Shades of Fast-N-Furious Stupidity, albeit at a local level
In a state seized by a dramatic surge in drug dealing, Bal Harbour police were about to take their controversial sting operation far outside Florida.
After weeks of delivering drug money to Miami storefront businesses, a new deal unfolded thousands of miles away in a country where the war on drugs had shifted: Venezuela.
Instead of enlisting the help of federal agents, the officers from the small community embarked on a series of laundering arrangements that were never revealed to the federal government.
For two years starting in 2010, they funneled millions in drug money into the bank accounts of Venezuelans, including William Amaro Sanchez, now special assistant to President NicolĂĄs Maduro. The stated goal: to disrupt criminal groups.
They sent drug money to a well-known trafficker, a cash smuggler and a money launderer ‐ more than $4 million in all.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2015
15:24 ||
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#1
Sumfin happening here, what it is ain't exactal clear.
Pure cop corruption, would like to know how many Bolivarian condos. I bet, a bunch.
ht to Wretchard T. Cat on FB
A group of Filipino protesters has landed on a disputed Philippine-held island in the South China Sea, a local government official said on Sunday, in a risky expedition that may trigger a strong reaction from China. can't Preznit Zero just enjoy his Hawaiian Holiday without you meddling kids stirring things up?
About 50 protesters, most of them students, reached Pagasa island in the Spratly archipelago on Saturday in a stand against what they say is Beijing's creeping invasion of the Philippine exclusive economic zone, said Eugenio Bito-onon, the island's mayor.
"The 'freedom voyage' arrived at about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday from Balabac island on a motor launch," Bito-onon told Reuters, adding the protesters left southern Palawan on Thursday in fine weather to make the long sea crossing.
China claims almost all the South China Sea, believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on the strategic waters.
Describing their expedition as a "a patriotic voyage", the protesters, led by an ex-marine captain, planned to camp on Pagasa for three days in a symbolic act of defiance against China.
"We encourage the highest leadership of the country to inform the people correctly without sugar coating the truth about Chinese invasion of our exclusive economic zone," the protesters said in a post on Facebook.
Government and military officials had tried to prevent the group from sailing to the disputed waters, citing security and safety reasons after a storm in the South China Sea earlier this month.
The Philippines was also concerned about China's reaction to trip as Manila has been trying to calm tensions heightened by Beijing's rapid expansion in the South China Sea - building seven artificial islands in the disputed waters.
The Philippines has challenged Beijing before the arbitration court in The Hague, a case Beijing has not recognized.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2015
15:12 ||
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#1
If a storm comes US forces from Subic Bay will be close enough to rescue in plenty of time, let the kids have their fun.
#2
As per the MSM-NET, CHINA = has repor demanded at China-SOKOR bilateral talks that SOKOR give up a large part of its claimed EEZ in the Yellow Sea.
Won't be too long before JAPAN gets the same "request" from "US-style/par" OWG Co-Superpower CHINA.
* WORLD NEWS, TOPIX > [Sputnik News] CHINA ASCENDANT, GROWING COMFORTABLE INTO NEW [Co-Superpower?] SUPERPOWER ROLE.
Lest we fergit, China is a member of the "Nuclear Club" + was already considered a Nuclear Superpower during the US-Soviet Cold War, since the mid-1960's + POTUS Nixon's China visit = "Ping-Pong Diplomacy".
[TOM HANKS = TEAM USA MEMBER "FORREST GUMP" STEALS A POST-PEKING/NIXON US ARMY PING-PONG PADDLE + RUNS AWAY here].
* SAME > JAPAN BUILDS A MAGINOT LINE IN THE SEA/EAST CHINA SEA.
Tokyo plans to construct a line of Anti-China, AADS + ASBM Batteries, etc. on various Nippon-held islands.
* JAPAN TIMES > ARMED CHINESE SHIP [1 of 3 ea. China CG?] INFILTRATES WATERS OFF SENKAKUS, JAPAN COAST GUARD SAYS.
* RELATED TWITTER > CHINA PATROLS JAPANESE WATERS IN EAST CHINA SEA.
* Also from TWITTER > CHINA IMPERIOUS: AFTER SOUTH CHINA SEA, YELLOW SEA + EAST CHINA SEA WILL BE CHINA'S PRIVATE LAKES!? | Telegraph.UK] BEJING LAYS CLAIM TO SOUTH KOREAN WATERS.
* FINANCIAL TIMES > JAPAN GROWS AN ISLAND TO CHECK CHINA'S PLANS.
* ZERO HEDGE > JAPAN PREPARES MISSLE BLOCKADE IN EAST CHINA SEA [circa 200 Islands, Islets, + Reefs-Shoals] TO HALT CHINA'S "MARITIME AGGRESSION".
* SAME > [Repost = ZH News Artic dated 11/17/2015] CHINA HAS RIGHT TO SEIZE [disputed] NEIGHBORING ISLANDS, OFFICIAL SAYS.
NOT necessarily in just the South China Sea from the PH andor VN, etc.
* CHINAMIL [PLA Daily OL] EXPERT: AMERICAN BOMBER ENTERS SOUTH CHINA SEA WID [Beijing's = China's] PERMISSION. US has over-stepped its authority + China will NOT accept it.
* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > YOMIURI SHIMBUN: DECLASSIFIED COLD WAR DOCUMENTS DENOTES THAT IFF NO SOVIET-CHINESE SPLIT HAD OCCURRED, COMMUNIST CHINESE CONTROL OF TAIWAN COULD HAD LED TO THE SUCCESSFUL ISOLATION OF JAPAN BY SOVIET SUBMARINES, THE STRATEGIC PULLOUT OF US FORCES FROM EAST ASIA, + THE INCREASED DEPLOYMENT OF SOVIET NAVY MISSLE AND ATTACK SUBMARINES TO THE SOUTHERN OCEANS.
* WORLD NEWS > [Sputnik News] "EQUAL RIVALS"? CHINA MAY PUSH OUT US AS THE [World's] SOLE SUPERPOWER.
However, as per God + 1960's-1970's Guam Taotamonas, CHINA HAS TO TAKE GUAM, ETAL. PACIFIC ISLANDS FIRST.
GUAM won't "capsize" = sink like the Pearl Harbor USN Battleship USS Oklahoma, + the US won't be a DE FACTO "WEAK-N-DECLINING" [Self] RETREATING-CROSS-THE-PACIFIC-TOWARDS-EASTPAC-N-CONUS DYING SUPERPOWER???
THE US MAY STILL EXIST BUT NO LONGER AS A SUPERPOWER OR EVEN OWG CO-SUPERPOWER.
Hence China has ...
* STRATEGYPAGE > THE CHINESE GUAM ATTACK FORCE + THE CHINESE PLAN FOR ABSORBING NORTH KOREA.
[Telegraph] Russia has released spectacular footage of what Kremlin officials claim to be a successful bombing campaign to destroy the Islamic State's oil-smuggling rackets into Turkey.
At a briefing by the Russian ministry of defence in Moscow, generals produced videos and photographs of Russian warplanes pulverizing huge columns of oil tankers allegedly transporting oil for sale on the black market. Not sure how we missed that one.
#1
However, experts questioned whether the Russian briefing was primarily a propaganda stunt designed to irritate Turkey, whose government is a leading opponent of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
what would we ever do without experts?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2015 8:53
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How can that knowitall from King's College dismiss all of this video as another example of how the Russian MoD is lying?
Kinda hard to refute video tape.
Of course if he is a typical liberal, he's like the cardinal looking through Galileo's telescope and refusing to admit to seeing moons around Jupiter.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/27/2015 11:55
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I cut the Cardinal a little slack, I figure he mighta be seriously myopic, like James Thurber.
So we tried it with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one of them did I see anything but blackness or the familiar lacteal opacity, and that time I saw, to my pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flecks, specks, and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips and his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing. "What's that?" he demanded, with a hint of squeal in his voice. "That's what I saw," I said. "You didn't, you didn't, you didn't!" he screamed, losing control of his temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the microscope. His head snapped up. "That's your eye!" he shouted. "You've fixed the lens so that it reflects! You've drawn your eye!"
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/27/2015 18:38
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#5
And Obama let this go on for more than a year without doing a thing to stop it. The funds ISIS received helped kill thousands, and their blood is on Obama's hands. We don't have a schizophrenic foreign policy, we lack a foreign policy. Period.
[Breitbart] Next week, three young possibly Amish women will stand before a Philadelphia judge for savagely beating a homeless white man to death with a hammer and a chair leg last April, all because the 10-year-old son of one of the women lied and said the homeless man struck him.
Not only did the women participate in the murder; they brought three children age 12, 13, and 14, to aid them in their savagery.
After Aleathea Gillard's ten-year-old son, who pumped gas for tips at a Sunoco station, came home late one day, having fallen off his bicycle, he lied to his mother and told her the injury was caused by a blow from Robert Barnes, 51, the homeless man who also pumped gas for tips at the station. On April 7, Gillard, Shareena Joachim, and Kaisha Duggins, accompanied by the young teenagers, returned to the gas station to take their revenge.
#3
Resume killing names, many won't even bother reading the address after seeing that let alone the rest of the resume. Why do they do this to their children? It is not cute. It is not African. It is just ghetto.
#5
In June, the three teenagers pled guilty to charges of aggravated assault and conspiracy, in exchange for the DA’s dismissing attempted murder charges. But the DA has stated that homicide charges are now also probable for the teens.
[Breitbart] "I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees," said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic released Saturday.
He went on to say that compassion was "possible" for refugees who are old or sick and for children, but not for young men who in his view should be back home fighting against jihadists.
"A large majority of the illegal migrants are young men in good health, and single. I wonder why these men are not taking up arms to go fight for the freedom of their countries against the Islamic State," said Zeman, who was elected Czech president in early 2013.
He added that their fleeing their war-torn countries only serves to strengthen the IS group.
