assume this is trying to get his liberal crews back more than anything else.
'
#3
"I've never seen our country so confused, so removed from anything resembling an American dream, heading in a direction that scares the hell out of me," Lear said. "Trust me in 93 years, one sees a lot."
Much of what frightens him is of his own making. By the way, old age should not be synonymous with wisdom or cognitive ability, especially among ideologues.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Already struggling with finances, the Democratic Party has drafted a plan to have taxpayers help pay about $20 million for next summer's nominating convention, reversing a change Congress approved just a year ago. Need more money? Just print it!
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ...Congresswoman from Florida, the abrasive chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She has been a politician since 1992, and prior to that was in training as a political science major. Her primary accomplishment seems to be that she's Jewish... , who is also a congresswoman from Florida, has drafted a bill to restore money that both parties used to receive from the federal government to help defray the costs of running their quadrennial conventions.
The Congressional Budget Office revealed the move in a letter released Friday, which said Ms. Wasserman Schultz's proposal to tap a presidential campaign fund would likely mean each party could get about $20 million in taxpayer money to help with costs.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Why do they need a nominating convention, they already have the candidate? Downsize the very obvious political charade and save some dough.
#2
Already struggling with finances, the Democratic Party
Not good with finances? No big surprise there. What's new? Personally, I hope they have to rely on begging on the street and bake sales to fund the convention. Tap the Clinton Foundation for dinero.
#4
Might I suggest a virtual convention? Mr. Obama, the purported head of the Party, is reputed to have a technically-savvy staff in his ideological army. Surely Google and the other members of the technocracy would be happy to assist the cause with the underpinnings.
Of course Bernie Sanders might be a little lost, but he always looks that way.
#5
Yes, go fleece the Plutocrats of the Bay to subsidize the party on the backs of the American unemployed displaced by foreign workers. You should have no problem since you too don't believe in borders or the working class.
[PALMBEACHPOST] A woman who made a late-night stop Saturday at a Loxahatchee Groves nudist colony told police she was stabbed early Sunday by a young man.
Police had no motive, no witnesses and no suspect Sunday afternoon.
The woman, who has not been identified, told Sunsport Gardens manager Morley Schloss from the hospital Sunday that her wounds were not severe.
"We're very happy that she's OK," Schloss told The Palm Beach Post. "I've been living here for 17 years and we're never had anything like this."
The woman, 18, arrived at the resort on North Road late Saturday by bicycle for a pit stop on her journey from Georgia to the Keys. Thinking she had found a campground, Schloss said it pleased her to to find out she had stumbled upon a nudist resort. She enjoyed dancing to music played by a live band Saturday night.
In the morning, wanting to explore the resort's 40 acres, the woman went out on the nature trail. A person described by the woman to Schloss as "young" confronted and stabbed her about 9:30 a.m. It is unknown whether the assailant resided at the resort.
When the woman emerged from the trail, walking, two Sunsport guests saw her and called for help, Schloss said. Authorities flew her to a hospital, although they didn't say which one.
Sunsport, in the tiny, rural town west of Royal Palm Beach, had space in 2010 for 133 trailers and tents.
Dogs aided by a sheriff's helicopter searched the area, Schloss said. The heavy law-enforcement presence eased his mind. Still, he said, he's trying to understand what happened.
"It's really scary. It's not anything we've ever had before," he said. "It's not anything we'd ever expect to happen again."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ummm...."stabbed" with what? and where?
and do you still need to pitch a tent at a nudist resort?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 10:11
Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think she was stabbed "on the nature trail", Frank.
[REUTERS] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... will use talks in Moscow on Tuesday to try to narrow differences with Russian leader Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... over the role of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... in any political transition, a senior State Department official said on Monday.
He will also seek to prepare the ground for a third round of talks of world powers on Syria amid doubts over whether a meeting pencilled in for Friday in New York will go ahead.
Russia's foreign ministry said late on Monday that Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had agreed in a phone call on the need for specific preconditions to be met before any new meeting, throwing its timing into doubt.
Russia is one of Assad's staunchest allies and launched a campaign of air strikes to support his forces against snuffies on Sept. 30. It says only the Syrian people and not external powers should decide his political fate.
Speaking in Gay Paree before Kerry visits Moscow on Tuesday, the State Department official said Kerry would raise concerns about Russia's continued bombing of Syrian opposition forces instead of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... myrmidons, an approach likely to anger Moscow.
Ahead of the talks, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement criticising U.S. policy on Syria, complaining that Washington was not ready to fully cooperate in the struggle against Islamic State Lions of Islam and needed to rethink its policy of "dividing bandidossnuffies into good and bad ones".
Kerry's meeting with Putin follows a meeting last week in Riyadh which agreed to unite a number of opposition groups excluding Islamic State to negotiate with Damascus in Syrian peace talks.
While Kerry said there were still "kinks" that needed to be worked out on the plan to unite the opposition groups, the Kremlin rejected the outcome of the Riyadh meeting, saying it had no right to speak on behalf of the entire Syrian opposition.
Assad himself appeared to cast doubt on the very idea of peace talks last Friday, saying he would not negotiate with gangs which he said were backed by the United States and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... .
The opposition groups said Assad should leave power at the start of a transitional period.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Tolo News] Following heavy festivities in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province, and the growing fear of districts falling to the Taliban, U.S Special Operations forces have secretly taken a more central role in the fighting in a bid to help drive out the holy warriors, reports the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize....
Shhhhhhhhh! It's a secret!
According to the report, not just air power has been committed to the battle but so too have ground troops.
It was reported that a Western diplomat said last week that the U.S special ops forces have in fact been involved in the fight for a few weeks -- despite the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by President Barack Obama teachable moment... at the end of last year.
The New York Times reports that the extent of the American role has been kept largely secret, with senior Afghan officials in the area saying they are under orders not to divulge the level of cooperation, especially by Special Operations forces on the ground.
The report states that the Pentagon is concerned that the involvement may suggest that the American combat role, which was supposed to have ended in December 2014, is still far beyond the official "train, advise and assist" mission.
The elite ground units in Helmand include both Special Operations troops and the United States Air Force's Special Tactics Squadron, according to the Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The American intervention in Helmand comes amid reports of Taliban capturing more districts and Afghan cops being trapped and becoming more demoralized, read the report adding that if hard boyz are able to sweep away the tenuous government presence in district centers and the capital, Lashkar Gah, it would be a dire setback for the Afghan government, and would give the Taliban a strong foothold in southern Afghanistan.
