Saw this essay in the Diplomad 2.0 site. We have a bigger enemy than ISIS, but we already knew that. W. Lewis Amselem covers it completely, and it should prompt all of us to think how we can get out of this hole the progressives have dug.
Over the years as an FSO and as chief--er, sole--blogger of this little blog, I have called a number of international developments right. Readers can go back over my writing on Libya, for example, and see that I called that right from the start of our ill-fated intervention. I think also called it right on Iran, Russia, Cuba, China, the EU, and on the chaos in North Africa and the Middle East resulting from our misadministration's disastrous policies. I noted at the beginning of the Obama regime that it gave foreign policy only a second thought, and what thought it gave sought to reduce US and Western influence and abandon traditional interests and allies.
I think I also called it right re fracking and the impact it would have on OPEC (see below.) The Progressive mainstream media, by and large, has missed what should have been a major story in 2015, to wit, the death throes of the once-mighty and much-feared, OPEC.
Founded in 1960 in Baghdad, OPEC became a major staple of international relations in following years. It encouraged members to seize control of their oil production and sought to control the supply and, of course, the world price of hydrocarbons. It was, perhaps, the most powerful cartel in history. Those of of us old enough to remember Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter recall how OPEC drove prices through the roof, and used oil as a weapon primarily against the West, but with considerable collateral social and economic damage throughout the world. You all know the history and don't need me to tell it. In short, during the golden era of OPEC we saw fuel shortages in the US and Europe, and, most importantly, the rise of Islam as a global force. OPEC, oil, and the rise of Islam as a political and "military" power are very much intertwined. The most important members of OPEC were and are Muslim; the Saudis alone could dictate world prices and to a large extent controlled OPEC policies, and had a huge influence on the development of today's highly retrograde and murderous strain of Islam--I saw them at work, for example, in the 1980s among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan. The Saudis for decades served as one of the major promoters and funders of international terror--the understanding being that the terrorists would leave in peace the corrupt Wahabi guardians of Mecca (topic for another day: how that understanding has frayed.)
OPEC is dead as a major player on the international scene, and only can come back to life by Progressive insistence on making the West energy deficient--Do it for Gaia! As I have written before, America's remarkable "fracking" revolution has up-ended the world's energy market for the benefit of the West (also here and here). Not everybody agrees: Here, for example, is a thoughtful article claiming that reports of OPEC's death have been exaggerated. The main argument seems to be that the Saudis ARE OPEC--don't disagree--and that they aren't going anywhere--on that, I disagree. Here and here, however, are a couple of interesting pieces laying out the serious long-term economic problems facing Saudi Arabia--and, of course, this info from our own government shows the dilemma facing OPEC. I find those convincing as well as another article which bluntly states,
So, what's going on now?
The answer, in a nutshell, is the shale revolution. The new technology for extracting oil and gas from shale reserves ‐ which, let's remember, was opposed every step of the way by progressives, and is characteristic of a special American inventiveness ‐ has proved a boon to the economy, and to employment, and even to the environment, since the revolution is driving a lot of oil and coal to be replaced by less-carbon-intensive natural gas.
OPEC is stuck in a Catch-22: Low prices mean they don't control the market anymore; but if they raise prices, they lose control of the market.
Investment in shale is only going to continue. And that means we may be witnessing one of the most significant geopolitical and economic events of the past 50 years: the death of OPEC.
That, as far as I am concerned, sums it up re OPEC, with, as stressed, the one caveat being that progressives do not stifle fracking and other moves, particularly in the US and Canada, to achieve energy independence.
All that should be good news in the fight against terror. And it is. Today's new terrorists cannot count on the sort of heavy-duty centralized financial backing that their ancestors in the PLO, for example, got in the 1960s and 70s. In addition, of course, we have the unlamented death of the USSR; the Soviet bloc provided major support for all sorts of terror groups that ran rampant in Europe and the Middle East during those decades and even into the 1980s. (For another day will be the discussion of Iran as a major financier of terrorism--I suspect they will not have the deep pockets of the Saudi regime, even with Obama's disastrous "nuke" deal which frees perhaps as much as $150 billion in frozen assets.)
We should be sitting pretty in our "war" with the Islamic terrorists. We're not. Most of us missed a major development that has almost nullified the victory over OPEC and the Saudis. I touched upon it in a discussion of the Boston bombers, but did not fully appreciate the magnitude of the phenomenon I was describing,
Our tolerant, liberal, and inclusive system was providing these clowns (their name, I will never write) with welfare. I guess that answers one of my early questions about how these creeps supported themselves. The older one, of course, had his idiot convert wife working 80 hours a week while he sat home and collected his, yep, welfare checks. The younger murderer got his citizenship, a scholarship and welfare. Yes, just as in the olden times when you gave your executioner a gold coin to encourage him to make a swift and painless job of the beheading, it seems we pay our executioners. Even more interesting is that these cretins' scumbag parents were also collecting, even though they did not live in the USA.
Progressivist policies are now second only to the Koran as the greatest support to international Islamic terror. The Progressive hatred for Western Civilization makes a perfect match with Islam's hatred for Western Civilization. As noted before, in effect, what we have is a Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact between Progressivism and Islam. We see in Germany, for example, this Progressive hatred translated into the active encouragement of Muslim "immigration" into the heart of Europe--perhaps as many as one million, mostly young men, in the past few months. The results are catastrophic and we are only seeing the beginning. Even before this latest "refugee" crisis, we had hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants living in Europe, many if not most on some sort of public assistance--just like the murdering brothers in Boston--and seething with hatred for the "white dude" culture that took them in, feeds them, gives them housing, etc. The Progressive hatred for our Civilization is so complete that even when Muslim "refugees" attack favored constituencies of Progressives, e.g., women, Progressives make excuses for the Muslims and advise women to "cover up" and "keep an arms length" from men. Progressive media is full of stories worrying about the potential "backlash" against the "refugees" because of the stories (oh so carefully worded) of mass rapes and assaults by the "refugees."
As stated previously (here, for example), the Gates of Vienna have been breached, well, better said, opened from the inside. Our political betters have decided to transform fundamentally our culture into a copy of the savage cultures where Islam rules--and we are not to resist. Here at home, for one example, we see two Muslims go on a jihadist rampage in San Bernardino, and that prompts weepy calls from the bien pensants to disarm us. I guess per that logic, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a call for Americans to get rid of their personal weapons.
While our PC schools and media actively seek to undermine our will to resist, our taxpayer pounds, euros, and dollars now fund the terrorists. We are paying our executioners.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/07/2016
18:28 ||
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#1
Excellent, AP
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/07/2016 19:45
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nice catch, Al-Aska Paul
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/07/2016 20:57
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Speculation is swirling that front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still suffers from the effects of a 2012 concussion and blood clot that sidelined her while she was secretary of state, Breitbart News reports.
Retired New York Police Department officer and Blaze radio host John Cardillo tweeted Monday his suspicions about Clinton's long bathroom break during the last Democratic candidates' debate.
He then elaborated to Breitbart:
"I got this from both a [federal agent] . . . and I also got it from a New York [NYPD] guy who worked security at a Hillary event in New York City," Cardillo tells the conservative news outlet.
"These are two people that aren't just personal friends," he tells the website.
"I worked with one and then post law-enforcement worked with another on some related things . . . Both of them told me the same thing, that after her speeches, whether she did a talk or a policy speech, she had to sit behind -- she would come off the podium backstage -- and have to sit and rest before making it back to the car because she was so fatigued, dizzy and disoriented."
According to Cardillo, one of the sources claimed Clinton at one time was "very pale, kind of disoriented. He said she looked like she was about to faint. She was very pale, almost sweaty."
Cardillo tells Breitbart one of the incidents detailed by his sources occurred while she was secretary of state and another one was about a year ago.
"A number of New York Democrats, very prominent, well-known, wealthy New York Democrats, told me last year that Hillary had very significant health issues and that they were surprised that she was running in view of her health problems and her lack of stamina," Republican strategist and former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone tells Breitbart.