The 71-year-old evoked a comparison to the situation of Czechs who left their country when it was under Nazi occupation (1939-1945) in order to "fight to liberate the country and not to receive social benefits in Great Britain."
#1
Nothing to see here, move along. The Czech have just had a run of bad luck over the past 80 years and are projecting their ire on a few hundred thousand unskilled (but talented in their own way ) young male sons of the soil.
ZF: Fetch my Triumph, I must ride around Broooooding Castle Rantburg in it.
[AlAhram] An alliance of Kurdish and Arab rebels seized a key dam on the Euphrates River from 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 murderous Moslems in northern Syria on Saturday, the group said.
The Syrian Democratic Forces captured Tishreen Dam after intense festivities with IS, as well as seven villages along the river's eastern bank, front man Talal Sello told AFP.
He said dozens of ISIS fighters had been killed.
The dam, held by ISIS since 2014, helps generate electricity for large parts of the northern Aleppo province.
Backed by air strikes from a US-led coalition, the SDF launched its assault on ISIS-held towns along the eastern bank of the Euphrates late Wednesday.
It was the alliance's second major operation, after clearing ISIS from some 200 villages in the northeastern province of Hasakeh.
Sherfan Darwish, front man for an Arab rebel group in the SDF, wrote online: "Congratulations to our peoples... the battles are ongoing, the operation is ongoing, and the victories are ongoing."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said the SDF had "cleared the eastern bank of the Euphrates and crossed the dam."
"The battles are now on the western bank of the river," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Formed in October, the SDF has scored a series of successes against ISIS in northeastern Syria and appears to be extending its operations further west.
It receives backing by the US-led air coalition striking ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/27/2015
00:49 ||
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#1
Watch for Turkey to now strike hard at the Kurds.
The west bank was one of that poofter prez of Turkey's no-go lines.
#2
Down in the desert hangin by a
little bitty pool
Swam three little turbans
And a mama Klingon too
"Swim," said the mama Klingon
"Swim if you can."
And they swam and swam and over ran the dam.
Boop boop diten datem whatem choo
Boop boop diten datem whatem choo
Boop boop diten datem whatem choo
And they swam and they swam
right over the dam
[AlAhram] Fierce festivities in northern Syria between regime loyalists and rebels including Al-Qaeda gunnies have left more than 70 dead, a monitoring group said Saturday.
Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front launched the assault on Friday with a suicide kaboom against forces loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... in Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Fighting raged around the village of Bashkoy, which lies at a crossroads north of Aleppo city, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"Violent festivities followed the suicide attack, between the Syrian army and pro-regime militia on one side, and Islamist fighters on the other," Abdel Rahman said
At least 33 pro-regime fighters and 38 opposition fighters were killed, he added.
The toll included both Syrian and imported muscle, who have become increasingly common among turbans groups in the country, where more than 250,000 people have died in the nearly five-year-old war.
There was also fierce fighting in nearby Khan Tuman, a former rebel stronghold which government forces captured on December 20.
Al-Nusra and allied rebels seized several neighbourhoods in Bashkoy and festivities subsided overnight, according to the Observatory.
Eastern parts of Aleppo province are held by 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.... bully boy group, and the west is held by opposition groups ranging from US-backed rebels to Al-Nusra.
Regime troops have been fighting to retake southern parts of the province.
Aleppo city, too, is divided. Rebel groups control the eastern parts of the city while the west is held by regime troops.
[AlAhram] An armed Kurdish group on Saturday claimed an kaboom near a plane at Istanbul's second international airport which killed a female cleaner and maimed another.
"We ... claim the attack carried by mortar bombs at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport," on Wednesday, the Freedom Falcons of Kurdistan (TAK) said on its website.
Airport cleaner Zehra Yamac, 30, died of head wounds hours after the blast on the tarmac at the airport on the Asian side of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's largest city. The maimed victim was also a cleaner.
The attack came as Turkey wages an all-out offensive against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which launched an armed insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, initially fighting for Kurdish independence, then pressing for greater autonomy for the country's largest ethnic minority.
Turkish officials say TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets and the PKK claims TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control.
On its website, TAK lashed out at what it described as a "war coalition" between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... and 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 against the Kurds.
It also said the airport attack was a response to the "fascist attacks that turn Kurdish cities into ruins."
The gang, which had been silent for some time, claimed the attack had inflicted "serious damage" to the airport and that five planes were "heavily" damaged.
[RFE/RL] One of three suspected militants killed in a recent North Caucasus clash in the was trained by "terrorists" in Syria, Russian officials said.
The militants were killed on December 22 in Kabardino-Balkaria, near Georgia, the national antiterrorist committee said. Troops had tried to stop a car for a routine check when the occupants opened fire, sparking a gun battle.
One of those killed was Nazir Tokhov, whom the committee said went to Syria for "terrorist training" before returning to Kabardino-Balkaria to form an armed group of former detainees and "perpetrate terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus."
Posted by: ryuge ||
12/27/2015
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Republican terror groups are capable of carrying out “one-off” attacks on the British mainland, the Government has warned, and are sufficiently armed to pose an “enduring threat”. Threat assessments have concluded that the Real IRA and other dissident republicans still “aspire” to target the UK even if Northern Ireland remains it main focus.
It comes as MI5 warned the threat from such groups is four times greater than figures suggest and some are reverting to old Provisional IRA methods. For every dissident attack in Northern Ireland last year the Security Service helped foil three to four, the head of the spy agency said.
In October, a review for the Government concluded that all the main republican and loyalist paramilitary terrorist groups remain in existence, 17 years after the Good Friday peace deal. The review by police and MI5 said all the paramilitary groups that declared ceasefires during the peace process in the 1990s have since gone on to commit murders. And while none of the groups were currently planning or conducting terror attacks, individual members with histories of violence remained a threat to national security, it said.
Tehran has confirmed its intention to withdraw its lawsuit against Russia over the non-delivery of the S-300 air defense systems, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview aired Saturday, Sputnik reported.
"We have confirmation from the Iranian side of the withdrawal of the lawsuit, and i believe that it will take place in the near future," Manturov said in the interview with Vesti v Subbotu (Saturday News) show on Rossiya-1 television.
Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the "unconditional withdrawal" of the lawsuit was one of the conditions for delivery of the S-300 systems that, according to Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanai, started in November.
Moscow and Tehran signed an $800-million deal for the delivery of five S-300 missile systems in 2007. In 2011, Iran sued Russia after Moscow suspended the contract in 2010, citing a UN Security Council resolution that placed an arms embargo on Tehran over its nuclear program.
In April 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the S-300 delivery ban, shortly after the six world powers and Iran reached a framework nuclear agreement to remove all economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for guarantees of the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] LAHORE: Police claimed on Saturday to have incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a gang of six fake doctors involved in theft and sale of kidneys.
Addressing a presser at the Sarwar Road cop shoppe, Cantonment Division Superintendent of Police (SP) Investigation Ismail Kharak said the suspects would bring people for free treatment to a private hospital where their kidneys were removed.
The kidneys were smuggled to different areas of the country, he added.
The SP said a special police team was constituted to nab the suspects who were arrested from the Factory Area.
The arrested suspects were identified as Ramzan, Aamir Bashir, Sarfaraz, Shakeel, Dr Awais Gohar and Dr Kaleemullah.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... Factory Area police claimed to have arrested a five-member robbers' gang involved in house robberies and recovered cash, jewellery and valuables worth Rs1.3 million from them.
According to news release, the suspects, in the disguise of home-based workers, used to enter houses and carry out robberies. The arrested suspects were identified as Naveed, Mohsin, Asif, Shabbir and Mumtaz Ahmed.
Police also recovered 15 mobile phones, laptops and two pistols from them.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] Province-wide protest demonstrations and sit-ins of the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... -Fazl (JUI-F) came to an end on Saturday evening after Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah promised to send the murder case of the slain leader Khalid Mehmood Soomro to a military court for trial.
A large number of JUI-F workers erupted into the streets across Sindh cities and towns demanding trial by a military court of those tossed in the clink Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! for their alleged involvement in the killing of Dr Soomro, who was rubbed out in Sukkur on Nov 29, 2014.
In Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , JUI-F workers and leaders gathered in front of the Karachi Press Club to stage a protest demonstration.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] HAWAR: At least two suspected gunnies were killed and five others injured as security forces repulsed a myrmidon attack carried out in Kurram tribal region from across the border in Afghanistan on Saturday, security sources said.
Security sources said Afghanistan-based gunnies attacked on a Pak security checkpost in Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... .
The gunnies who were armed with sophisticated weapons opened fire on the checkpost, they said. The security forces responded to the attack with retaliatory firing killing at least two attackers and injuring five.
Kurram is one of the most sensitive tribal areas as it borders three Afghan provinces and at one point was one of the key routes for myrmidon movement across the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has cancelled his planned talks with Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) officials, the premier's office announced Saturday, Anadolu Agency reported.
"Contrary to the public opinion created by HDP, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu never planned to discuss the country’s resolve to fight terrorism with HDP. The counterterrorism process is not a matter of bargain," the office said in a written statement.
Accusing HDP officials of "not having political maturity to use politics to solve problems" and "making polarizing statements", the premier's office said that party officials had left no room for dialogue.
Davutoglu was scheduled to meet HDP officials on Dec. 30 as part of negotiations with opposition party officials on the country’s new proposed constitution as well as budget-related issues.
The premier is scheduled to meet Republican People's Party (CHP) on Dec. 30 and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Jan. 4.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2015
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[DAILYCALLER] All the people you'd expect to find there: Bill Nye the Science Guy, the guy who supported Lindsey Graham, whoever he is, Hillary, that guy who dressed up like a baby on Saturday Night Live and now he's in the Senate. I forget who else. I guess that's the whole idea, isn't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[VOA News] Syrian Lion of Islam groups mourned Saturday the death of a powerful rebel commander who was killed in an Arclight airstrike near Damascus, and they named a top military commander as his successor.
Syrian rebels and the government said Friday that Zahran Alloush, founder of the Army of Islam, was killed in a raid that targeted the group's headquarters in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus.