Asked whether American forces were taking a larger combat role in Helmand, a United States military front man, Col. Michael T. Lawhorn, would not reply directly. But he praised the Afghan forces' efforts so far.
"There's little question that Helmand is a contested area," Lawhorn said. "But the Afghan National Security Forces have conducted no fewer than five major operations there to disrupt holy warrior and Taliban activities."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Obambi said "no boots on the ground!" so the operators all wore sneakers.
Posted by: Steven ||
12/15/2015 3:45
Comments ||
Top||
[MEDIAITE] Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler released his annual list of the biggest whoppers of the year, including the contention that Michael Brown was surrendering with his hands up when he was killed by a Ferguson police officer.
"This phrase became a rallying cry for protests after the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white police officer, Darren Wilson," Kessler writes. "Witness accounts spread after the shooting that Brown had his hands raised in surrender, mouthing the words 'Don't shoot' as his last words before being shot execution-style. Democratic politicians raised their hands in solidarity on the House floor."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Waiting to see what becomes of those 60 propane bottles and box of cell phones.
#4
And the MSM (which includes WP) were the Wormtongues to spread it rather than debunk it at the time as it served the narrative and the power of the Left (the politics of hate and envy).
"A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes"
[ABCNEWS.GO] A British man tossed in the calaboose Book 'im, Mahmoud! days before an annual national war commemoration has been convicted of planning an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group-inspired knife attack in London.
Nadir Syed was arrested on Nov. 6, 2014, three days before Remembrance Sunday, amid fears that bully boyz were planning an attack on police or soldiers at a war memorial event.
Prosecutors said 22-year-old Syed was obsessed with beheadings and the killing of British solider Lee Rigby, who was stabbed to death on a London street in 2013 by two British men inspired by al-Qaeda.
He tried to go to Syria in early 2014 but was prevented from leaving the country, and prosecutors said he was inspired by the words of an IS leader who urged attacks on Western targets.
Prosecutor Max Hill said the IS fatwa "inspired the defendant to plan his own attack in this country, emulating the attack on Lee Rigby." Hill said the timing, just before Remembrance Sunday, was "no coincidence." Syed recorded a video showing himself stamping on a poppy, the symbol of wartime remembrance, indicating his "attitude to the poppy as the remembrance image in this country," the prosecutor said.
Syed was arrested shortly after buying a foot-long (30 centimeter-long) chef's knife. He denied planning an attack and claimed the knife was meant as a gift for his mother.
Syed was convicted Wednesday at London's Woolwich Crown Court after a jury had deliberated for more than 50 hours. The verdict couldn't be reported until Monday because the jury was still deliberating on two other defendants.
Jurors failed to reach a verdict on suspects Haseeb Hamayoon, 29, and Syed's 20-year-old cousin Yousaf Syed. The two men face a retrial. Nadir Syed will be sentenced at a later date.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
Gunmen shot dead a senior employee of Iraq’s state-run North Oil Company (NOC) on Monday, the third company official to be killed in the past four months, police and sources within the company said.
Deputy inspector-general Hassan Salim and three other employees were driving to their office in the northern oil city of Kirkuk when assailants in a speeding car sprayed their minibus with bullets.
Salim and another employee were killed instantly and the two other passengers were seriously wounded, police sources said.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the killings and police investigations have yet to uncover the perpetrator, according to a police officer in the investigating team.
The ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk has been under Kurdish control since June 2014, when Islamic State overran the north of the country and Iraqi security forces collapsed.
The number of bombings in the city has decreased since the Kurds took over, but there has been a wave of assassinations, many of them targeting Arabs.
[Rudaw] For Ewed Qais Nheli, whose dedication and 40 years as a Peshmerga have earned him the rank of brigadier, the Kurdistan region's war with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group touches close to the heart: that is because he is a Christian.
The dozens of Christian towns, villages and hamlets scattered across the Kurdistan region were especially targeted with the brutality of the religious fanatics, who have waged war against the autonomous Kurdish enclave since August 2014.
"I feel so sad to hear about Christians abandoning villages on the frontlines," said Nheli, who explained that he is the only Christian brigadier among the Peshmerga.
"I would like to ask those Christians not to leave their villages, because there is no doubt they will regret doing so," the commander warned in an interview with Rudaw, as his forces fight ISIS in the village of Wanke at the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... Dam.
Across Iraq, ISIS has killed and looted en masse in Christian villages, wiping or driving out some of the oldest Christian communities in the world. The vast majority of Iraq's Christians has either migrated abroad or sought shelter in the Kurdistan region. By some estimates, 95 percent of Iraq's Christians now live in the autonomous Kurdish enclave.
Among the more than 1,000 Peshmerga killed and over 5,000 maimed in the war with ISIS, there have been dozens of Christian dead and hundreds maimed.
"Until now the Christians have played a great role alongside the Peshmerga forces and have taken part in several difficult battles," Nheli said. "Besides hundreds of maimed, dozens of Christian Peshmerga -- including my father Hormoz Malk Jako -- have been martyred in Christian villages."
In the force where he serves, Nheli said his religion has never made a difference.
"I have never felt any discrimination against myself or anyone from other sects," he said, pointing to his own senior rank as evidence.
He explained that there are other Christian commanders among the Peshmerga, but "I am the first Christian to reach the level of brigadier in the Peshmerga forces."
The US-led coalition has called the Peshmerga the most reliable force on the ground in the war with ISIS. The Peshmerga have been fighting with air cover from the coalition.
Nheli said that Christians "have been given great opportunities" in Kurdistan, including politically.
Nheli also explained that he had lost five family members in a kaboom on his home by late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's forces. It was after he became a Peshmerga.
Coexistence, he said, has always reigned among the Kurds: "There are dozens of Christian villages and districts in Duhok, Hawler (Erbil) and Kirkuk provinces."
#2
Possibly A lot more human shields casualties.
Generally, better targeting intelligence and the locals have a sense of when the platforms will arrive.
[ARABNEWS] Egypt said Monday it still has no evidence to back up Moscow's analysis that a "terrorist" attack had downed a Russian passenger plane at the end of October in the Sinai.