"I don't think she has the physical stamina to be president."
Trump made the identical case Wednesday.
And journalist Edward Klein has argued Clinton's health issues are significant.
"To this day, Hillary still suffers from many of the troubling symptoms that I wrote about in ['Unlikeable: The Problem With Hillary']: blinding headaches, exhaustion, insomnia, and a tremor in her hands," Klein noted last month.
He adds:
"There have been several incidents in which she has nearly collapsed. For example, after her 11-hour testimony before the Trey Gowdy Benghazi committee, Hillary swooned as she walked to a waiting car. She had to be supported in the arms of her aides and helped into the back seat."
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill responded to a list of questions from Breitbart News about Clinton's health saying they were "all addressed in her health statement," referring to a July 2015 letter from Dr. Lisa Bardack that cleared the former secretary of state as "fit to serve" as president. And as we all surely know, Hillary wouldn't even think about being dishonest enough to go shopping for a doctor stupid and greedy enough to agree to this, even if it were true.
#1
"To this day, Hillary still suffers from many of the troubling symptoms that I wrote about in ['Unlikeable: The Problem With Hillary']: blinding headaches, exhaustion, insomnia, and a tremor in her hands," Klein noted last month.
Nah...that's just what happens to us when we have to look/listen to the crazy old bat...she's just a carrier.
Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning, and a colossal stroke of luck.
But if a provocative new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it. Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the fundamental laws of nature and "should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill."
From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat.
Jeremy England, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity.
The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that, under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.
"You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant," England said.
England's theory is meant to underlie, rather than replace, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which provides a powerful description of life at the level of genes and populations. "I am certainly not saying that Darwinian ideas are wrong," he explained. "On the contrary, I am just saying that from the perspective of the physics, you might call Darwinian evolution a special case of a more general phenomenon."
His idea, detailed in a paper and further elaborated in a talk he delivered at universities around the world, has sparked controversy among his colleagues, who see it as either tenuous or a potential breakthrough, or both.
England has taken "a very brave and very important step," said Alexander Grosberg, a professor of physics at New York University who has followed England's work since its early stages. The "big hope" is that he has identified the underlying physical principle driving the origin and evolution of life, Grosberg said.
"Jeremy is just about the brightest young scientist I ever came across," said Attila Szabo, a biophysicist in the Laboratory of Chemical Physics at the National Institutes of Health who corresponded with England about his theory after meeting him at a conference. "I was struck by the originality of the ideas."
Others, such as Eugene Shakhnovich, a professor of chemistry, chemical biology and biophysics at Harvard University, are not convinced. "Jeremy's ideas are interesting and potentially promising, but at this point are extremely speculative, especially as applied to life phenomena," Shakhnovich said.
England's theoretical results are generally considered valid. It is his interpretation -- that his formula represents the driving force behind a class of phenomena in nature that includes life -- that remains unproven. But already, there are ideas about how to test that interpretation in the lab.
"He's trying something radically different," said Mara Prentiss, a professor of physics at Harvard who is contemplating such an experiment after learning about England's work. "As an organizing lens, I think he has a fabulous idea. Right or wrong, it's going to be very much worth the investigation." I added the emphasis. Seems like one way or another, this will lead to something interesting.
At the heart of England's idea is the second law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of increasing entropy or the "arrow of time."
Hot things cool down, gas diffuses through air, eggs scramble but never spontaneously unscramble; in short, energy tends to disperse or spread out as time progresses.
Entropy is a measure of this tendency, quantifying how dispersed the energy is among the particles in a system, and how diffuse those particles are throughout space. It increases as a simple matter of probability: There are more ways for energy to be spread out than for it to be concentrated.
Thus, as particles in a system move around and interact, they will, through sheer chance, tend to adopt configurations in which the energy is spread out.
Eventually, the system arrives at a state of maximum entropy called "thermodynamic equilibrium," in which energy is uniformly distributed. A cup of coffee and the room it sits in become the same temperature, for example.
As long as the cup and the room are left alone, this process is irreversible. The coffee never spontaneously heats up again because the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against so much of the room's energy randomly concentrating in its atoms.
Although entropy must increase over time in an isolated or "closed" system, an "open" system can keep its entropy low -- that is, divide energy unevenly among its atoms -- by greatly increasing the entropy of its surroundings. In his influential 1944 monograph "What Is Life?" the eminent quantum physicist Erwin SchrĂśdinger argued that this is what living things must do. A plant, for example, absorbs extremely energetic sunlight, uses it to build sugars, and ejects infrared light, a much less concentrated form of energy. The overall entropy of the universe increases during photosynthesis as the sunlight dissipates, even as the plant prevents itself from decaying by maintaining an orderly internal structure.
Life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, but until recently, physicists were unable to use thermodynamics to explain why it should arise in the first place. In SchrĂśdinger's day, they could solve the equations of thermodynamics only for closed systems in equilibrium. In the 1960s, the Belgian physicist Ilya Prigogine made progress on predicting the behavior of open systems weakly driven by external energy sources (for which he won the 1977 Nobel Prize in chemistry). But the behavior of systems that are far from equilibrium, which are connected to the outside environment and strongly driven by external sources of energy, could not be predicted.
This situation changed in the late 1990s, due primarily to the work of Chris Jarzynski, now at the University of Maryland, and Gavin Crooks, now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jarzynski and Crooks showed that the entropy produced by a thermodynamic process, such as the cooling of a cup of coffee, corresponds to a simple ratio: the probability that the atoms will undergo that process divided by their probability of undergoing the reverse process (that is, spontaneously interacting in such a way that the coffee warms up). As entropy production increases, so does this ratio: A system's behavior becomes more and more "irreversible." The simple yet rigorous formula could in principle be applied to any thermodynamic process, no matter how fast or far from equilibrium. "Our understanding of far-from-equilibrium statistical mechanics greatly improved," Grosberg said. England, who is trained in both biochemistry and physics, started his own lab at MIT two years ago and decided to apply the new knowledge of statistical physics to biology.
Using Jarzynski and Crooks' formulation, he derived a generalization of the second law of thermodynamics that holds for systems of particles with certain characteristics: The systems are strongly driven by an external energy source such as an electromagnetic wave, and they can dump heat into a surrounding bath. This class of systems includes all living things. England then determined how such systems tend to evolve over time as they increase their irreversibility. "We can show very simply from the formula that the more likely evolutionary outcomes are going to be the ones that absorbed and dissipated more energy from the environment's external drives on the way to getting there," he said. The finding makes intuitive sense: Particles tend to dissipate more energy when they resonate with a driving force, or move in the direction it is pushing them, and they are more likely to move in that direction than any other at any given moment.
"This means clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments," England explained.
Self-replication (or reproduction, in biological terms), the process that drives the evolution of life on Earth, is one such mechanism by which a system might dissipate an increasing amount of energy over time.
As England put it, "A great way of dissipating more is to make more copies of yourself."
In a paper in the Journal of Chemical Physics, he reported the theoretical minimum amount of dissipation that can occur during the self-replication of RNA molecules and bacterial cells, and showed that it is very close to the actual amounts these systems dissipate when replicating.
He also showed that RNA, the nucleic acid that many scientists believe served as the precursor to DNA-based life, is a particularly cheap building material. Once RNA arose, he argues, its "Darwinian takeover" was perhaps not surprising.
The chemistry of the primordial soup, random mutations, geography, catastrophic events and countless other factors have contributed to the fine details of Earth's diverse flora and fauna. But according to England's theory, the underlying principle driving the whole process is dissipation-driven adaptation of matter.
This principle would apply to inanimate matter as well. "It is very tempting to speculate about what phenomena in nature we can now fit under this big tent of dissipation-driven adaptive organization," England said. "Many examples could just be right under our nose, but because we haven't been looking for them we haven't noticed them."