Alloush's death was a significant blow to the armed opposition, bolstering Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... ahead of new peace talks scheduled for early 2016.
The Army of Islam appointed Essam al-Buwaydhani, also known as Abu Hammam, as Alloush's replacement .
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[IsraelTimes] Local reports say that at least seven Arclight airstrikes carried out by Israeli warplanes; Lebanese terror group denies reports
Israeli warplanes hit Hezbollah targets in the Qalamoun area of Syria in a series of at least seven Arclight airstrikes, Syrian media outlets reported Saturday night.
The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the alleged Arclight airstrikes. Hezbollah denied Israeli raids had targeted their positions, according to Channel 2.
According to Channel 2, the IDF released a statement before the reports emerged warning that, "in the coming hours sounds of kabooms may be heard in the Upper Galilee. These are initiated and controlled kabooms that were planned in advance and not a security incident."
The reported strikes came less than a week after Hezbollah-allied terrorist Samir Kuntar was killed in an kaboom in his Damascus home, which has been attributed to Israel. Kuntar's death was followed within hours by rocket strikes from Leb on the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.
Israel has warned Hezbollah not to respond to Kuntar's death. Foreign officials also warned the Leb-based terror group that seeking retaliation for Kuntar's killing could prompt a crushing Israeli response.
Last month, Israel reportedly carried out some four Arclight airstrikes on Syrian regime and Hezbollah positions in the area of the Qalamoun mountains.
Israel has long warned that it would not allow any "game-changing" weapons to fall into Hezbollah's hands as it fights alongside the Syrian regime in the country's years-long civil war.
Hezbollah denies reports of IAF attacks in Qalamoun area: Syrian opposition circles have been spreading many reports since Kuntar's liquidation of Israeli Arclight airstrikes against Hezbollah posts in Syria.
[Rudaw] Peshmerga forces repulsed an ISIS attack on their farthest defensive line on the western Shingal front on Saturday, a Kurdish military official told Rudaw.
"Militants in a vehicle attempted to break through Peshmerga defenses, on the farthest Peshmerga-ISIS point on the western Shingal front, but they failed," said Khalid Hamza, a Peshmerga commander on the front.
"Peshmerga forces are on alert to fight off any assault by the ISIS Lion of Islams," he said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco... warplanes from the US-led coalition carried out 12 air raids against ISIS positions in Iraq on Saturday, destroying bunkers, shelters and bases.
The raids struck near Shingal, djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Gayara, Ramadi and Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... according to a statement by the US Central Command.
It also reported that five barrel bombs were dropped in Syria, targeting ISIS posts and positions near the group's self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa.
The ISIS assaults against the Peshmerga coincide with a Kurdish-American commando operation Friday night against a base belonging to the group near Hawija, killing a number of bully boyz and capturing others, Kirkuk police said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/27/2015
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[Inquirer] Christmas attacks by Muslim militants in southern Philippine villages left at least 14 people dead and may have been partly influenced by Daesh's notoriety, officials said Saturday. The dead included nine villagers separately gunned down by Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter militants and at least five insurgents killed by government forces in clashes in three provinces on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Regional military spokesperson Captain Joan Petinglay said about 200 militants took part in at least eight attacks on Thursday and Friday. She said the military found out about the impending attacks, secured towns and villages, and warned villagers not to venture out, which prevented a larger number of casualties.
Petinglay said, "We learned that the BIFF had plans to attack civilians and our detachments so we went on heightened alert even before Christmas. That prevented the rebels from attacking villages and inflicting more casualties."
Despite warnings, five farmers went to their farms Thursday to spray their crops in Maguindanao province and were captured and gunned down by the rebels. In a nearby village in Sultan Kudarat province, militants fleeing from troops took a family hostage on Thursday, releasing a mother and her child but killing three men. A village official was also gunned down by the militants late Thursday in North Cotabato province. Villagers in one area hid in a Roman Catholic church after word of the rebel assaults spread.
At least four militants died in a clash when their group assaulted a military outpost in Esperanza town on Thursday, triggering a firefight. Another injured militant was reported to have died in a village medical clinic. Two homemade explosives were left by the militants on a jungle trail where pursuing soldiers would pass, but the troops found the bombs.
The BIFF broke off from the larger MILF several years ago when they opposed the latter's decision to hold negotiations with the Philippine government. A BIFF spokesman said last year that his group supports Daesh.
The latest attacks were the most brazen by the BIFF since a military offensive against them left more than 100 gunmen dead early this year. The insurgent group still has about 100 armed fighters who may have been joined by relatives and new recruits to stage the attacks.
Iraqi forces on Saturday clashed with militants from the Daesh group defending the former government complex in the heart of the city of Ramadi. After a major push on Tuesday that broke Daesh defences around the city centre, government forces have been slowed by snipers, booby traps, roadside bombs and suicide attackers.
While initial hopes of a quick victory have faded, Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) and the army have advanced steadily through the devastated capital of Anbar province. They reached a key intersection in the Hoz neighbourhood home to the government complex, whose recapture would go a long way towards ensuring a full recapture of Ramadi.
"There are fierce battles pitting members of the Daesh organisation against the Iraqi forces there now," said Ahmed Al Dulaimi, a police captain.
He said the latest fighting had left at least two members of the Iraqi security forces dead and nine wounded.
At least three were killed on Friday, according to several senior officers and local officials. The figures they provide for Daesh casualties are high, with at least 23 killed on Friday alone.
The number of Daesh fighters hunkered down in central Ramadi was estimated at the start of the operation five days ago at no more than 400.
"You have the 8th Iraqi army and CTS... and they're all pushing forward," said Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the US-led coalition which has been supporting Iraqi forces in Ramadi with daily air strikes.
"CTS have made more progress, they're several hundred metres closer to the government complex," Warren said.
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[ABCNEWS.GO] Thousands of supporters of Burundi's president Saturday protested against the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... 's plan to deploy 5,000 peacekeepers to quell the country's escalating unrest.
Burundi has been rocked by turmoil since April when it was announced that Kinglet President Pierre Nkurunziza would run for a third term. Nkurunziza was re-elected in July but the violence has since escalated.
The demonstration in Bujumbura, the capital, was led by Vice President Gaston Sindimwo who insisted that Burundi's army is capable of halting violence and protecting all Burundians. Other protests were in Ngonzi province, Nkurunziza's hometown and a stronghold of the ruling party.
Burundi will never accept the African Union's forces, Sindimwo said.
"Burundi is a member of the African Union and has not accepted those forces. How can they say the AU has decided, yet Burundi has not accepted?" he asked.
"We would like to warn AU troops that the majority of Burundians don't want them and they should not impose themselves on the people of Burundi," Alice Nakuto, a member of the ruling party's militia known as Imbonerakure and who took part in demonstrations in Ngonzi province, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named by phone.
Earlier this month 87 people died when three military installations were attacked by rebels who said this week they are fighting to topple Nkurunziza.
At least 400 people have died in Burundi's violence since April and some 220,000 have fled to neighboring countries, according to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Burundi's government has rejected the A.U.'s plans to deploy peacekeepers, describing it as an invasion force.
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[NYPOST] To hear the patronizing wise men of the Republican Party tell it, anyone who would vote for Donald Trump for president must be deranged. "Trumpkins," they call them, mental midgets and xenophobic troglodytes who've crawled out from their survivalist caves in order to destroy the Beltway Establishment.
How their resentful attitude galls the crack cadres of campaign consultants who brought conservatives halfhearted standard-bearers like John Maverick McCain ... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... and Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, the Publican nominee for president in 2012. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals.... to do sham battle against Barack Obama Dreams of My Sainted Father... in 2008 and '12, then return to the safety of the US Senate and a beachfront mansion in La Jolla.
The peasants are revolting!
And all on behalf of a bloviating billionaire whose conservatism and party loyalty are suspect.
Now, after months of whistling past the graveyard of Trump's seemingly inexorable rise and assuring themselves that his candidacy will collapse as voters come to their senses, a CNN poll released Wednesday showing Trump now lapping the field has the GOP establishment in full meltdown mode. The survey shows Trump with nearly 40% of the primary vote, trailed by Ted Cruz at 18%, Ben Carson ... a neurosurgeon who is under the delusion that being brilliant qualifies him to be president.... and Marco Rubio tied at 10%, and the also-rans (including great GOP hope Jeb Bush) limping along far behind.
Their panic was best articulated last week in The Daily Beast by GOP consultant Rick Wilson, who wrote that Trump supporters "put the entire conservative movement at risk of being hijacked and destroyed by a bellowing billionaire with poor impulse control and a profoundly superficial understanding of the world . . . walking, talking comments sections of the fever swamp sites."
Some might take that as a backhanded compliment. Can the GOP really be so out of touch with the legions of out-of-work Americans -- many of whom don't show up in the "official" unemployment rate because they've given up looking for work in the Obama economy? With the returning military vets frustrated with lawyer-driven, politically correct rules of engagement that have tied their hands in a fight against a mortal enemy? With those who, in the wake of the Gay Paree and San Bernardino massacres by Muslims, reasonably fear an influx of culturally alien "refugees" and "migrants" from the Middle East?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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#1
If we could ever rid ourselves of these thieving, 'elite' beltway party vermin, perhaps a new momemorative monument would be in order.
[IsraelTimes] Attacker shot at scene of attack at Hawara checkpoint near Nablus, dies later of his wounds
An Israeli soldier was lightly hurt Saturday afternoon in a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint near the town of Hawara in the northern West Bank, close to the city of Nablus.
The attacker was shot at the scene, Israel's Ynet news website said, later reporting that he had died of his wounds in hospital in Nablus. The website identified him as 56-year-old Maher Jabi, but gave no details of his residence.
Channel 2 television reported that the attack apparently occurred after soldiers set up a surprise checkpoint at the site in order to inspect Paleostinian cars.
The attack came hours after security forces thwarted a stabbing attack in Jerusalem, when an assailant from East Jerusalem pulled out a knife and assaulted coppers near the Old City's Jaffa Gate.