The Daesh [Islamic State] group said it smuggled a bomb on board that blew up the Russian jet on Oct. 31, killing all 224 people on board.
On Nov. 17, Moscow said an investigation had found that the plane which took off from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was brought down by a bomb on board, a view shared by aviation experts.
"The technical committee has not received to date any indication of the presence of illicit meddling or a terrorist action," said Ayman El-Mokkadem, the Egyptian head of a probe into the crash.
"The committee continues its work concerning the technical investigation," he said in a statement released by the Civil Aviation Ministry. "I can only recall the conclusion of our experts and our special services that indicates it was really a terrorist act," Kremlin front man Dmitri Peskov said, reacting to Mokkadem's remarks.
On Nov. 17, Russia's President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... announced that Russian Sherlocks had found evidence of a bomb on board, and vowed to punish the attackers.
"We will search for them anywhere they might hide. We will find them in any part of the world and punish them," he said.
The same day, Russian security chief Alexander Bortnikov said the passenger jet was brought down by a bomb with a force equivalent to one kilogram (two pounds) of TNT.
"We can say unequivocally that this was a terrorist attack," he said.
"Investigation carried out on all objects (personal belongings of passengers, baggage and parts of the aircraft) showed traces of foreign-made explosives," Bortnikov said at the time.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ABCNEWS.GO] Syrian troops and allied forces of Evil seized control of a sprawling military air base near Damascus on Monday, bolstering the government's presence in a key area overwhelmingly controlled by opposition forces.
The Marj al-Sultan air base lies in the eastern suburb of Damascus known as Eastern Ghouta, and had been held by rebels for the past three years.
The capture is a rare victory for the government in an area considered an opposition stronghold. It bolsters the government's hold over Damascus International Airport and splits rebel-held areas.
The capture was reported by Al-Manar TV, the channel of Leb's Shiite Hezbollah group, whose fighters are battling alongside Syrian troops under Russian air cover.
Pro-government websites and the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on activists inside Syria, also reported the capture of Marj al-Sultan on Monday.
Fighting on the ground in Syria has intensified even as the international community makes its most serious push yet to restart peace talks between Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's government and the rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... is heading to Russia for talks aimed at narrowing gaps with Russian leaders over a political transition to end the country's nearly five-year civil war.
Before departing, Kerry attended a French-hosted foreign ministers' meeting in Gay Paree to compare notes on a conference of Syrian opposition figures held last week in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... .
As he headed into the meeting, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said last week's meeting in Riyadh was encouraging.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[12 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[ARA News] DUHOK – The Islamic State (ISIS) hardline group executed on Monday three Imams in Iraq’s northwestern city of Mosul under the pretext that they refused urging youngsters to join the group’s ranks, local activists reported.
ISIS issued a decision last week, obliging all Imams of mosques in Mosul city to call for jihad and recruit the youth to join the group’s ranks.
The radical group has fortified its headquarters in Mosul in preparation for a possible attack by the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi troops, supported by the U.S.-led coalition.
“The Imams Kazim Abdulkarim, Bilal al-Sheikh Agha and Abdullah al-Hayalli were brutally beheaded in a public square on Monday afternoon,” a local media activist told ARA News on the condition of anonymity.
Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, Iraqi researcher and journalist Saaduddin al-Othman said: “The three Imams were beheaded in central Mosul in front of dozens of people. The terrifying scene caused a popular outrage, especially that the victims were renowned figures and committed to true Islam; they have opposed ISIS atrocities under the name of Allah, that’s why the terror group executed them.”
Also on Monday, an Iraqi teacher, identified as Ashwaq al-Nouaymi, was shot dead by ISIS militants for refusing to teach the new curriculum imposed by the extremist group on the schools of Mosul, eyewitnesses said.
Al-Othman pointed out that “the ignorance of the Iraqi people” have helped ISIS to spread and take over major areas.
“When ISIS emerged, people have had enough of the suppression of the Iraqi regime, so many people swore allegiance to ISIS with a hope that the group would help them overthrow the regime. However, today Iraq is witnessing the most horrible crimes at the hands of those barbaric terrorists,” he told concluded.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
For a minute there I thought they may have executed the three imams in the US who spoke out against radicalization after the incident in California.
Iranian-backed rebel stronghold Sanaa may fall to the Arab coalition and their allies the national army and resistance without fighting, a Yemeni army general has said.
Brigadier Samir Al Haj, military adviser to the Yemeni army chief of staff, said the legitimate army and resistance now control more than 70 per cent of Yemen and that many rebel areas were falling to the resistance one after another.
He acknowledged that the battle for the liberation of the Southwestern Taiz governorate has dragged on because of its difficult geographical nature but added that the offensive would not stop until the entire province is liberated from the coup insurgents.
“Regarding Sanaa, I believe that when the coalition, the army and popular resistance advance close to it, there will be dramatic changes in the scene and this could lead to its fall without the need for a military offensive,” he told the Saudi daily ‘Okaz’.
“I think the tribes in Sanaa will play a major role in its fall. Most of them are waiting for the time when they get rid of these militias.”
Al Haj said the legitimate army is capable of imposing its control over all liberated areas through the integration of the resistance fighters into the army and police. He said this would prevent the emergence of “warlords” in Yemen.
[ARABNEWS] Opposition politicians released tear gas Monday in Kosovo's Parliament as they once again tried to pressure the government into renouncing deals with Serbia and Montenegro.
Clouds of smoke from two tear gas canisters forced politicians out of the debating chamber. The parliamentary session restarted later in another room without the presence of opposition politicians.
An opposition political party, the Alliance for Kosovo's Future, said one of its politicians, Pal Lekaj, was incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! , allegedly for using tear gas.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie ducked another tomato... police dispersed dozens of opposition supporters throwing stones and paint outside the building. There were no reports of any injuries.
Over the past three months, the opposition has blocked Kosovo's parliament with tear gas, pepper spray, whistles and water bottles to protest the deals and their supporters have held violent protests in Pristina.
One of the deals gives more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo while the other demarcates the border with Montenegro.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, an act that Serbia still rejects. The two countries have been holding European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... -mediated talks to overcome their differences.