Scientists have already observed self-replication in nonliving systems. According to new research led by Philip Marcus of the University of California, Berkeley, and reported in Physical Review Letters in August, vortices in turbulent fluids spontaneously replicate themselves by drawing energy from shear in the surrounding fluid. And in a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michael Brenner, a professor of applied mathematics and physics at Harvard, and his collaborators present theoretical models and simulations of microstructures that self-replicate. These clusters of specially coated microspheres dissipate energy by roping nearby spheres into forming identical clusters. "This connects very much to what Jeremy is saying," Brenner said.
Besides self-replication, greater structural organization is another means by which strongly driven systems ramp up their ability to dissipate energy. A plant, for example, is much better at capturing and routing solar energy through itself than an unstructured heap of carbon atoms. Thus, England argues that under certain conditions, matter will spontaneously self-organize. This tendency could account for the internal order of living things and of many inanimate structures as well. "Snowflakes, sand dunes and turbulent vortices all have in common that they are strikingly patterned structures that emerge in many-particle systems driven by some dissipative process," he said. Condensation, wind and viscous drag are the relevant processes in these particular cases.
"He is making me think that the distinction between living and nonliving matter is not sharp," said Carl Franck, a biological physicist at Cornell University, in an email. "I'm particularly impressed by this notion when one considers systems as small as chemical circuits involving a few biomolecules."
England's bold idea will likely face close scrutiny in the coming years.
He is currently running computer simulations to test his theory that systems of particles adapt their structures to become better at dissipating energy. The next step will be to run experiments on living systems.
Prentiss, who runs an experimental biophysics lab at Harvard, says England's theory could be tested by comparing cells with different mutations and looking for a correlation between the amount of energy the cells dissipate and their replication rates.
"One has to be careful because any mutation might do many things," she said. "But if one kept doing many of these experiments on different systems and if [dissipation and replication success] are indeed correlated, that would suggest this is the correct organizing principle."
Brenner said he hopes to connect England's theory to his own microsphere constructions and determine whether the theory correctly predicts which self-replication and self-assembly processes can occur -- "a fundamental question in science," he said.
Having an overarching principle of life and evolution would give researchers a broader perspective on the emergence of structure and function in living things, many of the researchers said. "Natural selection doesn't explain certain characteristics," said Ard Louis, a biophysicist at Oxford University, in an email. These characteristics include a heritable change to gene expression called methylation, increases in complexity in the absence of natural selection, and certain molecular changes Louis has recently studied.
If England's approach stands up to more testing, it could further liberate biologists from seeking a Darwinian explanation for every adaptation and allow them to think more generally in terms of dissipation-driven organization. They might find, for example, that "the reason that an organism shows characteristic X rather than Y may not be because X is more fit than Y, but because physical constraints make it easier for X to evolve than for Y to evolve," Louis said.
"People often get stuck in thinking about individual problems," Prentiss said. Whether or not England's ideas turn out to be exactly right, she said, "thinking more broadly is where many scientific breakthroughs are made."
#6
Can't let them drift outside their lane, eh Grom?
when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy..., it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy.
Through my jaded lens, this suggests GLOBAL WARMING is the result of too many bipedal dissipaters.
#7
Yeah.......but what about entropy? It is getting greater by the hour!!!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/07/2016 20:24
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#8
He don't deals with the fact that there isn't live outside Earth and why not.
He's a physicist, Lionel Thoth9784, not an exobiologist. Also, absence of evidence not being evidence of absence, as far as I am aware we do not know absolutely that there is no life elsewhere. It's only in the last few years that we proved the existence of planets, both Jupiters and Earth-sized, around other suns. Proof or disproof of life may need to wait until we can fly out there to see in person.
#9
gorb, if you would be kind enough, in future, to limit your posts to the key 700 words or so from such long pieces, that would be helpful. We can't p.49 articles once they've been published.
But already, there are ideas about how to test that interpretation in the lab.
That's the key. Whether this hypothesis fails or succeeds, we will know more than we did before.
#1
Along with Yellowstone, there is a big one lying under Naples and if it goes it will kill millions of Italians almost instantly. And its caldera is bulging too. They don't yet know if it is steam or magma, but a steam eruption could still be very devastating to Naples.
#6
Alas RJ, the magma chemistry is fundamentally different from the stuff in Hawaii. Hawaiian volcanics flow very nicely and don't explode since there is very little in the way of trapped gas. The amount of silica involved has a lot to do with it also. Etna, Mt. St. Helens are explosive events as will be Yellowstone and Mt. Ranier. Statically speaking the last supervolcano at Yellowstone happened about 640MM years ago and they happen every 600-700 MM. The likelihood of that happening in our lifetimes is very remote. But hey, if I'm wrong, there will be no one around to call me on it
#7
All of the US - hell all of North Am. - could be run off of the geothermal energy available in Yellowstone. Unfortunately Interior Dept and Green Idiots would never approve of it.
#8
So there's a 10% chance we don't have to worry about the horrific impacts of man-made climate change? Izzat factored into "The Model"?
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/07/2016 17:08
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#9
Warthog is right. The magma is different. How viscus it is with how much gas is dissolved in the magma is what makes it run or explode.
Hawaiian magma is very runny with little gas dissolved so it flows with small fountains of erupting magma.
Magma in stratovolcanos (Vesuvius, Mt. St. Helens)is very thick and sticky with lots of gas dissolved in it. It moves slowly and can build plugs very easily and all the gas building up behind it makes it blow like a champagne cork when the plug fails. Mix this kind with water as well and you get the Krakatoa and Santorini (Thera) massive explosions that take islands apart. Letting off the pressure may just pop their corks since there would be so much force following the path to the surface. Much better to predict them and get the hell out of the way.
#10
Warthog and Darth know their Pahoehoe (very small amount of trapped gases, so very smooth) from their A'a (more gas retention, so MUCH rougher), that's for sure.
(I always remember the A'a name, if you walk on that type barefoot, you'll say "Ah..ah")
You'll say that with both though, if it hasn't cooled down yet.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/07/2016 22:45
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Iran on Thursday accused the Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels in Yemen of hitting its embassy there in an overnight airstrike, but the building bore no visible damage. "dodged that one" "Missile strike? There's no damage to your building!"
"Umm, we repaired it."
The accusation comes amid a dangerous rise in tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia in recent days following the kingdom's execution of a Shiite cleric and attacks on Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic Republic.
Analysts had feared the dispute could boil over into the proxy wars between the two Mideast rivals in Yemen and in Syria. could?
Iran's state-run news agency said on Thursday afternoon that a Saudi-led airstrike last night hit its embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, citing the country's Foreign Ministry spokesman. However, an Associated Press reporter who reached the site just after the announcement saw no visible damage at the building.
Saudi officials could not immediately be reached for comment. "What?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/07/2016
09:02 ||
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#1
Perhaps the payload consisted of pork byproduct. Domino delivery!
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/07/2016 10:09
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#2
Perhaps the IRANIAN BOMB was just tested in NKOR and they are feeling a bit cocky!
#1
Becca valley is only a short chopper ride away for that Hezbollah grown Lebanese Blond Hash. So acquiring it shouldn't be a problem.
Sort of like Obama's Mexican Fast & Furious adventure.
Drug lords do like guns.
Hat tip to our friends at the Sierra Club. I've received many remarkable nature photographs over the years, but this photo of a nesting falcon is perhaps the most remarkable that I've ever seen. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Nature is truly breath-taking! I've sent this to most of my older friends. The younger ones probably have never seen a falcon and wouldn't recognize one!
[Ynet] Since Saturday's execution of four Shi'ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, hundreds or thousands of the minority sect have marched nightly in protest, and their anger could herald wider unrest.
The execution of one of them, dissident cleric Nimr al-Nimr, caused an international crisis as Shi'ite Iran and its allies responded angrily, but it also caused upset in his home district of Qatif, where many saw his death as unjustified.