Also Saturday, Jerusalem police clashed with some 150 Paleostinian protesters in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, who were demanding that Israel return the bodies of those killed while carrying out attacks.
Police cleared away the protesters using riot dispersal measures. Some threw stones at the security forces, and one person was tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! , Channel 2 reported.
Later, the IDF shot up a bulldozer in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, after the driver of the vehicle attempted to drive through a roadblock.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli security forces on Saturday raided the home of an East Jerusalem who was killed earlier in the day while trying to stab coppers near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, the Paleostinian news agency Ma'an reported.
According to the report, troops entered the family home of Musab al-Ghazali in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, hours after he was rubbed out by coppers on Saturday morning.
The man's uncle, Abu Wajdi al-Ghazali, told Ma'an that the Israeli forces who carried out the raid in Silwan also summoned the attacker's brothers and father for questioning.
Police on patrol near the gate had noticed the man behaving in a suspicious manner, as he appeared to be following Jewish worshipers walking nearby.
When the officers approached him and said they wanted to search him, the man pulled out a knife and lunged at them. The officers shot and killed him. The coppers were unharmed.
Ma'an quoted the uncle as saying that Musab al-Ghazali had mental disabilities. He also reportedly denied that his nephew had tried to stab the coppers, saying that the unemployed 26-year-old had set out to collect used bottles, in order to reclaim the deposit money on them.
[DAWN] The Sindh government is set to send 18 cases, including the Safoora Goth bus carnage and Sabeen Mahmud murder cases, to military courts for trial, it emerged on Saturday.
The remaining cases are against five suspects of the bus carnage, killing of coppers, attempted murder and carrying of explosive substances and unlicensed weapons.
On an application of the provincial authorities, the Sindh High Court through a letter informed the Sindh government that the chief justice had acceded to its request to transfer the cases and custody of the accused persons to military courts.
The cases have been pending trial before two antiterrorism courts of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and the SHC also directed the trial court judges to hand over the original files of the cases to the authorities concerned for trial in military courts.
The provincial authorities had sent the cases to the federal government for scrutiny and approval for trial in military courts and on Dec 9 the latter approved 18 cases.
Parliament passed in January the 21st constitutional amendment to establish the military courts after the massacre in the Army Public School, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , in December last year. Around 15 cases from Sindh have already been sent to military courts.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats grabbed for his rosco... the provincial home department also sought record and proceedings/original files and case properties from the prosecutors of ATC- VI & VII, where the cases are pending for further action.
Around 45 Shia Ismaili community members, including 18 women, were killed and eight others maimed in an armed attack on their bus near Safoora Goth on May 13.
Tahir Hussain Minhas, alias Sain, a construction entrepreneur, and the alleged criminal mastermind of the bus attack, Saad Aziz, alias Tin Tin, a business graduate alleged to have filmed the brutal attack, and Asad-ur-Rehman, alias Malik, who allegedly backed up the attackers, have been charge-sheeted for their direct involvement in the bus carnage case.
Hafiz Nasir, alias Yasir, and Mohammad Azhar Ishrat, alias Majid, were named for allegedly providing accommodation, funds and reconnaissance to the main suspects. Fishermen Cooperative Society vice chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, his brother Hussain Umar Siddiqui and Sajid Naeem were also nominated for allegedly providing weapons to the assailants.
The police also named around 10 absconders in the case, including arms dealer Zahid Abdul Qadir, alias Zahid Motiwala, and placed over 100 prosecution witnesses, including around 10 eyewitnesses, in the final investigation report and contended that two of the detained suspects disclosed their affiliation 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.... myrmidon group.
The report further said that as per the investigation, the JIT report and other documentary record, all the suspects remained associated with Al-Qaeda and following its split they became part of IS.
Saad Aziz with his absconding accomplices has also been booked for allegedly killing Sabeen Mahmud, social media campaigner and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... activist, when she with her mother was returning home after holding a seminar.
The other cases being sent to military courts are against Tahir, Saad, Asad, Nasir and Azhar related to the killing of coppers, an attempted murder, and keeping illicit weapons and kaboom.
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[WASHINGTONPOST] OVER THE past weeks we have used some sharp words in our editorials about the race for the Republican nomination -- words such as bigot, bully and buffoon. Some readers have asked whether by so doing we undermine our own calls for civil discourse. The answer has a lot to do with this moment in American history -- a dangerous moment when something ugly is taking place in the political arena. It's a time that demands a sharp and clear response from everyone who cares about fairness and decency, democracy and tolerance.
Generally the system works best when people assume that their political opponents are acting in good faith. We may feel strongly about gun laws, campaign finance or free trade, but we recognize that there are defensible arguments on the other side. In the heat of the debate, we sometimes fall short of our aspirations, but as U.S. politics become ever more partisan, it becomes ever more important to give opposing views a fair hearing. That's one reason we publish a range of opinions on the facing page, especially ones that differ from our own.
But Donald Trump and his imitators present a different kind of challenge to democratic discourse, in at least three ways. Mr. Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, seeks to make his political fortune not by staking out and defending positions but by fanning and exploiting hatred and fear. He says and repeats things that are demonstrably false, which makes a mockery of legitimate debate. He prefers to insult, demean and ridicule anyone who challenges him rather than to engage meaningfully with their arguments.
The essence of his campaign has been to portray those who are different from him and his supporters as unworthy, less than human and so deserving of abuse. His incendiary language associates Mexicans with rapists and Muslims with terrorists. The demonization then is used to justify the unjustifiable: mass deportations for undocumented immigrants, torture for suspected terrorists, bombing enemies' innocent relatives, barring all Muslims, beating up an African American protester.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) follows a similar playbook when he asserts, falsely, that immigration reform aimed at bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would have given President B.O. the authority to admit "ISIS terrorists." Even his ostensibly humorous reference to "undocumented Democrats" serves to dehumanize. The Salvadoran woman worrying whether her children have done their homework as she works the night shift at a fast-food restaurant is no longer a person trying to give her kids a better life but a political token, deserving of no sympathy. It is legitimate to debate the proper level of immigration, but that's not Mr. Cruz's goal. When he echoes the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace in his denunciation of a path to legalization, he is making a very different kind of argument. I think the root problem seems to be that neither Trump nor Cruz is a Democrat. The Dems only need white voters every four years -- the black vote carries the urban areas just about effortlessly in Congressional elections.
I believe the Dems have gone a step or two too far by pushing the "white privilege" thing. Possibly there has been one or two too many utterances that "white people be [fill in the distasteful blank]." Black Lives Matter, y'know. The rest? Eh.
That leaves us "crackers" with the Pubs. But the Pubs "have to govern from the center" as rags like the Post are quick to holler, though for some reasons the Dems are always perfectly able to govern from the left, and nowadays the naked left. Which leaves us with John McCain, a "former foot soldier in the Reagan revolution" who's admired by the rags because he's a "maverick."
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz aren't "mavericks"? They're not jumping the reservation? (Oh, racist shot, that one!) They're not what the Pubs have been looking for? Neither of them is whatcha might call high-gluten white bread. Maybe that's why the lefty rags hate them.
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#1
...but we recognize that there are defensible arguments on the other side.
Codswallop.
The life blood of the Left. Now someone else has picked up the play book.
If the ruling class believed and abided by the law, the yahoos would be far less restive. In their unquenching thirst for power and money, they're the ones who've started the fire. Something, something about 'consent of the governed'.
#5
Generally the system works best when people assume that their political opponents are acting in good faith.
We have finally gotten most people to realize that the Dems, the MSM, and the Left do not do so. They demand our side behave civilly while they conduct the "War on Wymyns", the "Binders of Wymyns", the "White Privilege" slurs and slanders. I don't know if I can pull teh lever for Trump, but I do know I like his hold on their minds. They're terrified, because they can't control him
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2015 11:44
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Frank, I can pull the lever for Trump given the "quality" of those running against him.
He's not my first, second or third choice of those that are left but..............................
#10
If the ruling class believed and abided by the law, the yahoos would be far less restive. In their unquenching thirst for power and money, they're the ones who've started the fire. Something, something about 'consent of the governed'.
Thank you for pointing out one the great flaws in the way legislation is crafted.
[Dhaka Tribune] An autopsy on the youth killed in Friday's suicide kaboom on the Ahmadiyya mosque in Rajshahi's Baghmara upazila confirmed that the dead was the carrier of the improvised bomb.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... 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.... (IS) yesterday grabbed credit for the kaboom, SITE Intelligence Group said.
It quoted the Islamic State as saying that soldiers of the Caliphate in Bangladesh carried out the first suicide kaboom at the mosque during polytheist rituals.
Dr Enamul Haque, lecturer of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital's Forensic Department, yesterday said the boy was carrying the bomb against his left upper abdomen.
He said four splinters were recovered from the liver of the jacket wallah. "The man received severe wounds on the left part of his body as he was carrying the bomb on that side."
Several sources in the police said they suspected involvement of banned myrmidon outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s which remains obscure even today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually exploded. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Saudi Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt. (JMB) in the kaboom as the locality is known as a den and breeding ground for JMB cadres.
A high official of an intelligence agency requesting not to be named told the Dhaka Tribune that they are mainly focusing their investigation on JMB involvement.
An eyewitness said just a couple of moments before the blast a cycle of violence whizzed past the mosque. Law enforcers suspected the attackers had planned to escape with the motorbike but the bomb accidentally went off before the time.
Motiar Rahman, officer-in-charge of Baghmara cop shoppe, said police are patrolling the area.
Earlier, on Friday around 1:20pm during the Jumma prayer, a bomb went kaboom! at Ahmadiyya mosque leaving a youth dead on the spot and several others injured badly.
Of the injured, condition of Moyez Uddin, 40, Sayeb Ali, 36, and Nayon, 12, were stated to be critical. They are now undergoing treatment at RMCH.