Glauk Konjufca of the Self-Determination Movement told news hounds the opposition would continue different forms of pressure on the government "to make it understand that the Aug. 25 deals ... cannot pass in Kosovo and that the opposition is determined to use all the methods so these two deals damaging Kosovo's statehood are not applied."
US Ambassador Greg Delawie, who was at Parliament, criticized Monday's incident.
He repeated the warning from US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... , who visited two weeks ago, that Parliament is "where meaningful debates on public policy are conducted, where people can listen to each other peacefully."
If the government refuses to halt the deals, the opposition wants a referendum on the issues or a new election. The government, the president and the international community have called for dialogue.
The deal on Serb minority rights is suspended until Kosovo's constitutional court rules on its legality. The government, which accuses the opposition of trying to seize power by force, has said it will ask international experts to decide on the border demarcation with Montenegro.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
In grade school, there would be playground justice for this kind of behaviour.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
12/15/2015 6:41
Comments ||
Top||
Excerpted from a longer piece mostly about professional soccer and the current "migrants".
[Jpost] Europe is a continent of chaos and feigned laws.
Why is it that turbans in Europe, from the killers at Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... , the Gay Paree attacks, the 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... murders, the French train shooter or the Copenhagen terrorist, all had relatively easy access to guns? Europe prides itself on gun laws, unlike those "gun-loving" Americans.
Yet, "it was unclear how Abdel-Hamed el-Hussein obtained the weapon," wrote USA Today. In fact it was three weapons: An M95 assault rifle, a 9mm pistol and 7.65mm pistol.
The French train shooter had a 9mm Luger and also an AKM rifle. The AK-47s used in the Gay Paree attacks were produced in Serbia, some of them decades ago. The rocket-launcher, rifles and submachine guns used in the Hebdo attacks were purchased in Belgium.
Why is it in Europe, under the "strict" gun laws, that all the criminals and turbans have guns? Not just old handguns, but easy access to automatic rifles and rocket-launchers. Do you ever hear about gun dealers being enjugged I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! often in Europe? No. You hear about laws against guns, but not about enforcement of those laws. Prices for these weapons are not even outrageous. About $770 for an AK-47, more for a rocket launcher. French police estimate that "4,000 war weapons" are circulating in La Belle France. A German guns dealer has been detained following the Gay Paree attacks, and 800 shotguns "moving from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... " have been seized.
In Maryland you can buy a semi-automatic Yugoslav Zastava AK-47 with a 16-inch wooden side mount with adjustable sights, of the kind used in Gay Paree, for $579. How is it possible that in the US, with an open gun market, that a similar rifle (semi-automatic as opposed to full-automatic) can be bought for almost the same price? One would think that when things are "illegal" they would be more expensive. But not in Europe, where gun laws mean nothing. Google the phrase "gun dealer sentenced" in Europe and you won't find a lot of news stories. The Guardian writes that pistols are "easily and cheaply available on the streets of the UK's big cities."
There are thought to be 150,000 unregistered guns in Ireland.
It seems if you want convictions for illegal sale of guns, you have to go to gun-loving America. In March 2015, for example, a New York court sentenced two men to three years in prison for trying to sell guns illegally to the Philippines.
#2
Long-standing arms markets in Rotterdam and Brussels. Over a century of arms smuggling (among other items) into Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe. Decades of "moral superiority."
[DAWN] THOUGH Pakistain has its own complex internal sectarian dynamics, the influence of communal conflicts in the Middle East has always been strong.
On Sunday, both these streams of sectarian violence -- the internal and the external -- came together in Parachinar with devastating consequences. At least 25 people were killed when a bomb went kaboom! in a Parachinar market.
While Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... has witnessed a tribal-cum-sectarian conflict for many years with varying degrees of intensity, a new, disturbing factor has emerged from Sunday's outrage.
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 ... Al Alami and Ansarul Mujahideen murderous Moslem groups grabbed credit for the atrocity, apparently to 'punish' Shias for "supporting Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... and the Iranian government".
The claim was accompanied by a dire warning that unless Shias failed to stop "their children" from allegedly participating in Syria's civil war, more such attacks would follow.
The number of sectarian attacks in Pakistain has come down considerably -- apart from two major attacks in Muharram 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... and Sindh -- thanks largely to the anti-militancy and counterterrorism efforts of the military and civilian law-enforcement apparatus.
However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... the Parachinar bombing is the latest confirmation of the fact that the murderous Moslem menace is far from neutralised.
Despite the violence of the past, Parachinar has also witnessed relative peace in recent times, while security forces have kept a strict vigil on the town, with those entering it being searched.
The fact that despite the security blanket gunnies managed to attack a public place indicates the need for greater intelligence efforts to trace the hideouts of those carrying out terrorist acts as well as their planning and logistics infrastructure in the tribal belt and beyond and destroy them.
As for the Syria factor, events in the Middle East have always had an impact on sectarian dynamics in Pakistain.
It had long been felt that the Syrian civil war would have a particular influence on this country, especially as it acquired an ugly sectarian colour.
With the Parachinar bombing, the Syrian civil war seems to have come home. A recent media report says that "hundreds of Pak" Shia fighters have left for Syria; many of these individuals are reportedly from Parachinar. Shia fighters from Leb, Iraq and Afghanistan are also believed to be involved in the Syrian theatre.
On the other hand, the banned TTP has also reportedly been sending fighters to the Arab country, while the Syrian ambassador to Pakistain has said publicly that around 500 Paks are fighting his government.
Whether it is Shia or Sunni murderous Moslems, the Pak government needs to look into the issue of local individuals heading for Syria to fight for either side in the civil war, and curtail their movement.
Along with complicating the situation in a foreign country, this activity can also lead to communal violence and polarisation in Pakistain. Hence, the state needs to take immediate steps to stem the flow of local fighters to Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
[Dhaka Tribune] The nation observed Martyred Intellectuals Day yesterday with the demand that all Razakars and local collaborators who aided the Pakistain occupation army during the Liberation War be hanged as soon as possible.
People from all walks of life gathered at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in the capital's Rayerbazar area, paying tribute to the intellectuals who were systematically picked up and killed by the Pakistain occupation army two days before Bangladesh became victorious in 1971.
This year's commemoration was different, as the nation observed Martyred Intellectuals Day for the first time after the execution of a war criminal who was charged with the mass killing of the country's brightest minds during the war.