"People are angry. And they are surprised, because there were positive signals in the past months that the executions would not take place. People listen to his speeches and there's no direct proof he was being violent," a Qatif community leader said by phone. Wonders of the Muslim mind
In the wake of a wave of stabbing attacks in Israel, a company decided to produce and start marketing what they billed as a protective vest that would guard the wearer against knife assaults.
On Wednesday, reporter Eitam Lachover, who according to an announcement by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, was working on a story for Channel 1's evening news ("Mabat"), dealing with protective vests, ended up in hospital after testing the vest.
During the story's preparation, Lachover met with representatives of a company that manufactures vests for security forces, as well for as the civilian market. While trying one on, Lachover asked the representatives to stab him in order to test how effective the vest was.
Unfortunately, the vest failed to protect Lachover sufficiently. The knife penetrated the garment, causing light stab wounds to his back.
#1
Lachover asked the representatives to stab him in order to test how effective the vest was.
There's a tie for the Darwin award, contested between the stabber and stabee.
[Wash Examiner] The new surge of illegal immigrant youths has forced the federal government to look at an emergency plan to house them at six military bases at at least two federal worker centers, according to the administration.
The Pentagon is beginning "site assessments" at bases as far north as North Dakota and Massachusetts.
"The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS is expanding its capacity to provide shelter for the current influx of unaccompanied children at the U.S. Southern Border. This temporary increased shelter capacity is a prudent step needed to ensure ORR meets its statutory responsibility to provide shelter for the unaccompanied children referred to its care and to assist CBP in ensuring that the US Border Patrol continues its vital national security mission to prevent illegal migration and trafficking, and to protect the borders of the United States," said a Pentagon memo to Rep. Martha Roby, Alabama Republican.
She led a previous fight to block the sheltering of the youths at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base near Montgomery, Ala.
According to the Pentagon email she forwarded, the other bases are:
-- Tyndall Air Force Base, FL (nearest city: Panama City, FL)
-- Grand Forks Air Force Base, ND (nearest cities: Emerado, ND and Grand Forks, ND)
-- Naval Support Activity Philadelphia, PA (nearest city: Philadelphia, PA)
-- Hanscom Air Force Base, MA (nearest city: Bedford, MA)
-- Travis Air Force Base, CA (nearest city: Fairfield, CA)
Another 1,600 beds are being set aside at the Homestead Job Corps, in Florida, and Denver Federal Campus, in Lakewood.
The latest surge of minors reached 5,600 caught at the southern border in November, more than double the number apprehended last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Roby said that she is girding for another fight. (Her letter is below.)
"A military base is no place to house illegal immigrant children. Bases like Maxwell are engaged in real military activities - training, education, cyber warfare - many times in classified settings that are very sensitive. Their mission does not need to be distracted by housing, feeding and securing hundreds of detainees.
"Housing illegal immigrant children at an active military base like Maxwell-Gunter is a terrible idea. We shut it down the first time and we are working every angle to shut it down again," she said.
#10
The President of the United States of America who cast off his Christian name for a Muslim name is now moving HIS people into the very fortresses to destroy the Christian Heratige for once and for all as this generation lays barr its throat via ignorance and cowardley inaction.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
01/07/2016 19:14
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h/t Instapundit
Have you ever looked at an SJW and wondered "just what is this idiot trying to tell me?" Or, have you perhaps contemplated the intellectual musings of a Tumblrista and wondered "what in the everlasting fuck is this person actually saying?"
#1
I had to google what SJW means. Okay now I know. In earlier days they were known as parasites or spoiled children of the idle rich who when they snorted their trust fund up became the clueless poor.
[Breitbart] Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton's disappearance from the debate stage last month left people speculating that the former First Lady took a long bathroom break, but now a law-enforcement source with inside connections is alleging that Clinton was missing from the stage due to health issues stemming from a previous brain injury. Rubbish! A simple Chipotle backup and mind clearly BM. She appeared jovial and completely reinvigorated upon her stage return.
These long-lasting symptoms stemming from a concussion and blood clot, according to a neurologist, suggest Clinton is suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which can severely impact her cognitive abilities.
All that said, however, Clinton's campaign maintained to Breitbart News that she is in good health and can serve as President of the United States.
"Strong source just told me something I suspected. Hillary's debate 'bathroom break' wasn't that, but flare up of problems from brain injury," wrote John Cardillo on Twitter.
[AnNahar] Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... gunnies have mounted their first attacks since Nigeria's government declared them "technically" defeated, killing seven people in a raid and suicide kaboom, residents told AFP Wednesday.
The attacks happened on Tuesday in the northeastern state of Borno, near the Islamists' Sambisa Forest hideout, where the army is looking to flush out remnants of the rebel group.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who has made crushing the rebellion a priority, in December said a sustained counter-offensive had reduced the group's ability to strike effectively.
The first attack happened in Izgeki village, said one resident, who gave his name as Isyaku, from the town of Mubi in neighboring Adamawa state.
"I received information from my relatives who fled the attack... that some Boko Haram gunnies on bicycles attacked Izgeki across the river from Izghe on Tuesday morning where they killed two people.
"The attack forced villagers to cross the river into Izghe. The gunnies pursued them. One of them who had a suicide belt on him went kaboom! near the market, killing five people."
Izghe was previously attacked in February 2014 where more than 100 people were killed as the rebels torched homes, opened fire and set off explosives.
Thousands of residents fled the attack into Adamawa towards the town of Madagali and elsewhere but following the army's recapture of territory, some managed to return and begin reconstruction.
Izghe is in the district of Gwoza, which Boko Haram captured in August 2014 and which the group's shadowy leader Abubakar Shekau declared the center of its self-styled caliphate.
Ayuba Chibok, an elder in the town of the same name, said there was also an attack in the nearby village of Nchiha at about 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.
"Luckily no-one was hurt but they (Boko Haram gunnies) looted food and burnt a large part of the village," he added. Residents managed to flee.
Boko Haram kidnapped some 276 girls from their school in Chibok in April 2014 in a daring raid that captured world attention. Fifty seven escaped soon afterwards but 219 are still being held.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/07/2016
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[AnNahar] Bahrain announced on Wednesday that it has discovered a "terrorist cell" linked to Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, reported al-Arabiya television.
It said that the cell was plotting to carry out bombings in the country.
The cell was headed by twins Ali and Mohammed Fakhrwari, it continued.
Bahrain News Agency said that Ali Fakhrawi and two others had traveled to Iran and Leb at the end of 2011 to demand financial aid from Tehran and Hizbullah.
"They met in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahieh with Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... and his deputy Sheikh Naim Qassem ... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies... , where they proposed to them the idea of 'reviving' an Islamic movement," it added.
"They requested financial assistance to carry out their terrorist activity in Bahrain and they received encouragement from Nasrallah, who also gave them 20,000 dollars for their cause," said the news agency.
"Ali Fakhrawi traveled in mid-2015 to Iran, where he met members of the revolutionary guards, and later Leb where he met Qassem, who provided further support to his organization and other related terrorist groups," it reported.
The head of the cell is a runaway residing in Iran, while Bahraini authorities succeeded in arresting six of its members, said al-Arabiya.
Hizbullah and Bahrain's relation has witnessed tension since the beginning of a 2011 uprising in the kingdom as the party became a strong advocate of the popular protests.
Ties between Leb and Bahrain reached an all-time low in 2011 when Nasrallah slammed the crackdown on the protesters.
His remarks prompted the Bahraini authorities to suspend the flights of Gulf Air and Bahraini Air between Manama and Beirut for several months.
Tensions between Hizbullah and Bahrain continued through 2015 with the Gulf Cooperation Council condemning in January 2015 Nasrallah remarks on the country as "incitement to violence and discord."
Fakhrawi and his twin brother were linked to the bully boy activities of eight other suspects named by the Gulf kingdom's state news agency BNA, some of whom were tossed in the slammer Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! as early as 2013 and two of whom were designated as runaways, one in Iran.
In November, Bahrain said it had arrested 47 members of a group believed to have links to "terrorist elements in Iran" who it said were planning to carry out attacks in the coming days.