Injured Moyez Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune that they saw a boy enter the mosque just after the Jumma prayer call. "He said he was from Mohonpur and studied in Rajshahi Polytechnique Institute and he came to visit a friend in the area."
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... the sub-inspector of Baghmara cop shoppe filed a case around 2.00am yesterday accusing two unidentified youths, said OC Motiar Rahman.
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[Dhaka Tribune] Bangladeshi authorities have incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! seven suspected hard boyz with links to an Islamist group. The move comes a day after Pakistain recalled its diplomat from Dhaka over her alleged links with the same banned outfit.
The police raided an apartment in Mirpur, a district in the capital Dhaka, and arrested seven suspected members of the banned Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) organization. They also seized 16 home-made bombs, boom jackets and kaboom, which the authorities said could be used in planned attacks over the New Year period.
The suspects went kaboom! bombs as police began their raid. No injuries were reported. Officials cordoned off the building and evacuated the residents.
Police officer Monirul Islam said at least three "important figures" of the JMB had been arrested.
The JMB was founded in 1998 by Sheikh Abdur Rahman, a religious preacher educated 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... . The group campaigns for the imposition of the Shariah Law in Bangladesh. Despite being banned by the government, the JMB members are trying to regroup and launch clandestine operations.
In 2007, Bangladeshi authorities executed six JMB leaders for killing two judges and criminal masterminding a series of bombings across the country in 2005 that killed some 30 people. The krazed killer organization has also been involved in targeting foreigners. On October 3, it rubbed out a Japanese farmer in northern Bangladesh.
The Thursday raid followed information from a detained member of the Islamist group.
Terror link row
The raid comes just days after a suspected JMB member, Idris Sheikh, told a court in Dhaka that he had ties with a female Pak diplomat, whose name was quoted by local media as Farina Arshad. Shiekh told police detectives that he had received financial assistance from Arshad for his espionage trial.
The Pak mission in Dhaka dismissed the claims as "utterly baseless media reports... maligning a female diplomat stationed in Dhaka." "Tut tut, my good man!"
On Wednesday, Pakistain recalled Arshad from the capital, according to a Bangladeshi official.
"The female second secretary of the high commission was sent back to Islamabad this afternoon, two days after Dhaka informally asked for her departure," the official at the Bangladeshi foreign ministry told AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.
Bangladesh's Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said the government would take action against Arshad if the allegations against her were proven to be credible.
Islamization of Bangladesh
Relations between Bangladesh and Pakistain have been tense since 1971 when the former East Pakistain separated from the western wing after a long struggle for independence.
Islamabad has officially condemned Bangladeshi government's recent crackdown on Islamist groups linked with aiding former West Pakistain during the war of independence. It has always denied its role in the massacre during the war. No Pak government has formally apologized to Dhaka for the killings. Nationalist parties in Bangladesh, however, claim that the Mighty Pak Army and its supporters killed around three million people during the war.
The 1971 war of independence continues to play an important role in Bangladeshi politics. Analyst Siegfried O. Wolf believes that those who were involved in the 1971 war crimes "are still threatening the country's peace and stability."
"They still maintain, or have established new links, with Pakistain-based terror groups as well as international jihadist organizations like '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) and al Qaeda. There will be no peace in Bangladesh until these people and groups are brought to justice," Wolf told DW.
Bangladeshi government has also intensified its crack down on Islamist groups involved in killing secular bloggers, but Wolf thinks it is far from enough.
"Bangladesh has effectively been transformed into an Islamic state. As a result, Islamist parties have been able to assume a bigger role in the country's politics. The situation is ripe for an international terrorist group like IS to establish itself in Bangladesh. It will surely describe the executions as a 'crusade against Muslims.'"
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#1
PAKISTAN-vs-BFF-CHINA in Bangladesh + Myanmar???
[YAHOO] The dustup over a data breach that briefly erupted in the Democratic presidential primary last week isn't over as far as Sen. Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... , I-Vt., and his team are concerned.
In a conversation with Yahoo News, a top Sanders campaign adviser made a series of explosive allegations about how the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and a political technology company that works with the party handled the incident. According to the Sanders adviser, the DNC and NGP VAN, a firm that has a contract with the party organization to operate a voter file, have responded to the data breach by "leaking information" and "stonewalling an investigation" into the matter.
"We have demanded a full investigation from top to bottom," the Sanders adviser said.
Sanders' adviser noted that a lawsuit the campaign filed in federal court about the data breach last Friday, Dec. 18, is still ongoing, and described it as an attempt to get answers despite the party's lack of cooperation.
According to a blog post published by NGP VAN, the data breach occurred on Wednesday, Dec. 16. The company said it involved a "bug" in the software NGP provides to the DNC. NGP VAN software is used by the DNC to operate a massive file of voter data that is shared by the party and all of the Democratic presidential campaigns. Both campaigns also rely on NGP to store their private files. The data in the shared and private files is essentially the lifeblood of a modern presidential campaign. It includes information vital to campaigns' day-to-day organizing and strategy, including potential supporters they are targeting and how many voters they expect to turn out in key primary states.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#2
Again, BOTH the RNC + DNC Conventions could end up brokered, which means the front-runner may or may not end up being their Party's nominee for the November 2016 POTUS election.
IFF NOT HILLARY OR SANDERS - WHOM???
IFF NOT TRUMP, CRUZ, OR RUBIO - WHOM???
AFAIC this November 2016 POTUS Election is as much as about the continuing drive towards US Socialism as much as US-led Anti-US OWG-NWO + Other, ... AND NO ONE OR NO POTUS 2016 CANDIDATE IN THE GOP OR THE DEMS, ETC. WANTS TO BE LINKED TO SAME OR ANY IFF THEY HAD A CHOICE!
[CELINE DION "TITANIC" (OBAMA'S NOT-MY-HEART "RED LINES", WE'LL STAY FOREVAR! THIS WAY WILL GO ON) THEME here].
A North Korean diplomat has been expelled from South Africa for alleged illegal trading in rhino horns, a South African foreign ministry spokesman said Thursday.
"We can confirm that this diplomat has been expelled. He left the country on the 11th of December," Nelson Kgwete told AFP.
Kgwete said the diplomat was arrested in neighbouring Mozambique in May on charges related to rhino horn smuggling. At the time of arrest, he was driving a vehicle with a South African diplomatic registration.
South Africa's News24 said the diplomat was arrested after 4.5 kilogrammes (10 pounds) of rhino horn and $99,300 (91,000 euros) in cash were found in his car. The news website added that Mozambican police released the man on $30,000 bail.
#1
...They should be grateful he didn't try to smuggle out the whole rhino. Do you know how many Norks that could have fed?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/27/2015 10:23
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Do you know how many Norks that could have fed?
Make stone soup, and it would feed multitudes. For Pudgy it would be no more than a small appetizer before lunch -- but he does exert himself on behalf of his people.
The Turkish police are searching for Mahimr Ulash, who is suspected of preparing a terrorist attack, the Turkish newspaper Milliyet reported Dec. 26.
Ulash with his family has recently attempted to travel to Syria to join the militants of the IS terrorist organization. Members of his family were blown up on a mine at the border crossing.
Drone-zap the funeral...
Some 97 people were killed and more than 240 people were injured as a result of the terrorist act committed in Ankara October 10. According to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization, the IS committed this terrorist attack.
Earlier, the Turkish National Intelligence Organization warned of the possibility of committing other terrorist attacks in the country. Some 20 more suicide bombers are preparing to commit the terrorist attacks in different cities in Turkey, the statement said.
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[REUTERS] Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp (5108.T) raised its offer for Pep Boys-Manny, Moe & Jack (PBY.N) to about $947 million, trumping activist investor Carl Icahn's current $900 million bid.
The latest Bridgestone offer of $17 per share was $1.50 above of its earlier bid.
Icahn's latest offer for Pep Boys was $16.50 per share. Good luck widdat. I only had to be ignored one time to walk out of all Pap Boys forever.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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#1
...The one I dealt with here could not have been more helpful, alert, and cooperative.
On the other hand, given the prices they were charging, I think it was the least they could have done.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/27/2015 10:26
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has told Al Arabiya News Channel that the Middle East is suffering from sectarian plots to divide the region. Oh, no! Not plots! Oh, hold me, Ethel!
In a preview of the interview with the leader, to be aired fully on Sunday, Erdogan demanded that countries in the region come together to address this plot to stir sectarianism.
He said there were "disagreements" between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and Iran over regional issues.
"There are disagreements between Turkey and Iran, but I do not want these disparities to affect good neighborly relations ... sectarianism should not prompt us to become enemies, Islam must be our reference.
"There are intentions in the world to divide us and we need to join our efforts and come together. Look at what is happening in Iraq, Syria, Paleostine and Libya ... we have to overcome these problems and if we manage to do so, the Islamic world will be more powerful," Erdogan added.
Turkish presence in Iraq On the Iraq crisis, the president said that Turkish forces currently training Iraqis in the Bashiqa Camp near djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , came at the request and knowledge of Iraqi authorities. However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... he did not say whether these stationed forces will withdraw.
"Iraqi-Turkish relations are good. We tackled developments in Iraq during [Iraqi Prime Minister] Haidar al-Abadi's visit to Turkey," he said.
"When ISIS entered Iraq, the Iraqis asked for our help and we told them we were ready. We asked them to assign a suitable site to set up our base and so they did. It all began at the end of last year, and in March, we were allocated the Bashiqa area."
He added: "The Iraqi defense minister visited the training camp, but it seems that the developments in Syria have affected the situation in Iraq. Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia have formed a quartet alliance in Baghdad and asked Turkey to join, but I told President [Vladimir] Putin that I cannot sit alongside a president whose legitimacy is distrustful."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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#1
"There are disagreements between Turkey and Iran, but I do not want these disparities to affect good neighborly relations ... sectarianism should not prompt us to become enemies, My Islam must be our reference."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2015 11:26
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#2
Translation "Turkey is up sh*t creek sans paddle".