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... leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, who was also a commander of al-Badr in 1971, was hanged on November 22 for being involved in the heinous crime.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. paid profound tribute to the martyred intellectuals by placing wreaths at the Martyred Intellectuals Memorial in Mirpur.
BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... also paid tribute to the martyred intellectuals by placing wreaths at the memorial in Mirpur.
Meanwhile, ...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had escaped from his bonds and overwhelmed his guard using the bludgeon the faithful Filomena had smuggled to him in the loaf of bread... common people as well as eminent political, professional, social, cultural and academic personalities paid their tribute at Rayerbazar, along with the families of the martyred intellectuals.
Besides the execution of all Razakars, they also demanded that Bangladesh cut off all ties with Pakistain for supporting the war criminals.
Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbub Ul Alam Hanif said: "We separated from Pakistain and became a sovereign nation in 1971. Pakistain is a failed state; it is meaningless to keep relations with it."
The country will be free from shame once all the war criminals are punished and all fundamentalist and fanatic groups are banned, he told news hounds.
Members of Prajanma 71, a platform of the children of the martyred intellectuals, observed a minute of silence in memory of the fallen heroes in Rayerbazar before forming a human chain to protest both the national and international conspiracies against the International War Crimes Tribunal.
Addressing the protest, Nujhat Chowdhury, daughter of Dr Alim Chowdhury who was killed on December 14, 1971, said: "Mujahid, an al-Badr commander, has been hanged. We are hopeful that the government will do justice and punish the rest of the war criminals too."
KM Shafiullah, chairperson of Sector Commanders' Forum, said the 195 officials of Pakistain occupation army who were identified as involved in war crimes must be brought to justice as well.
"Pakistain took those 195 army officials with the promise that they would be brought to justice, but it never happened. So, our next step is to make it happen. Pakistain must also apologise to Bangladesh for denying that its army committed genocide here in 1971," said Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan.
Members of other political and socio-cultural organizations paid their tribute at the memorials as well.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[ARABNEWS] India’s representative to Pakistan said Monday his country was only prepared to discuss the part of Kashmir controlled by Islamabad in upcoming peace talks, presenting a potential stumbling block days after the dialogue was announced. Last time they had talks scheduled the Pak High Commissioner decided to hold some ostentatious meetings with Kashmir rebels. Notice the Paks never say anything about "self-determination" for their end of Kashmir.
High commissioner T.C.A. Raghavan made the remarks about the disputed territory during a lecture in the Pakistani capital, after a breakthrough visit by India’s foreign minister at which the resumption of ministerial talks was announced. Color the talks "scuttled."
According to a joint statement, the two sides will talk about peace and security as well as territorial disputes including Kashmir. Each country occupies part of the territory but claims it in full. ... and they've fought four wars over it, each started by the Paks, each lost by the guys who started it...
Since independence from Britain in 1947 they have fought two wars over Kashmir. Four.
Asked where the room for negotiation lay over the Himalayan territory, Raghavan said it was India which first petitioned the United Nations to intervene when the-then princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was invaded by Pakistani forces in 1947. That was War #1...
“The first application was moved by India and it was on the grounds that a part of the state, which had acceded to India, is now under the illegal occupation of the Pakistan army. So when you say what is it that India is going to discuss or what is it discussing, it is really, if you ask most Indians, and what is our position — it is the part of that state which is still under the control of Pakistan.” In politix this is known as "pie in the face."
The remarks could create a diplomatic wrinkle for the two countries as they seek to go back to the negotiation table to undertake broad-spectrum talks for the first time since the election of prime ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif. I thought they tried this before and the Paks intentionally hosed it.
Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s political Herald magazine, said: “I think it is a step back,” adding that Kashmir was viewed internationally as a disputed territory. Both pieces of it are regarded as such...
He added that given the fragile state of the dialogue, officials on both sides needed to tread “very cautiously and very carefully” to avoid a backlash. Yeah. Don't make the Paks mad...
New Delhi suspended all talks after gunmen attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people. The attacks were later found to have been planned from Pakistan. Came as a surprise, didn't it? And the attackers were tied to Lashkar e-Taiba, but, really, there wasn't enough proof to bring charges against anybody in Pakistain.
That last was particularly startling as we watched events, as I recall India had not only the cell phone numbers of those giving orders, but recordings of the conversations in which they did so.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
It would seem that when your illusory sovereignty over Pakland (omitting help-Kashmir) is a pestilential shithole of terrorists, rabid crazed Imams and ISI fiends, with polio, cholera, dysentery, daily bombings and assassinations, you should STFU
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 16:58
Comments ||
Top||
[ARABNEWS] Two security officials, who were part of the Arab coalition supporting the Yemeni government, were martyred at dawn on Monday in Taiz. They were named as Saudi Colonel Abdullah bin Mohammed Al-Sahyan and United Arab Emirates officer Sultan bin Mohammed Ali Al-Qutbi. The pair were part of "operations of liberating (Taiz) within the operation of 'Renewal of Hope' in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... in the field," reported the SPA.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Houthis
(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – On Monday, Head of the District Council of Khalidiya in Anbar province announced, that the ISIS organization has destroyed all the bridges around the city of Ramadi (110 km west of Baghdad) to prevent raiding and cleansing the city, while emphasized that the security forces are working on developing alternatives to penetrate the defenses of the organization and destroy it.
Head of Khalidiya District Council, Ali Dawood, said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “During the past few months, elements of the ISIS organization blew up all the bridges and crossings surrounding the city of Ramadi in a terrorist plot to prevent the security forces from proceeding with the cleansing battles in pursuit of breaking into the center of the city from all axes.”
Dawood also noted, “Security forces belonging to the army and the police are working on developing alternative military methods to cross the Euphrates River, construct land-based roads [railway] and penetrate the defenses of ISIS to destroy it and break into territories of Ramadi within the next few days.”
Noteworthy, ISIS controls the most prominent cities of Anbar since nearly a year ago, while battles and confrontations between the security forces backed by tribal fighters are ongoing in the areas of Fallujah and al-Qaim, located on the Iraqi-Syrian border, as well as Heet, Rawa and other areas, including al-Karma near the borders of Baghdad.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#3
I think it is more intended to keep those pussies in ISIS in town to fight more than keeping the Iraqi Army et al. from coming in.
ISIS does seem to show a tendency toward mass desertion when the sledding gets tough.