Bahrain recalled its ambassador to Iran in October after it said security forces discovered a bomb-making factory and arrested a number of suspects linked to the Revolutionary Guard.
In March, Bahrain's public prosecutor said it seized bomb-making equipment being smuggled from Iraq aboard a passenger bus for use in attacks.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Joint Special Operations Command announced, that 19 ISIS elements were killed in two air strikes carried out by the Iraqi Army Aviation in Tharthar area northeast of Ramadi (110 km west of Baghdad).
The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The Army Aviation in coordination with the forces of Baghdad Operations Command have carried out an air strike on Yabes River area in Tharthar City, destroying a vehicle belonging to ISIS.”
The source added, “The second air strike resulted in the killing of 19 ISIS elements, while destructed a vehicle and an armored excavator belonging to the organization.”
This is an old complaint; it came out in Apple circles within a week of iSO 9.1 being launched.
[MIAMI.CBSLOCAL] Data overages can lead to big phone bills.
One family, however, was shocked when they got a bill for more than two thousand dollars. The big bill was because of a new feature on Apple iPhones that you may not be aware of. Like many teens Ashton Feingold didn't think much about the text message from AT&T which warned that he was nearing his date limit.
"It just said maybe 65 percent of your data has been used," said Feingold.
Then the bill came.
"I thought my dad was going to kill me," he said. "It's usually $250 a month and this was $2,000!" said Ashton's father Jeff.
$250 a month? I see another problem with junior...
The difference? A new feature on Ashton's iPhone called "WiFi Assist" which is standard with the new iOS 9.1 operating system.
"I had no idea what that was," said Jeff Feingold.
RTFM, dude...
It's intended to make sure the user always has a good signal by automatically switching to cellular data when a WiFi signal is weak.
Like in Ashton's bedroom. He thought he was still connected to WiFi while streamed and surfed the web. Instead, his phone was gobbling up date -- more than 144-thousand megabytes.
"That's pretty high but I can see it happening," said Mike Campbell with "Apple Insider."
He added that while some customers like what WiFi Assist does, many don't know they have it.
"It comes by default, it is switched on," said Campbell. "That's why there's an uproar."
Apple had no comment.
To turn off WiFi Assist, go to settings, then cellular, then down at the bottom users can switch off the feature.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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#1
Thanks to whoever posted this thing, I just went and turned off WiFi Assist on my iPhone.
#2
This feature should be opt-in. But Apple is Apple, and they like to have all the bells and whistles on by default. And not really tell the customer.
[Al Ahram] North Korea's surprise nuclear test "should have consequences" for the reclusive state, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his South Korean counterpart agreed in a phone call Wednesday.
"Secretary Carter reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to the defense of (South Korea,) and that this commitment includes all aspects of the United States' extended deterrence," the Pentagon said in a read-out of Carter's call with South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo.
The statement added: "Carter and Han agreed that North Korea's provocations should have consequences," without going into any detail.
Carter visited Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas in November, where he met with Han and reiterated the United States' longstanding support of South Korea.
About 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea and the two forces have very close military ties.
In their call, the two defense chiefs "pledged both sides would coordinate appropriate alliance responses to these provocations."
"Secretary Carter and Minister Han agreed that any such test would be an unacceptable and irresponsible provocation and is both a flagrant violation of international law and a threat to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and the entire Asia-Pacific region," the readout stated.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Turkish police on Wednesday have jugged Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! seven Syrian people said they were involved in the liquidation of Syrian journalist Naji al-Jerf ten days ago, sources told Zaman al-Wasl.
The Turkish police is due to hold presser to stand on the crime clues on Thursday.
Al-Jerf was bumped off in Gaziantep on December 27, 2015, the Turkish town where the film maker and journalist lived with his wife and two young daughters after fleeing their war-torn homeland.
Eyewitnesses said a masked gunman shot him twice using a pistol fitted with a silencer before fleeing in an unlicensed vehicle. No one has yet grabbed credit but suspicion has fallen on ISIS.
Jerf was an active campaigner against the ISIS faceless myrmidons who found opportunity in the uprising he had believed in from the beginning.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Southern Front rebels launched new attack early Wednesday on regime army in the northern frontline of Sheikh Miskeen town in Daraa province, sources said.
'Ahl al-Nakhwa' battle has left number of regime soldiers dead and two tanks destroyed, field commander said.
Bashir al-Assad's forces backed by fighters from Leb's Hezbollah movement have launched major offensive two weeks ago, seeking to control Sheikh Miskeen and powerful air base, Brigade 82.
Rebel groups, including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, had been in control of Sheikh Miskeen and Brigade 82 since last year.
Rebels have been pressing slow advances by Tuesday near Sheikh Miskeen.
Fauzi al-Nassar, commander of al-Sanamayn Martyrs Brigade, told Zaman al-Wasl that rebels have achieved progress in the surrounding district of Sheikh Miskeen town that was captured by regime army week ago.
Meanwhile, ...back at the saw mill, Scarface Al had tied Little Nell to the log and was about to turn on the buzz saw... regime warplanes have staged more strikes on Sheikh Miskeen and neighboring tows, according to local activists.
Posted by: Fred ||
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It's the Daily Mail so way too long to be quoted here. Lots of pictures as well.
Key points:
Police still have "no idea" who did all the groping.
We should never jump to conclusions.
There are protesters out there today decrying 'racism' and 'sexism' in the police response -- that the police were too quick to accuse men of North African descent. People of Germany should repent. Again. And again and again...
Parts of Cologne are now a 'no-go' zone; but to say that openly is racist.
Cologne mayor Henriette Rekeryor is doubling down on her comments that Gemran wimmin should abide by a 'code of conduct' to protect themselves from rape. No word yet from her office as to proper attire.
Police arrested a German man with a meat cleaver who was looking to avenge the attacks on the wimmin.
Public broadcaster ZDF has apologized for the "apparent censorship" in the reporting of the assaults.
Muslim leaders in Germany think that attacking wimmin is wrong, that of course a large group of refugees would appear to be organized even if they weren't, that more police were needed, that the new refugees should be recruited into the police force, that blaming migrants is wrong, and that (of course) Islam condemns sex attacks and violence.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/07/2016
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#4
Police still have "no idea" who did all the groping.
According to this article 15 men were temporarily arrested. All of them were 'refugees' who had entered Germany days, or at most weeks before. 1 was an Afghan 14 were Syrians.
According to a police report leaked to the press one Syrian who was arrested told the police, "I'm Syrian. You have to treat me well! I was invited by Mrs Merkel!"
At least 19 Taliban militants were killed and 2 others were injured during military operations by Afghan national security forces in the past 24 hours.
The operations were jointly conducted by Afghan national police, Afghan national army and Afghan intelligence – National Directorate of Security (NDS) operatives.
Interior ministry following a statement said Wednesday that the militants were killed or injured in Laghman, Kandahar, Paktia, Herat, Helmand, Ghazni and Paktika provinces.
The statement further added that another Taliban militant was also arrested during the operations.
Afghan security forces confiscated various types of light and heavy weapons along with explosives during the operations, interior ministry said.
The statement by interior ministry also added that the operations still continue in different parts of the country, including Deh Yak district of Ghazni province.
The Afghan national security forces have stepped up counter-terrorism operations across the country as the Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant during the recent weeks.
The Taliban militants have carried out numerous attacks across the country including capital Kabul during the recent days besides efforts have been put in place to end the decade-long insurgency by the Taliban through reconciliation process.
QUETTA: Unidentified gunmen abducted six locals of Balochistan's Dera Bugti district on Wednesday.
Levies sources confirmed that at least six people were kidnapped on their way to Gandoi area of Sui tehsil when they were whisked away by gunmen. The abductors also took away the two vehicles the abductees were travelling in.
Levies and FC personnel reached the spot and launched a search operation to recover the abducted men. No group has so far claimed responsibility for abduction.