I did get a bloc of time to read The Conquerors - How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. It is another good read by Roger Crowley. I also had a four hour bloc reading assembly instructions which required two cans of Putogether Fluid. So you get food.
The Food of Santa Fe
Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach
Periplus, copyright 1998
This is a nice 136+ page book with excellent color photographs. It is divided into three sections: Food in Santa Fe, Cooking in Santa Fe, and The Recipes. Food in Santa Fe is a bit of history of the area. Cooking in Santa Fe covers kitchen items, tortillas, chiles, and so forth. The Recipes begins with some basics like chile sauces and includes the reason I bought the book: Carne Adovada (page 78, Al Lucero, Maria's New Mexican Kitchen). What is nice is there is an appendix which provides the background accompanying foods in the photographs, which is where I found today's recipe. There are other recipes as well, such as the classic Pueblo dish Lobster Ceviche with Plantain Chips (page 58, Elizabeth Warren Mark Kiffin, Coyote Cafe).
As you see, they have the chef's credit and restaurant which is good, as well as a description, ingredients needed, steps taken, and a prep/cook time estimate. Everything reads well, though I have not made very many recipes; I'm the only spicy food lover in the house. But this recipe jumped out at me for its ease, adaptability, and low cost per serving:
1/4 lb butter
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 jalapeno chile, diced
1 tsp cumin seed
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp ground red pepper
1 quart chicken broth
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 (17oz) can whole-kernel corn
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp diced pimiento
Salt
Heat a large saucepan over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of the butter, saute the mushrooms until they're browned, 3 to 4 minutes, remove, and reserve them.
Add the remaining butter to the saucepan, add the bell pepper, onion, jalapeno and cumin seed and saute until they're soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Whisk in the flour, paprika and red pepper and mix well to eliminate any lumps that may form.
Reduce the heat to low, stir in the chicken broth, and mix well. Add the half-and-half and the cheese and stir continuously until the cheese has melted and the soup thickened.
Add the corn, parsley, pimiento and the reserved mushrooms; mix well; and heat thoroughly. Salt to taste and serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.
I used a stockpot - it filled half-way, so this recipe does make quite a volume for just 1 1/2 quarts or so of liquid ingredients. The corn adds some volume to it, especially if like me you add extra corn and chicken.
Top with crushed tortilla chips or those strips, cheese, dunk with tortillas.
Easy right? And at my little grocery store on the prairie I can get each of those ingredients.
This last go-round we used Serrano instead of jalapeno chilis (not as much to keep the heat down), added extra diced pimiento for some color, and reaching into my bachelor recipe book:
Added canned chicken - five cans, that is. Now, it's a meal instead of a side dish. "Why canned chicken, Mr. swks? More expensive and lower quality than making the chicken yourself?" Because I have kids, dammit. And the good quality canned chicken does fit well.
If I were do it right for myself, I would bread and sear-fry chicken breast using corn oil, finish it in the oven.
If my wife would do it right, she would roast a whole chicken, peel off nearly all the meat, and give me the remains to make stock. See how I reduce a four hour step while still showcasing the chicken?
But that is what I like about this recipe - instead of button mushrooms, a mushroom with flavor could be used. A different cheese perhaps. Real pimiento instead of the stuff out of a jar. A quality paprika and parsley go a long way as well.
And with the theme of soldiers on Christmas Eve, I recommend:
Washington's Crossing
David Hackett Fischer
I sold a hardback copy to a guy with a kindle. Yeah, that good. There is even a well-narrated audio for those of you who, like me, seem to get their books anymore on solo road trips.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, have fun, be safe.
(Link is to The Food of Santa Fe, Amazon - I have a hardback copy but do not see that purchase option. Dunno.)
#1
I'm not sure if I saw it in an ad or mentioned here on Rantburg, but I recent dropped a couple dollars on Clifford D Simak's "The Way Station" and really enjoyed it. You know you enjoy a book when you end it going, "But....gimme more!" I admit I buy alot of $1-3 dollar books on Amazon and honestly enjoy most of them. It actually gets hard to spend more than that on a book now from 'premium' authors unless I really really like them (Ie The Dresden Files). But it was good to read some classic science fiction.
#2
Thanks for the book tips. I'm trying to struggle Herman J. Cohen's 'The Mind of the African Strongman' Conversations with dictators, statesmen, and father figures.
#3
Often I have two books going at the same time, one fiction and the other non-fiction, so I can pick between them depending on mood. The "fiction" I'm reading now, The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, sorta straddles the line between the two categories. For those unfamiliar, it's a collection of Twain's newspaper columns about a trip Twain took to Europe and the Holy Land just after the War Between the States. It's a good read, and a fun one. Quite interesting to compare the way things are now to then, though I haven't got too far into it (Twain is in Morocco at this point).
The other book, which I've barely started, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia by Barry Cunliffe, was recommended on a list of "Best History Books of 2015" on a British history site. The book ambitiously attempts to present a history of Eurasia from around 9000 BC to the Mongol expansion of the thirteenth century. I had actually been planning to read another book highly recommended on the site, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan, until I found out it won't be available until February. The former book seems like good prep for the latter.
#4
Oh, that looks good! I have a ton of cookbooks, but this is added to my wishlist now. I've visited Santa Fe precisely once in my life, and rather liked it. A pretty little town - every single corner of which was scenic, and the food was excellent. I honestly did wonder where they stashed the auto junk yards, liquor stores, Walmart and poor people, as there honestly didn't seem to have any.
I have had two books out this year myself, if I can plead for attention from my fellow Rantburgundians: a historical fiction novel, Sunset & Steel Rails, about a young woman working in the Harvey House chain in the late 19th century (which finishes up with a bang when she and two of her children survive the horrific Galveston Hurricane of 1900. It's on Amazon, in print and Kindle.
And my daughter and I co-wrote a diversion; The Chronicles of Luna City - a set of short stories and informational essays about life in a small (but mythical) South Texas town, and the various eccentric characters who keep it interesting. Also in print and Kindle.
Did you know that the Fonda in Santa Fe was a Harvey House restaurant, and built on the very site of what had been an inn since Santa Fe was founded?
The chicken tried chokin' his gherkin
But jerkin' was not really workin':
The cock felt no tickle,
And, checking (no pickle!),
Fled, cloaking his shame with a merkin.
[DAWN] PPP Chairman Bilawal Baby Bhutto Zardari ...Pak dynastic politician, son of Benazir Bhutto and grandon of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As far as is known, Bilawal has no particular talents other than being pretty and being able to memorize political slogans, but he had the good luck to be born into the right family and he hasn't been assassinated yet... on Saturday met the family of Bisma -- an infant who died at the door of Civil Hospital earlier this week -- and condoled the child's death with her father.
The 10-month-old girl died on Wednesday apparently because she did not receive timely medical treatment due to a security cordon which was established for Bilawal's visit to inaugurate a state of the art trauma centre.
During the meeting with Bisma's father, Faisal, at their residence in Lyari's Gabol Park, Bilawal expressed sorrow over the child's demise saying "the people of Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... are close to my heart."
This time however, Bilawal arrived with "minimal protocol", DawnNews reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] A teenage girl was gang-raped by a group of men after being drugged in a guest house in the Mall Road area here on Saturday, police said.
The 15-year-old victim was brought to Services Hospital where reports of initial medical tests revealed that the girl had been subjected to rape.
The teenager, who is a resident of Multan Road, was first kidnapped by faceless myrmidons before she was taken to a guest house in the Mall Road area, said Station House Officer (SHO) Ahmad Usman.
"The girl was drugged and later six to eight men gang-raped her," added SHO Usman.
The victim was also tortured physically, stated the SHO.
After raping her, the perpetrators messaged her family to come and pick her up from a spot.
Such lovely people.
Police has tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! six suspects in connection with the gang-rape while two to three main suspects have managed to flee, stated the SHO.
The main accused, PML-N Additional Secretary General Youth Wing Mian Adnan Sanaullah, is absconding in the case.
"Raids are being conducted to arrest all the accused in the case," said DIG Operations Haider Ashraf.
The victim, an 8th grade student, is receiving treatment in a hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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It's the New York Review of Books, so sickeningly smug, misguided assumptions are a given. Still, there are points of legitimate interest in this long essay.
#8
My least favorite part of the healing (ripping off scabs) process is how the congress abrogated its powers and responsibilities under the Constitution to enable this MoBro to get away with the things he as done.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/27/2015 17:09
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#9
In a real sense, he's been a lame duck since 2010. His willingness to ignore silly impediments like the law and separation of powers has kept his little dynasty going regardless.
[NBCNEWS] Investigators in Houston have determined that a fire at a mosque that broke out Friday was intentionally set, the fire department said Saturday.
The fire at the Savoy Mosque was reported at around 2:45 p.m. local time (3:45 p.m. ET) on Christmas and swelled to two alarms, causing "significant" damage, the Houston Fire Department said.
No one was hurt, but there were about 200 people inside the mosque in southwest Houston about an hour before the fire began, NBC affiliate KPRC in Houston reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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#5
So.
At a quarter till three, in the afternoon, a mere hour after having a 200 capacity crowd, at a strip mall, on Christmas/Big Friday prayers...
Nobody hung around afterwards, bitching about having to share Friday with Christmas, bet at least a couple for thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes for the fire to develop to the point of passerbys noticing.
[THETIMES.CO.UK] Muslims are boycotting the country's key anti-radicalisation programme, The Times can disclose, after it emerged that less than a tenth of extremism tip-offs were coming directly from the community or faith leaders. The revelation that there were fewer than 300 community tip-offs in six months to the government's Prevent programme will raise concern that the police are being denied information that might prevent terrorist attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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#1
Gee. You'd think that these folks would be aware of about 99% of what is going on in their communities.
#2
As with areas here in the States, there are 'enforcers' who will do some very nasty things to persons AND their families who dare to tip-off the law.
We hear this from Muslim people we know in the upper Midwest, so I'm sure it is prevalent elsewhere as well.