Now that they are somewhat confined, can we have a good old fashioned B-52 arclight, I mean a REAL arc light with 500 pounders every ten feet for a freaking mile?
#4
Seems like the Iraqi forces have ISIS where they want them. Proceed with artillery bombardments. Pick ISIS jihadists off as they swim across the river to escape.
[DAWN] A senior commander from Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and an officer from the United Arab Emirates were among dozens of Gulf, Yemeni and Sudanese soldiers killed on Monday in a rocket strike in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... as fighting flared before Tuesday's peace talks, local media and Yemeni sources said.
The Tochka rocket strike on a Red Sea army camp south-west of the besieged city of Taiz appears to be one of the bloodiest setbacks for Gulf forces in months of fighting against Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... forces and Yemeni army units loyal to former President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... .
Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi, an Emirati officer, was killed near Taiz, Emirati state news agency WAM reported.
Saudi Press Agency SPA said Colonel Abdullah al-Sahian and Kitbi "were martyred at dawn on Monday while shouldering their duties in overseeing operations to liberate Taiz".
The photographs of Sahian, who had been decorated by Saudi-backed Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi for bravery two days earlier, were displayed by Saudi-owned al-Hadath television channel alongside verses of mourning.
The Houthis said via their own media outlets that the two commanders were among scores killed in a rocket attack near Bab al-Mandab on the Red Sea coast.
A source in Hadi's forces confirmed that a rocket had been fired at coalition forces in the Dhubab area, north of Bab al-Mandab and south-west of the city of Taiz, adding that "tens were killed" in a camp that houses Yemenis, Sudanese, Emiratis and Saudis.
Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition in a military campaign since late March to stop the Houthis from taking complete control of Yemen after they seized the capital Sanaa last year and advanced south towards the port city of Aden.
The Saudi-led campaign has retaken Aden and the city of Marib, east of Sanaa, but has failed to oust the Houthis from Taiz or end attacks on the Saudi border that have killed scores of the kingdom's soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
[Jpost] In quietest year on border, IDF putting into place a new territorial defensive approach, aimed at rapidly responding to future attacks from Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,.
Southern Israel is experiencing its calmest period in 15 years, as Hamas continues to recover from the damage it sustained from Operation Protective Edge two summers ago.
Yet the quiet is deceptive, and what is visible to the eye along the border is less telling than the low-profile preparations for future hostilities that are being made on both sides of the frontier.
Continued on Page 49
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – A security source in Anbar province announced on Monday, that 15 elements of the ISIS had been killed, in addition to destroying five vehicles in the northern axis of the city of Ramadi.
The source said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition warplane, supported by Anbar Operations, had managed to bomb five ISIS vehicles in the areas of Albu Dyab and Albu Farj north of Ramadi.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added: “The coalition force, backed by our ground forces, were able to destroy vehicles belonging to ISIS, as well as killing 15 elements of the organization and causing great material and human losses.”
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) – Afghanistan’s intelligence agency has foiled a terrorist plot to attack vehicles of the Indian consulate in Jalalabad city, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province.
NDS personnel have arrested two terrorists belonging to Daesh group who had planned to carry out the attack.
A statement released by NDS on Monday states that Ata-ur-Rahman alias Hanzala and Abdullah alias Qari Ismail were arrested with a 30-KG bomb before reaching to their target.
In a footage sent to media together with the statement by NDS, one of the suspects identifying himself as Ata-ur-Rahman says they were told to plant the landmine on the side of the road that leads to White House, a nicely decorated compound in Jalalabad city resembling part of the American White House, to target vehicles of the Indian consulate.
Indian consulate is located close to the area from where the suspects were rounded up.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
One hopes not in the bankrupt sense, or sea of blue voters sense.
Texas state and city officials for years have touted the state's more business-friendly environment, citing its fewer business regulations and lower labor costs, partly because Texas is a right to work state.California, on the other hand, is one of the costliest states in which to do business, with expenses 20 percent to 35 percent higher than other states.
1,510 companies moved all or some of their operations out of California from 2008 through 2014, taking with them valuable jobs, investment dollars and tax revenue. Texas was at the receiving end of 219 of those moves, or about 15 percent, more than any other state. Many are household brands like Apple, eBay and Restoration Hardware that moved their headquarters or opened or expanded other operations.
Texas' most recent big deal was Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to relocate its North American headquarters in Plano, generating roughly 4,000 jobs and $350 million in investments. 3,000 of those jobs will come from California. And buckets of new traffic for the Dallas North Tollway and the Sam Rayburn Tollway, not to mention city streets, and not a few liberal surfer dudes.
This report echoes what businesses that relocate to Texas continue to say â they are sick and tired of being over-taxed and over-regulated and are making the economically sensible choice to move to Texas," said the deputy press secretary for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Office.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Texas will never be the new California because it is filled with Texans that have a certain decency that is missing in California.
#3
The scenic views of the Pacific coast are somewhat lacking in Texas to draw the destructive parasite that environment promotes. While I'm sure Texans will try to defend the 'raw' beauty of some of its landscape, that rawness by its very nature is inhospitable to large infestations of the California family of limousine socialist which you don't find in places much beyond the coast.
#4
...that rawness by its very nature is inhospitable to large infestations of the California family of limousine socialist which you don't find in places much beyond the coast.
And our weather sucks too! This is a no good terrible place for Liberals. You LibTards won't like it here...stay in California.
#7
Many Californians have moved to the Austin area. They have driven up housing prices to the point where they are becoming unaffordable to the middle-class.
#11
Don't forget the illegal aliens from Mexico. Face it, Texas, you too could go blue. I hope you don't. One thing I've noticed about Californians who move to Texas is that it doesn't take them very long at all to acquire that Texas accent. But I'm not sure that means they're turning conservative.
#12
For many years your deeds to property in Texas had these three words "Protect and Defend" that property against all hardships. YOU (and God). Not 911, not the government. Texas is a different state of mind.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
12/15/2015 12:35
Comments ||
Top||
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] President Obama is hopefully planning a visit to Cuba and sees longtime co-dictator Raul Castro, who has taken over for ailing brother Fidel, as a pragmatist, not "an ideologue."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
Three weeks after taking power, Fidel Castro states that his brother is to be his successor, telling supporters: "Behind me are others more radical than I."