In September last year, General manager of Balochistan Development Authority (BDA), Bacha Khan, along with five other officers were abducted from province's Killa Saifullah district.
Pakistan's largest province — which borders Iran and Afghanistan — is riven by sectarian strife and violence.
Its roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.
Baloch separatists demanding more autonomy and control over gas and mineral resources have frequently targeted security forces and police for years.
KARACHI: Four men affiliated with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were arrested in Karachi's posh Defence Housing Authority Phase 1 neighbourhood on Wednesday, Karachi-South Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr Jamil Ahmed said.
Acting on a tip-off from a credible source who claimed that the men were planning a suicide attack, the DIG said police conducted an operation in the area to arrest the four, namely Hanif alias 'Nadeem Kala', Ashraf Ali alias 'Bhaloo', Rehmat Shah and Zahid Hussain.
Police recovered a shopping bag containing ball bearings, suicide jackets and 4 kilograms of explosive material. They also recovered bomb-making material and four pistols from the possession of the suspects, the DIG said.
Ahmed said nine First Information Reports (FIR) have been registered against them in cases relating to possession of arms and explosive materials, and police encounters.
The men are also suspected of involvement in the 2011 Ghas Mandi gambling den blast which killed at least 15 people, in sectarian and targeted killings, police sources say.
In December last year, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) claimed the arrests of four men suspected of involvement in the Ghas Mandi bomb attack, as well as killing people from different sects and other terrorist activities.
The suspects, Mohammed Shahid alias Zubair, Mohammed Ali, Manzoor Ahmed and Usman Ghani alias Baba, belong to the outlawed TTP and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.
The TTP in December also claimed to have gunned down a retired army major, Major (r) Raza, in the DHA Phase 1 neighbourhood.
Sources in London revealed the identity of the “murderer” who appeared in the latest ISIS video which showed him killing 5 people accused by the organisation of spying for Britain. He spoke with a British accent and threatened the United Kingdom with terrorist attacks. Sources say that the British man named Siddhartha Dhar (Abu Rumaysah) was formerly a Hindu and then converted to Islam several years ago. The sources added that Abu Rumaysah was a leader of the Al-Muhajiroun organisation which was founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who is currently being held at Rumiyyah prison in south Lebanon.
Al-Muhajiroun sources told Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday that Abu Rumaysah is considered one of the converts to Islam in the group, and that their number exceeds 20. The most prominent of these converts is Abu Izz Al-Din who is of Jamaican origin.
Scotland Yard police had arrested Abu Rumaysah on charges of incitement but after his release on bail in 2014, he fled to Syria. He joined ISIS in the city of Al-Raqqah and appeared in a video carrying his newborn baby, his fourth son, with one hand and a rifle with the other.
The sister of Abu Rumaysah Konika Dhar acknowledged that the voice of the “murderer” in the latest video resembles her brother’s voice but said that she could not say for sure. She vowed to kill him herself if it is proven that he is the perpetrator and the British authorities have not yet made an official comment with regards to this.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/07/2016
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RAQQA – Extremists of the Islamic State group (ISIS) executed on Wednesday a woman in Syria’s northeastern city of Raqqa, local sources reported.
Lina Qasem, 35, was an employee in the Postal Corporation of Raqqa before ISIS jihadists took over the city in the summer of 2013.
She was shot dead on Wednesday on charges of leaking security information to the U.S.-led coalition–which has been striking ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq for nearly two years.
“When the militants arrested her last week we couldn’t find out the reasons behind her arrest, but today the Sharia Court issued a statement accusing Lina of cooperation with the coalition against the Caliphate,” a family member of Lina Qasem told ARA News, under the condition of anonymity for security concerns.
“She was shot dead in front of dozens of people at the central square of Raqqa,” the source said. “After the execution, the group refused to hand over her dead body to her family.”
On Tuesday, the ISIS radical group tortured a 21-year-old Syrian girl to death in the city of Manbij north of Aleppo on charges of violating the Sharia dress. The victim reportedly died under torture at the hands of a female jihadist, known as Oum Farouq, in the ISIS detention center in Manbij.
Via pro Putin site Fort Russ
Forensic medical examination has shown that the 58 year old General-major Igor Sergun died of acute heart failure.
The doctors who conducted the autopsy on the body of General Sergun, who died on the 3rd of January in the Moscow region, made preliminary conclusions about the causes of his death. According to sources familiar with the situation, the doctors concluded that the body of 58-year-old man was overworked.
"One of the reasons for his death was fatigue: over-processing, early morning blogging, not getting enough sleep were all accompanying signs and "symptoms," commented a source in medical circles.
However, as it became known to LifeNews, the official cause of death was called acute heart failure.
The head of the Main intelligence Directorate of the General staff of the Armed forces of the Russian Federation, Igor Dmitriyevich Sergun died on the 3rd of January in his house in the Podolsk district of the Moscow region.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Maryland Democrats hope to break new ground in the push for universal voter registration, planning to wage a fight in the General Assembly this year to automatically sign up everyone who visits certain state social services agency or buys coverage through the state's Obamacare ... aka the Affordable Care Act, an ineptly designed and worse executed piece of legislation designed to bring 17 percent of the U.S. economy under the direct control of the government. The previous iteration, known as Hillarycare, was laughed out of Washington. This stinker was passed on a party-line vote without being read... exchange.
State Sen. Victor Ramirez, Prince George's County Democrat, and state Sen. Roger Manno, Montgomery County Democrat, have already pre-filed automatic registration bills ahead of the legislative session, saying they are trying to cut down on barriers that keep poor people from showing up at the polls on Election Day.
The bills would automatically register everyone who applies for services at the state's Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) unless the customers specifically opt out -- a reversal from the current situation, where customers are asked to opt in.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Two IS militants confessed to Turkish security forces they received orders to bomb government buildings including the Turkish parliament and courthouses, reports say.
Turkish Cumhuriyet daily quoting security sources indicated that the two IS militants known as Musa Canöz (28) and Adnan Yıldırım (40) arrested on December 30, revealed that they were instructed by a leading IS figure in Syria to carry out suicide bombings in Ankara on government institutions among which the Parliament and course houses.
The daily also reported that the two IS militants confessed they received 20 days of training in preparing bombs and explosives in the Syrian city of Raqqa; the seat of the terrorist group’s headquarters.
“When we returned to Ankara we made our own suicide vests. Our main goal was to deal a deathly blow to the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party]. However, we were later instructed to carry out attacks on governmental buildings. Then we began to question this order to bomb Ankara courthouses, Parliament and police stations and gave up on the plan. While looking for a place to dispose of the bombs and ammunition we were caught by the police,” the suspects were reported as saying.
According to reports anti-terrorism police had been on the tail of the two IS militants for three month before nabbing them at the end of last year. Police’s raid on the two Jihadists was possible after the security forces succeeded in decoding a last message of a series communications between them and a third person known as Enes; said of Arab origin. Police also told the daily they had seized hand-made explosives and bomb-making equipment produced by the two militants.
Another local daily pointed out early this year that the two men received orders from a certain Ebu Enes who turns out be a sheikh after police investigations. The daily also pointed out that the two would-be suicide bombers arrived in Turkey from Syria last year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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[Al Ahram] Jordan summoned Iran's ambassador in Amman on Wednesday to condemn an attack on the embassy of 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... in Tehran and "Iranian interference" in Arab affairs, Jordanian state news agency Petra reported.
Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have spiralled since the execution of a Shia holy man in Saudi Arabia.
Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran early on Sunday and Shia Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted "divine vengeance" for the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken opponent of the ruling Al Saud family.
The Jordanian government stressed its condemnation "of the Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Arab states", the Petra news agency said. It also rejected Iranian statements it said represented "interference in internal Saudi affairs".
The Iranian ambassador was told to relay the Jordanian position to his government immediately.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran on Sunday. Arab states Bahrain and Sudan have also cut ties with Iran, while the United Arab Emirates partially downgraded its relations with Iran.