Not much different MO than the inner city gangs. At least the Mafia (usually) left the women and children alone.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/27/2015 12:30
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[IsraelTimes] Kremlin says it destroyed one of the main headquarters of the terrorist group
The Syrian military on Saturday published video footage of several Arclight airstrikes carried out by the Russian army against 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.... targets across the war-torn region, including the terror group's oil reserves.
Video of explosions can be seen at the link.
"We've attacked many terrorist bases, hits were identified on targets and much damage was caused to the terrorist infrastructure," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement following the release of the footage.
Channel 2 television reported that the targets struck by the Russian military included a training facility, a weapons storehouse, a massive oil refinery, and numerous oil tankers.
"We operated primarily against the illegal oil trade routes in Syria, and nearly 2,000 tankers that were in the hands of the snuffies were destroyed, a source in the Kremlin said, according to Channel 2.
The Kremlin said it had also hit "one of the main headquarters of the krazed killers" in an Arclight airstrike on some holy man's guesthouse an undisclosed location.
The strikes came as Russia 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... and US President Barack Obama I am not a dictator!... push rival plans on ways to defeat the Islamic State group in Syria and on the future role of the country's embattled leader Bashir al-Assad.
Putin is seeking to muscle his way back onto the world stage after months of Western isolation following Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and support for a separatist insurgency in the east of the ex-Soviet country.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/27/2015
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#1
When this Syria business is concluded one can rest assured that there will be a meeting headed by the UN and supported by the EU requesting many billions to repair the damage done. This time the US should stay clear of the usual breast beating and inform the Gulf states that it is their turn to clean up the mess.
#2
"The mess," of course, is not the rubble, which has been in constant production forever in this land of ancient civilizations. The real mess is genetic, and while it has been sporadically chipped away at since day one, it shows no signs of being cleaned up.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/27/2015 6:58
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#3
The real mess is genetic.
Yes, the elite and scientific community are acutely aware, but the little people [test sample population] must not be told too much.
Popular myths, slogans about equality, human rights, and discrimination should be sufficient to keep everyone marching along in the right direction.
[DAWN] KARACHI: After a lull ostensibly arising out of perceived controversy over Rangers' policing powers between the Centre and the Sindh Government, the paramilitary force has vowed to continue the operation with "full force" against hit mans, Lions of Islam and other criminal elements.
According to a statement issued by Rangers, it has started conducting targets raids for the arrest of suspects belonging to banned religious outfits and 'militant wings' presumably associated with the political parties. Wouldn't it make sense to dismantle any political party that has an "armed" or "militant" wing?
The paramilitary force claimed on Saturday to have conducted targeted raids on alleged hideouts of banned outfits and 'militant wings' and announced the arrest of six suspects.
"These arrests were made in Bilal Colony, Lyari, al-Falah, Gulistan-e-Jauhar and Gulberg respectively," the statement added.
The Rangers spokesperson said that the apprehended suspects belonged to banned holy warrior groups and one of them was an 'extortionist' belonging to 'the holy warrior wing' of a political party. However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... the official declined to name the political party.
The paramilitary force vowed to "continue the operation with full force till arrest of last terrorist, targeted killer and other criminals".
The Rangers urged the citizens of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to keep strict vigil on suspicious persons in their surroundings and inform them on Rangers helpline 1101 through phone or SMS.
After much deliberation, the interior ministry gave a 60-day extension in the special policing powers of Rangers in Sindh, after a meeting at the ministry chaired by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ...Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz Uncle Fester Sharif. He is noted for his vocal anti-American railing in the National Assembly. However (comma) Khan told the U.S. ambassador that he was in fact pro-American but he and the PML-N would have to be critical of US actions in order to remain publicly credible. Khan cited his wife and children's US citizenship as proof, which means he's lying to one side or the other and probably both. He wears a wig, but you probably guessed that. since hair doesn't grow naturally in that shape or texture... .
"The provincial assembly does not reserve the authority to amend the federal laws," the interior ministry said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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Iran’s media reported on Saturday that the price of the country’s heavy crude oil had plunged to below $30 per barrel for the first time in almost 20 years, Press TV reported.
Shana news agency – affiliated to Iran’s Oil Ministry – said in a report that the country had sold heavy crude at $29.4 per barrel. The price had been registered in the week ending 18 December. The report added that Iran had also sold its light crude at $35.1 per barrel over the same period.
Both figures show major drops from normal levels of the previous months. The average price of Iran’s heavy oil stood at $48.6 since March, added Shana. The average price of the light oil stood at $50.6.
Iran last saw record low prices in 1998 when its oil was traded in markets at below $10 per barrel.
We live in hope...
Officials in Tehran had earlier said they expected the prices to plunge below $30 per barrel.
“Oil producing countries will suffer serious blows under the current conditions and with [further] plunges in prices of this product (oil),” said Iran’s First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri on 19 December.
For a country that has devised its budget based on $100 for each barrel it expects to sell, it will be hard to change the calculations to $30 per barrel, Jahangiri added.
Nevertheless, the country’s Finance Minister Ali Tayyeb-Niya later emphasized that Iran had provided the required preparations to deal with the economic impacts of oil prices even as low as $30 per barrel. Tayyeb-Niya said a large part of those preparations focuses on the implementation of a comprehensive national taxation program which is already on the agenda of the government.
Cutting off funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorists would free up some cash for the home front...
Petrodollars provide the lifeline of the Iranian economy and officials have already emphasized that oil production as well as oil exports will increase even in face of falling prices.
“Considering that the costs for the production of oil in Iran are low, further drops in oil prices will not undermine Iran’s oil export plans,” said Rokneddin Javadi, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
Javadi emphasized that Iran is still eager to regain the oil market share it has lost as a result of the US-engineered sanctions against the country. Nevertheless, he warned that OPEC’s failure to devise an appropriate policy to accommodate the incoming Iranian oil supplies will push the prices to even lower levels.
“OPEC member states should keep their output within the quotas that have already been defined,” said Javadi.
“We are ready to increase Iran’s total oil production by 500,000 barrels per day within a week after the removal of the sanctions,” he has been quoted as saying by IRNA news agency.
Iran’s oil production, the official added, will rise to above 2 million bpd in less than six months afterwards.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2015
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#1
...Given the Inshallah attitude of Iranian technology, you gotta believe that under $30 means they're losing money on every barrel.
Popcorn, anyone?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/27/2015 10:30
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#4
According to this Yahoo Finance article from October, Iran's production costs currently average $15/barrel. The break-even cost to open a new field would be $30/bbl once sanctions are removed. The problem is, the best price at which to run the country and foreign ventures as the Mad Mullahs would like is about $136/bbl, as I understand it -- the $100/bbl budget mentioned in the article was from the revised budget when the price dropped from peak (input from those who know more about this would be greatly appreciated!). The government will no doubt raise domestic oil and natural gas prices again, also no doubt to a chorus of dismayed shrieks from the populace, but that will just be moving spending from one category to another.
A UN-sponsored deal to evacuate more than 2,000 Islamic State (IS) group fighters and other militants from rebel-held parts of south Damascus has been delayed, a body that monitors the war said on Saturday, a day after a rebel leader was killed.
Buses were due to transport the fighters to Raqqa, the de facto capital of the IS group in northern Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah’s Manar TV station said.
But the deal fell through after the Jaysh al Islam rebel group’s leader Zahran Alloush, through whose territory the convoy had been granted safe passage, was killed in an air strike on Friday, the broadcaster said.
Talk about a secondary explosion...
The arrangement was the first of its kind between the Syrian authorities and the IS group. It would have marked a significant show of strength by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, increasing its chances of reasserting control over a strategic area four kilometres south of the centre of the capital.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the evacuation had been expected to take place early Saturday but was delayed as there was now no secure territory for the militants to pass through.
Manar TV said buses arrived on Friday to pick up the fighters and at least 1,500 family members but had turned back.
The broadcaster is the official mouthpiece of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite group which is a major ally of Assad and has sent its forces to fight alongside government troops.
Local hostilities grow toward IS group
The IS group has a large presence in several southern neighbourhoods of Damascus, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk. Local hostility towards the Jihadist group - which controls large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq - has grown.
"We have had enough with their presence and the fighting that goes and the siege that has caused a lot of hardship," said Yousef, a resident of the nearby neighbourhood of Hajar al Aswad, who declined to give his full name for security reasons.
A years-long government siege of parts of Damascus controlled by a patchwork of rebel groups - of which Jaysh al Islam is the largest - has impeded the flow of food and humanitarian aid, starving many people to death in what rights group Amnesty International has described as a war crime.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] THE UN Security Council last week adopted two resolutions; one, outlining a plan for a political solution to the Syrian civil war
...because that'll work this time...
and the second, declaring the bully boyIslamic 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 and Al-Nusra as terrorist organizations to be defeated by the international community. At a joint media conference, the Russian foreign minister said: "I'm not too optimistic about what has been achieved today."
There are good reasons for scepticism. The plan to resolve the Syrian conflict lacks credibility, especially since it does not frontally address the future of President Assad and his regime. Nor does the second resolution offer a coherent military and political strategy to defeat IS.
The Syrian civil war started when, in the euphoria of the Arab Spring, the latent opposition to the minority Alawite regime was externally encouraged, evoking an unsurprisingly brutal response from the regime. In the ensuing Sunni insurgency, IS -- composed of elements from the former Al Qaeda in Iraq and Saddam's disbanded army -- emerged as the most effective fighting force. It held territory; secured revenue sources; established governance and other attributes of a functioning state. Despite financial and material support from neighbouring Sunni powers, IS felt beholden to none and pursued tactics intended to create its own version of 'shock and awe'.
IS was initially dismissed as a "varsity [amateur] team" by President B.O.. Notwithstanding its capture of the vast Sunni heartland across Syria and Iraq, IS did not become America's enemy number one until it publicised the execution of an American journalist.