#4
Setting the stage for the hand-over of GITMO to the Cubans and Russians. U.S. strategic interests must be redirected from Israel and the Middle East to concerns closer to home. Vlad and an expansionist Russia are just the ticket.
Raul Castro was a hardcore commie before Fidel became one. Which of course doesn't prevent him from owning half of the island. That's the pragmatist in him.
Raul Castro is a multi billionaire. The Cuban Army owns and runs the complete tourist industry. And Raul controls the army. Every time you stay in a Cuban hotel, eat in a Cuban state restaurant, board a Cuban state taxi, you are filling Rauls coffers.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/15/2015 9:41
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Breitbart: Cuba Begins to Re-Imprison Political Dissidents ‘Freed’ Under Obama Deal
Potemkin all the way down
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/15/2015 9:51
Comments ||
Top||
#7
Nope. Not those friendly Castro brothers. Republicans on the other hand...
[CNN] The ringleader of the Gay Paree attacks last month appears to have directed the three bandidosfaceless myrmidons inside the Bataclan theater by phone from a few blocks away, according to a French terrorism expert. And, a witness has told French Sherlocks that they saw Abdelhamid Abaaoud standing in a doorway yelling into his phone for about an hour.
That night, the witness had several times gone to a car parked nearby, and Abaaoud had been there every time. They described the man as very agitated. When the witness later walked past him, they were able to see his face. Abaaoud's head was shaved and he was wearing layers of loose clothing, but when photographs were later published in the media the witness immediately recognized him and alerted the authorities.
Ringleader was planning more attacks
The witness account was disclosed by French terrorism analyst Jean Charles Brisard in the latest edition of the Combating Terrorism Center's journal Sentinel.
Brisard writes that "the presence of Abaaoud in the immediate vicinity of the attacks provides an indication of his degree of implication in the supervision and control of the plot, and suggests he was giving direct orders and instructions to his team inside the Bataclan."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ARABNEWS] Daesh has executed a woman for “witchcraft” and a man accused of spying in its Libyan stronghold, news agencies close to the country’s rival authorities said Monday.
Daesh beheaded the Moroccan woman in a public square and shot dead a Palestinian man for alleged spying in the coastal city of Sirte, said the agency close to the internationally recognized government.
The extremists also chopped off a Libyan’s hand for stealing, witnesses said.
Libya has had rival administrations since August 2014, when a radical militia alliance overran Tripoli, forcing the government to take refuge in the east.
The group claimed control of Sirte, Qaddafi’s hometown some 430 km east of the capital, in June.
The group is trying to spread toward Ajdabiya, a city controlled by loyalist forces and located between Sirte and Benghazi in an area where most of the country’s oil and gas terminals are located.
According to a UN report issued in December, Daesh has between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters in Libya, including 1,500 in Sirte.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ARABNEWS] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... withdrew troops Monday from a north Iraq camp, a politician and witnesses said, after a deployment which Baghdad said went ahead without its permission and that sparked a diplomatic row.
It was not immediately clear how many soldiers were removed from the camp, where Ankara sent troops and tanks on a deployment last week it said was routine and necessary to protect Turkish trainers working with Iraqi forces battling Daesh [Islamic State].
Baghdad has sharply criticized the deployment, terming it an "incursion" that violated the country's illusory sovereignty, repeatedly demanding the forces be withdrawn and complaining to the UN Security Council.
"The Turkish Army withdrew from Camp Zilkan at dawn today, and according to our information, only the trainers remain to train Hashad Al-Watani forces," MP Salem Al-Shabaki said, referring to anti-Daesh [Islamic State] forces and the site where they were being trained.
"Witnesses confirmed that they saw the Turkish Army withdrawing from Camp Zilkan... toward the Turkish border," Shabaki said.
Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency quoted military sources as saying that "some of the Turkish troops stationed in Bashiqa have transited to the north as part of a new arrangement."
But did not specify if they were moving farther north into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, the government of which has strong relations with Ankara, or leaving altogether.
Anatolia said the troops were carried in a convoy of 10-12 military vehicles but did not give further details on numbers.
Witnesses in Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan reported seeing Turkish military equipment being moved on transport trucks toward the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Turkish Army withdrew from Camp Zilkan at dawn today
Look for the bombings to begin in 3..2..1..
[DAWN] LAHORE: Hundreds gathered outside Lahore's Hafeez Center on Monday, protesting police's arrest of a shopkeeper for putting up an anti-Ahmadi poster.
The protesters consisted largely of shopkeepers from Hafeez Center, Lahore's largest electronic marketplace. They gathered on Main Boulevard opposite the center, holding placards and chanting slogans against the arrest of shopkeeper Abid Hashmi and the filing of a case against him.
On Sunday, Gulberg police tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! Hashmi for putting up a notice declaring Ahmadis "infidels" and banning their entry into his shop.
According to a news release, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr Haider Ashraf took notice of the pasting and directed the Model Town Division Superintendent of Police (SP) Mustansar Feroze to arrest the suspect.
On Saturday, a police team led by Gulberg Station House Officer (SHO) Yousuf Butt had conducted a raid on the shop and removed the poster. Hashmi was arrested Sunday and a case was registered against him under sections 295-A of the Pakistain Penal Code and 16 of the MPO.
The DIG said the National Action Plan (NAP) would be implemented at all costs and strict action taken against violators. He said no one would be allowed to post any hate material against any religious group.
The issue was brought to the DIG's attention by people concerned with the contents of the poster. Under the NAP, police officials were directed to take action against any reported instances of hate speech and crime.
On Wednesday night, a photograph of the notice pasted outside the Hafeez Centre shop had gone viral on social media, demanding that the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... government and city officials "take action" against the "shameful" poster.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Monday, a source in the Joint Special Operations Command stated, that 45 elements of the ISIS were either killed or injured as a result of an air raid by the international coalition on gatherings for the organization that was preparing to attack security forces west of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad).
The source said in a statement, “The international coalition aviation conducted an air strike that targeted the gatherings of the ISIS in al-Mazrae village near al-Kazak on the road of Mosul-Tal Afar,” pointing out that, “[Those gatherings] were preparing to attack the security forces,” noting that the air strike resulted in “The death of 45 elements of the ISIS and injuring others.”