Iran has accused the Sunni Muslim monarchy of Saudi Arabia of using the attack on the embassy as an "excuse" to sever ties and further increase sectarian tensions.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Gulf Today] Philippine security forces rescued 26 people aboard a
mini-bus six hours after they were kidnapped by heavily armed Abu Sayyaf militants on the island province of Basilan.
The driver said he and the passengers were on their way to a remote village when the rebels stopped their vehicle on Sunday morning. The militants then ordered the driver to go to another village where a special team of soldiers on an armored vehicle rescued them six hours after their abduction.
The military said, "The armed men immediately scampered and fled towards a forested area when they spotted the impending arrival of the soldiers," adding the passengers had been traumatized by their abduction but had not been harmed.
In a separate but related development, Brigadier General Alan Arrojado reported the arrest of an Abu Sayyaf sub-leader wanted for a series of killings in the neighboring province of Sulu. The suspect, identified as Junni Jumala, did not resist when he was arrested on Monday afternoon.
Arrojado credited villagers for the arrest of Jumala, who is wanted for a series of killings in Patikul and Jolo as well as his alleged involvement in ambush of Patikul Vice Mayor Jun Tarsam who survived the attack in late December.
Posted by: ryuge ||
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[SANDIEGOREADER] Among the several dozen Pakistani and Afghan men who have entered the U.S. illegally, coming into San Diego from Tijuana, two were found to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a letter sent by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter to the Department of Homeland Security.
Muhammad Azeem and Muktar Ahmad, both in their 20s, surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents in September, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One was listed on the Terrorist Screening Database for “associations with a known or suspected terrorist. The other was a positive match for derogatory information in an alternative database,” according to Hunter’s letter.
Azeem and Ahmad are among dozens of men — described by Border Patrol agents as “military age and carrying U.S. cash” who began entering the U.S. through a Tijuana-based human-smuggling pipeline in September.
Pakistanis and Afghans crossing the border illegally in the San Diego sector are pretty unusual, according to Border Patrol statistics. In 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained fewer than 400 Pakistanis throughout the entire United States — at the ports of entry, airports, and along the border between ports.
Between October 1, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2015, the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol detained 18 Pakistanis and 1 Afghan, according to Border Patrol statistics. Between October 1 and mid-November of last year, 2 Afghans and 22 Pakistanis reportedly surrendered to Border Patrol agents.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Al Ahram] North Korea said Wednesday it had successfully tested a miniature hydrogen bomb, which if confirmed, would place it among a small group of countries with such dangerous weapons.
The world's nuclear arsenals have typically comprised two types of warheads: atomic bombs (A-bombs) such as those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and much more powerful hydrogen, or thermonuclear bombs (H-bombs).
A third category of "enhanced radiation" (ER) warheads, once dubbed "neutron bombs" was developed using the thermonuclear principle, but they are not considered to be widely deployed at present.
Britannia, La Belle France, China, Russia and the United States, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, officially have nuclear weapons.
India and Pakistain also have nuclear weapons along with Israel, which maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, and North Korea is known to have carried out tests. If North Korea masters the technology needed to produce miniature warheads, it could conceivably use them to arm ballistic missiles able to reach neighbours in Asia and possibly the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
News reports indicate that the yield was 600 kilotons of TNT. That is solidly in the fission bomb class. A fusion bomb uses a fission bomb as a trigger. The first US fusion (H) bomb had a 10 megatons of TNT yield. It is possible that the 2nd stage failed to ignite. Or fat boy is lying.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/07/2016 0:23
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#2
Does it matter as long as they'll be willing to sell whatever it is to Iran?
#3
Time to ratchet up pressure on China. State that it is the position of the US that South Korea and Japan should pursue an independent nuclear deterent. Two can play at this game and turnabout is fair play.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
01/07/2016 8:33
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Right, to the Mad Mullahs, it's a 600 kiloton 'hydrogen bomb'.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/07/2016 11:36
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Steven - add Taiwan and the Philippines into that mix to make it more VEXING to the ChiComs - Oh and a sea burst Neutron Bomb would be a great way for Singapore to clear the sea-lanes of pirates.
#6
The entire UK nuclear arsenal comprises of 100 kiloton H bombs.
These are the MIRVed Trident SLBM warheads on its nuclear submarines.
50-100 kt warheads would be ideal for modern missile warheads. It isn't the 1950s where missiles were inaccurate and warheads were huge. It makes no sense for NoKo to produce megaton sized H bombs.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/07/2016 14:52
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#7
If you have the tech, it's a great way to stretch your U235 and plutonium.
[FREEBEACON] Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of is... dismissed Paula Jones in the 1990s as a "floozy" and a "nobody" who was only suing him for sexual harassment in order to have her "moment in the sun," according to an audio diary recorded at the time by one of his closest confidantes.
Clinton's friend and biographer, Taylor Branch, took notes on a late-night conversation he had with the president on Oct. 2, 1997, and immediately recorded them into an audio diary. The recordings were recently obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
According to Branch's diary, Clinton discussed the pending sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by former Arkansas government employee Paula Jones, who claimed he unzipped his pants and asked her to perform a sex act on him in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991.
"[Clinton] said they had now changed Paula Jones's hair style, made her look less like a floozy, and that she didn't seem to have any visible income but was always driving a new car," said Branch, a historian who drew from many of his diary entries to write his 2010 Clinton biography The Clinton Tapes.
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What is little mentioned is that the Washington Post interviewed Paula Jones in October before the first Clinton election and editors at the WaPo sat on the story until after Paula had her first press conference.
The WaPo could have put an end to the Clinton campaign and deliberately quashed important information.
The Clinton Foundation is "organized crime" at its finest, and we are financing it! Here is a good, concise summary of how the Clinton Foundation works as a tax free international money laundering scheme. It may eventually prove to be the largest political criminal enterprise in U.S. history. This is a textbook case on how you hide foreign money sent to you
and re-package it, to be used for your own purposes. All tax free.
Here's how it works:
1. You create a separate foreign "charity." In this case one in Canada.
2. Foreign oligarch's & governments, then donate to this Canadian charity.
In this case, over 1,000 did, contributing mega millions. I am sure they did this out of the goodness of their hearts, and expected nothing in
return. (Imagine Putin's buddies waking up one morning and just deciding to
send un-told millions to a Canadian charity).
3. The Canadian charity then bundles these separate donations & makes a
massive donation to the Clinton Foundation.
4. The Clinton Foundation, and the cooperating Canadian charity claim
Canadian law prohibits the identification of individual donors.
5. The Clinton Foundation, then "spends" some of this money, for legitimate
good works programs. Unfortunately, experts believe this is on the order of
10%. Much of the balance goes to enrich the Clinton's, pay salaries to
un-told numbers of hangers on, & fund lavish travel, etc. Again virtually
all tax free, which means you & I are subsidizing it.
6. The Clinton Foundation with access to the world's best accountants,
somehow fails to report much of this on their tax filings. They discover
these "clerical errors" and begin the process of re-filing 5 years of tax
returns.
7. Net result: foreign money, much of it from other countries, goes into the
Clinton's pockets tax free & untraceable back to the original donor. This
is the textbook definition of money laundering.
Oh, by the way, the Canadian "charity" includes, as a principal one Frank
Giustra. Google him. He is the guy who was central to the formation of
Uranium One, a Canadian company that somehow acquired massive U.S. uranium
interests & then sold them to an organization controlled by Russia. This
transaction required U.S. State Department approval, and, guess who was
Secretary of State, when the approval, was granted? As an aside, imagine
how former, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell feels. That poor schlep is in jail because he and his wife took $165,000 in gifts and loans for doing
minor favors, for a guy promoting, a vitamin company. Not legal, but not
exactly putting U.S. security at risk.
Sarcasm aside, if you are still not persuaded, this was a cleverly
structured way to get unidentified foreign money to the Clinton's, ask
yourself this: Why did these foreign interests funnel money through a
Canadian charity? Why not donate directly to the Clinton Foundation?