The US president announced a hastily formulated 'strategy' on Sept 10, 2014 to "degrade and destroy" IS: air strikes; training of secular myrmidons; improving counterterrorism capabilities and continued humanitarian assistance to the victims of the Syrian civil war. One year on, it is evident that the strategy has been far from successful.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2015
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[DAWN] PAKISTAN and Bangladesh have had a complex relationship since the tragic events of 1971. The current phase of the relationship -- ever since 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.. Wajed took over her prime ministerial duties in 2009 -- has been marked by mostly frosty ties. A sign that ties are less than cordial came in the shape of the recent report which stated that a Pak diplomat had been recalled from Dhaka over an 'extremist link'. The diplomat left Bangladesh after Dhaka 'informally' asked for her departure. While in principle, diplomats breaking the law in foreign countries is not something that can be condoned, in this case, it appears that politics may be at work. For example, the diplomat is accused of transferring a grand total of 30,000 taka -- around $380 -- to a Bangladeshi suspect. In a world where huge amounts are transferred by turbans, and governments everywhere are working to shut down the channels of terror financing, how seriously should this accusation be taken? Instead, perhaps more than the merits of the case itself, it is the anti-Pakistain mood prevailing in Dhaka -- which the Awami League-led government has been instrumental in whipping up -- that is responsible for this diplomatic incident.
Whether it is the latest incident or earlier issues -- such as the trial of suspects for alleged war crimes by a controversial tribunal, or the tightening of the visa regime for Paks -- the time has come for the situation to be addressed at the highest level. Both prime ministers should rise to the occasion and initiate a reset in ties that can help move the relationship forward. While Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... should take up the gauntlet -- and it would certainly help if Pak leaders refrained from publicly commenting on Bangladesh's internal affairs -- the ball is firmly in Sheikh Hasina's court. If intervention at the top level can help change the atmosphere positively in Pakistain-India ties -- easily South Asia's most difficult relationship -- there is no reason why such efforts cannot open a new chapter in Islamabad-Dhaka ties.
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[Rudaw] The leader and founder of the Syrian Salafi group Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... , Zahran Alloush, was killed in an air strike east of the capital Damascus while in a meeting with other armed Syrian groups on Friday. At least ten rockets reportedly struck the meeting.
It is not immediately clear whether or not this air strike was Syrian or Russian. Jaish al Islam's largest footholds in Syria are in Eastern Ghouta and Douma. All near and around Damascus, areas the Syrian regime is launching an offensive to retake with close Russian air support. Meaning this aerial liquidation could well have been carried out by Russian aircraft.
Continued on Page 49
[Rudaw] Kurdish and American commandos raided 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.... (ISIS) base near Hawija Friday night, killing a number of turbans and capturing others, Kirkuk police said.
Brigadier Sarhad Qadir of the Kirkuk police told Rudaw that at 11:00 pm Friday night Kurdish commandos backed by American special forces stormed an ISIS court in the town of Riyadh east of Hawija where they killed a number of turbans in the ensuing firefight.
Brig. Qadir said some turbans were captured in the raid and Hussein Umair Assafi, a commander of the radical group was killed. He added that more information on the raid is expected to be released by the special operations team.
It is believed the raid was to free Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers from ISIS captivity. Brig. Qadir did not say if any Peshmerga was rescued.
Helicopter gunships participated in the raid and flew the commandos to the ISIS base.
This is the second special commando operation against ISIS in two months. In a similar operation in October American and Kurdish special forces stormed an ISIS prison in Hawija and freed 70 hostages. One American soldier was killed by ISIS fire during the raid.
Iraqi Kurdish forces carried out a commando operation near Hawijah in which several senior members of the Islamic State group were captured or killed, local and security sources said Saturday.
Ibrahim al-Juburi, an official in the Hawijah mayor's office before the area was taken over by IS last year said Assafi was a member of the Islamic Army from 2003 to 2010 and then of the Ansar al-Sunna Death Eater group.
He pledged allegiance when IS took over in June 2014 and was made a jihadist chief in Riyadh, Juburi said.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
killing a number of turbans and capturing others
#2
Why? After the survivors are wrung out for information, they'll get left with the Kurds, or the Kurds'll turn them over to the Syrians. They're dead in any case.
[GMA News] The Philippine army accused the New People's Army of breaking the holiday truce after an attack in Kitaotao, Bukidnon last Wednesday night. "An tet co vui khong?"
Colonel Jesse Alvarez said an undetermined number of Maoist militants fired rifle grenades at houses in Kitaotao town at around 7 p.m. on December 23. He said troops from the 2nd Special Forces Company fired back at the insurgents, who immediately retreated. No one was hurt in the incident.
[NOLA] New Orleans police responded to four separate shootings across the city on Christmas (Dec. 25), officials said. Police said the shootings left a total of five victims, including one who was killed.
Three of the shootings, including the homicide and a double shooting, happened within less than an hour of each other, between 9 a.m. and 9:50 p.m.
Additionally, two people were stabbed Friday in separate reports of aggravated batteries, a preliminary New Orleans Police Department report says. Police have named a suspect in one of the stabbings.
No suspects have been named in any of the shootings.
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#1
Check Super Bowl Plaza at dawn on January 1st, you can usually find several spent bullet from the previous nights gun-foreplay.
[RFE/RL] A Bosnian anti-terror prosecutor said the arrests of 11 suspected Islamist extremists last week have prevented an attack that could have killed around 100 people in Sarajevo.
Bosnian state television quoted prosecutor Dubravko Campara as saying that the group was plotting "a terrorist act during end-of-year celebrations." Campara added "they were threatening to carry out an explosives attack in which 100 people would be killed."
The suspects were arrested on December 22 in raids carried out in several parts of Sarajevo. After the arrests, prosecutors released a photograph taken at the site showing a printout of the Daesh flag on the wall of a rented house in a suburb of the Bosnian capital where the suspects purportedly gathered for worship.
Last year Bosnia adopted a new law providing for jail sentences of up to 20 years for Islamist extremists and their associates.
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[NEWS.AU] AFTER a year of big Apple releases, analysts are predicting a flat 2016 where the world's biggest tech company refines product lines rather than produces the next big thing.
Apple's share price has taken a battering in the past six months, with more than $220 billion slashed from the company's value as analysts look towards an era of smartphone saturation.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty recently predicted that 2016 would be first time that iPhone sales would shrink, dropping by up to three per cent.
Given the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus sold 13 million in their opening weekend, a jump from the 10 million sales for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus the previous year, a decline of that scale would be a massive turnaround. However the Morgan Stanley grim forecast was matched by other analysts, including Pacific Crest and KGI Securities.
Snicker. Guffaw. Oh, it is to laugh, and I do. Chuckle. Snort.
In April Apple will release Watch2. In September Apple will release iPhone7. In November it will release iPadPro2. If Apple does nothing else -- absolutely nothing else -- those three events alone will drive sales higher in 2016.
In the last 15 years Apple has had four new major hardware ideas that opened up new computer worlds: iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Watch. That's three more original ideas than Microsoft, Samsung, Sony and Google combined have had. Apple might hit another home run in 2016, but even if it doesn't, it will be just fine. And that's just counting hardware. Care to talk about software?
There's a segment of the press out there that hates Apple. It has similarities to the segment of the press that hates conservatives and American culture. Once you understand that you understand articles like this one.
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[SunStar] A suspected Abu Sayyaf gunman shot and killed a Philippine soldier on Christmas Day in the province of Sulu. Bryan Sanoy was shot by a motorcycle-riding gunman Friday morning in the village of Asturias, Jolo, Sulu. Brigadier General Alan Arrojado said Sanoy, who was shot twice, was rushed to the hospital but he did not survive.
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[DAILYCALLER] The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company. The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans.
The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents, it’s apparent there’s a lot of information the department did not want the public to see. The DOE redacted virtually all information specific to Abengoa — in many cases whole pages were blacked out.
Reporters were mostly interested in Abengoa’s $400 million biofuels plant near Hugoton, Kansas. The company got a $132 million federal loan and a $97 million grant to build the plant, but after a year of operation the plant seemed to be having problems of its own. Despite the hype surrounding the plant, Abengoa has filed for bankruptcy and halted operations in Hugoton.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
My. I had no idea that federal loans to alternative energy companies were such a matter of national security.
#2
I can see the greens squirming now. Oil, shale, gas all cheaper. Not a word on wind power. I'd bet their bottom line is looking really bad. It wasn't competitive ever.Taxpayer money to keep them in business. Two thirds built with borrowed money anyway. The silence is deafening.
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.
[Breitbart] "I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees," said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic released Saturday.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Tehran has confirmed its intention to withdraw its lawsuit against Russia over the non-delivery of the S-300 air defense systems, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview aired Saturday, Sputnik reported.
Kurram Agency
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Inquirer] Christmas attacks by Muslim militants in southern Philippine villages left at least 14 people dead and may have been partly influenced by Daesh's notoriety, officials said Saturday. The dead included nine villagers separately gunned down by Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter militants and at least five insurgents killed by government forces in clashes in three provinces on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Iraqi forces on Saturday clashed with militants from the Daesh group defending the former government complex in the heart of the city of Ramadi. After a major push on Tuesday that broke Daesh defences around the city centre, government forces have been slowed by snipers, booby traps, roadside bombs and suicide attackers.
John 
If we could ever rid ourselves of these thieving, 'elite' beltway party vermin, perhaps a new momemorative monument would be in order. 
[YAHOO] The dustup over a data breach that briefly erupted in the Democratic presidential primary last week isn't over as far as Sen. 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Turkish President 
...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...
The real mess is genetic.
Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz 
...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 
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
[GMA News] The Philippine army accused the New People's Army of breaking the holiday truce after an attack in Kitaotao, Bukidnon last Wednesday night. 
[RFE/RL] A Bosnian anti-terror prosecutor said the arrests of 11 suspected Islamist extremists last week have prevented an attack that could have killed around 100 people in Sarajevo.
[NEWS.AU] AFTER a year of big Apple releases, analysts are predicting a flat 2016 where the world's biggest tech company refines product lines rather than produces the next big thing.