The source, who requested anonymity, added, “The attack also resulted in destruction of six booby-trapped vehicles,” stressing that, “The attack was based on intelligence information about the presence of gatherings of ISIS elements for the purpose of attacking the center of Baiji and Makhoul Mountains.”
Noteworthy the ISIS organization had taken over the city of Mosul in Nineveh province (405 km north of Baghdad) on the 10th of June in 2014.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/15/2015
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Security forces have killed over a dozen of Taliban fighters in an ambush in Ab Band District of southern Ghazni province.
Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, Deputy Governor of Ghazni province says 19 Taliban fighters armed with heavy and light weapons planned to go to Qara Bagh District for attacks.
He said police and army forces had established an ambush for them in Spin Band area last night.
Security forces opened fire at them as they arrived, Ahmadi said, adding that all 19 militants including their two local commanders were killed during the short gun battle.
According to Ahmadi, security force seized several different types of weapons from the militants including two Dushka (DSHK) heavy machineguns. Two vehicles and motorcycles were also confiscated during the clash.
Ahmadi said security forces did not suffer casualties.
[WashingtonTimes] Immigrant rights activists have vowed to sign up 1 million immigrants -- mostly Mexicans -- for citizenship and then quickly register them to vote in time to punish Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans at the polls in November for their harsh rhetoric.
With nearly 9 million legal immigrants already eligible to become citizens, the 1 million goal is not far-fetched. The activists say they are counting on energizing another 2 million Hispanic citizens who have turned 18 since 2012 and who they believe will turn out to vote to defend fellow Dreamers, or young undocumented Democrats, against Republican calls for their deportation.
The effort is funded in part by the Open Society Foundation, the project of liberal billionaire George Soros.
Hispanic immigrants, however, have shown a lower propensity to naturalize in the U.S. and have lower turnout rates overall than other demographic groups, challenging the community's leaders to get them more motivated.
#2
Voter fraud should be an automatic death penalty. Why? Voter fraud is nothing less than an attempt to overthrow our government and should be treated as such.
#3
Oh, golly gee whiz, another banana republic with fake votes and ballot stuffing. Except these peasants are armed to the teeth and quickly running out of patience with its ruling caste already. Yes, lets throw gas on that smoldering pile. If the fire does break out, those who you claim concern for will either be running for the border as fast as their feet or wheels will carry them or be thrust into the very front lines as cannon fodder by you little commissars. Guess what, they've already been there and have seen it. They chose the former already.
#6
mmigrant rights activists have vowed to sign up 1 million immigrants -- mostly Mexicans -- for citizenship and then quickly register them to vote in time to punish Donald Trump and GOP How exactly do the radicalized activists propose to speed up the citizenship process and register these Democrats to vote? This stuff makes me livid. The Donks are about punishing everyone who doesn't go along with them. We have seen this with this administration when it used the IRS to punish conservatives. We have seen it with Gibson Guitar. Now, every time there is a shooting they try find a way to keep people from buying guns. Now, they are trying to keep people who are on the no-fly list from buying firearms. The fear of conservatives is that the left will punish its enemies by putting them on the no-fly list and then denying them 2nd Amendment rights. Conservatives have opposed this because they don't trust the left. The left tries to go around through the back-door on everything they can't achieve through legitimate means.
#8
Nothing new here. That's been the plan all along. Only one thing to do: Since most of the Mexican immigrants I've met seem to prefer working over accepting welfare, somebody with exceptional communication skills (like Trump) might explain to them they will have far more opportunities for good jobs and prosperity if they dump the donks.
#10
Hispanic activists vow to do what everyone expected them to do, surprising nobody, except the 1 million Mexicans who will lose their job because they voted for the party who wants to bring in 1 million Levantines.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Gateway Pundit] Swiss authorities said Saturday that two people of Syrian origin had been arrested on suspicion of transporting "explosives and toxic gases" as part of a probe into a terror threat.
[AnNahar] Italian police have 
[Ynet] Hamas' military wing in Gaza is paying tens of thousands of dollars each month to Islamic State's Sinai branch, in exchange for the group's help with smuggling
'Myopic, untrustworthy, disrespectful?' You decide. 
[ABCNEWS.GO] Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's case has been referred to a general court martial, where he could face a life sentence if convicted of misbehavior before the enemy and he could face five years of prison time if convicted of desertion.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Already struggling with finances, the Democratic Party has drafted a plan to have taxpayers help pay about $20 million for next summer's nominating convention, reversing a change Congress approved just a year ago.
[PALMBEACHPOST] A woman who made a late-night stop Saturday at a Loxahatchee Groves nudist colony told police she was stabbed early Sunday by a young man.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Tolo News] Following heavy 
[ABCNEWS.GO] A British man 
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[ARA News] DUHOK – The Islamic State (ISIS) hardline group executed on Monday three Imams in Iraq’s northwestern city of Mosul under the pretext that they refused urging youngsters to join the group’s ranks, local activists reported. 
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
Kurram Agency
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[ARABNEWS] India’s representative to Pakistan said Monday his country was only prepared to discuss the part of Kashmir controlled by Islamabad in upcoming peace talks, presenting a potential stumbling block days after the dialogue was announced.
1,510 companies moved all or some of their operations out of California from 2008 through 2014, taking with them valuable jobs, investment dollars and tax revenue. Texas was at the receiving end of 219 of those moves, or about 15 percent, more than any other state. Many are household brands like Apple, eBay and Restoration Hardware that moved their headquarters or opened or expanded other operations.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] President Obama is hopefully planning a visit to Cuba and sees longtime co-dictator Raul Castro, who has taken over for ailing brother Fidel, as a pragmatist, not "an ideologue."
[CNN] The ringleader of the 
[ARABNEWS] Daesh has executed a woman for “witchcraft” and a man accused of spying in its Libyan stronghold, news agencies close to the country’s rival authorities said Monday.
[DAWN] LAHORE: Hundreds gathered outside Lahore's Hafeez Center on Monday, protesting police's arrest of a shopkeeper for putting up an anti-Ahmadi poster.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Monday, a source in the Joint Special Operations Command stated, that 45 elements of the ISIS were either killed or injured as a result of an air raid by the international coalition on gatherings for the organization that was preparing to attack security forces west of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad).
Security forces have killed over a dozen of Taliban fighters in an ambush in Ab Band District of southern Ghazni province.