Better yet, why not donate money directly to the people, organizations &
countries in need?
This is the essence of money laundering and influence peddling. Now you
know why Hillary's destruction of 30,000 e-mails was a risk, she was willing
to take. Bill and Hillary are devious, unprincipled, dishonest, and
criminal, and they are Slick!
Warning: They could be back in the White House in January 2017. Do not let
it happen. Remember, most people are not well informed. We must somehow
inform and educate them.
DAMASCUS – A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said on Wednesday that the airstrikes against the oil facilities of the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) have cut the group’s oil revenues by about 30 percent since October.
United States and allies have recently intensified airstrikes on the oil infrastructure held by the terror group.
Since October, the coalition’s air forces have bombed ISIS’s oil facilities with 65 airstrikes, according to the Baghdad-based spokesman of the U.S.-led coalition Colonel Steve Warren.
“Those strikes have cut ISIS oil revenues by about 30 percent, and cut their production from 45,000 barrels of oil per day to 34,000 bpd,” Warren said.
“In addition to chipping away at their so-called caliphate, killing their leaders, we’re also hitting them in the pocketbook,” he added.
The radical group’s revenue from oil production used to reach more than $45 million per month. However, the amount has recently decreased due to the intensified airstrikes.
Over the last few months, the coalition’s airstrikes have also killed dozens of prominent members of the radical group across Syria and Iraq, beside hitting tactical units and weapons storage centers held by ISIS.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Powerful Islam Army group tossed in the clink Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! two brothers in Eastern Ghouta suburbs east of Damascus over links 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.... , sources told Zaman al-Wasl Tuesday.
Nasif al-Mohammed, 24, and his brother Ahmed, 17, who work in local relief associations in Yelda suburb, were arrested over cooperating with ISIS group in the nearby district of al-Hajer al-Aswad.
Such a claim was denied by the elder brother, Yemen, who said the arrest was to force ISIS freeing senior commander in Islam Army since "we have relatives fight along with ISIS in al-Hajer al-Aswad," he added.
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[Bangla New Age] Three people are set to be hanged at Jessore Central Jail tonight for killing Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal leader Kazi Aref Ahmed, also one of the main organisers for the war of independence, and four other leaders of the party.
Jessore superintendent of police Anisur Rahman said that Safayet Hossain of Rajnagar village under Mirpur upazila in Kushtia, Anwar Hossain of Kursha village at the upazila and Rashedul Islam alias Akbar of Kursha village would be executed tonight.
JSD leaders Kazi Aref, Lokman Hossain, Yakub Ali, Ismail Hossain and Samaresh Mandol were rubbed out at a rally at Kalidaspur Government Primary School ground under Daulatpur upazila in Kushtia on February 16, 1999.
On August 30, 2004, the District and Session Judge's Court in Kushtia sentenced 10 people to death and 12 people to life term.
The High Court, in 2008, acquitted one of the condemned convicts and 10 life-termers of the charges.
The Appellate Division on November 19, 2014 rejected petitions filed by the convicts for a review of a verdict it pronounced on August 7, 2011 upholding the High Court verdict.
The clemency prayers of the three condemned convicts were also rejected by the president.
The other condemned convicts are still in hiding.
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(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Wednesday, a security source said, that unidentified gunmen have robbed a currency exchange office west of Baghdad, while stole one million and 100 thousand dollars.
The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “Last night, unidentified gunmen stormed a currency exchange office through a hole in an abandoned house next to it in Mansour District west of Baghdad,” adding that, “The gunmen were able to steal one million and 100 thousand dollars.”
“The owner of the currency exchange has informed the police about the incident,” adding that, “A security force rushed to the area and started an investigation,” the source continued.
KOBANE – At least three militant fighters from al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda branch in Syria, were killed in clashes with the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) near Sheikh Maqsoud district in Aleppo.
Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants launched an offensive on the Kurdish headquarters in Sheikh Maqsoud on Wednesday, which led to clashes between them and the YPG fighters.
“Nusra terrorists launched several mortar shells on our security center in the district,” a YPG spokesman told ARA News in Aleppo. “Subsequent to clashes, the terrorists retreated from the vicinity of Sheikh Maqsud.”
“We have collected the corpses of three terrorists who were killed in the clashes,” the source said.
Islamist rebels of al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham have been targeting the YPG headquarters in the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud with rocket-propelled grenades and hell cannon for weeks. The militants have recently intensified their shelling on the district by using mortar shells and bombing residential buildings.
On Monday, Nusra shelling on the district killed four civilians and wounded more than ten others.
Al-Qaeda Responds to SDF Progress
Sheikh Maqsoud is under the control of Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) –leading member of the western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The developments come after the al-Qaeda-affliated Nusra Front and its allies lost ground to the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the SDF in northern Aleppo.
On Friday, the SDF seized control of the villages of Tat Mrash and Tanab in the vicinity of Azaz city north of Aleppo after clashes with militant fighters of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham.
On Sunday, the western-backed SDF units recaptured the village of Keshtaar in the suburb of Tel Rafaat city north of Aleppo. The village has been constantly used by Nusra militants and allied Islamists as a base from which they used to attack the Kurdish region of Afrin northwest of Aleppo.
QUETTA: Security forces arrested seven suspected militants during two search operations in Balochistan's Zhob and Kalat districts on Wednesday, officials said.
Four suspects belonging to the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group were arrested after a raid in Gawal Ismailzai area of Zhob, said Khan Wasey, spokesman for the Frontier Corps (FC), adding that weapons were also recovered from their possession.
Wasay alleged the weapons were being smuggled into interior Balochistan for use in subversive activities.
Gwal Ismailzai is considered a sensitive area in northern Balochistan where TTP has carried out operations in the past.
In another operation, the FC picked up three suspected militants from Mangochar area of Kalat district, Wasey said, adding that weapons and explosives were also confiscated.
Balochistan has been experiencing incident violence and targeted killings since more than a decade. More than 1,400 incidents targeting the minority Shia and Hazara community have taken place in the province during the past 15 years.
The largest province of the country by area is home to a low-level insurgency by ethnic Baloch separatists. Al Qaeda-linked and sectarian militants also operate in the region.
ERBIL – The radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) arrested on Wednesday dozens of teachers in Iraq’s northwestern province of Nineveh for refusing to teach the new curriculum imposed by the group on the schools across the province.
Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, media activist Abdullah al-Malla said that ISIS militants raided the homes of dozens of Iraqi teachers and arrested them for protesting against the Sharia curriculum imposed by the jihadi group.
“More than 30 teachers were arrested today for refusing to teach the Islamic curriculum at the schools of Mosul in Nineveh province,” al-Malla said, adding that the Sharia Court plans to punish those teachers and replace them with some “more committed” staff.
The extremist group has recently imposed its own curriculum on the schools of Nineveh province.
ISIS has cancelled major subjects from the educational curriculum in areas under its control across Syria and Iraq, such as philosophy, math, biology and chemistry.
“These essential courses have been replaced by some extremist subjects on Sharia and jihad, designed by the group to idelogize students and gain their support to the alleged Caliphate,” a teacher in Mosul told ARA News, under the condition of anonymity.
“This protest by the teachers of Nineveh province is a first step towards eliminating the unjust regulations imposed by ISIS on the people,” the source concluded.
The extremist group has earlier executed a number of teachers in Mosul city for refusing to teach the new curriculum.
[LATINO.FOXNEWS] Philadelphia's new mayor, Jim Kenney, signed an executive order only hours after being sworn in that rescinds the city's participation in a controversial program set up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Kenney's order comes only a day after a series of ICE raids across the country that have been condemned by immigration activists.
"On his first day in office, newly elected Mayor Kenney reaffirmed that the City of Philadelphia is in fact the City of Brotherly Love,” Erika Almiron, director of the Philadelphia-based non-profit Juntos, said in a press release. “As ICE raids sew
Layers of editors, my left foot. It's sow, guys, pronounced with a long o, meaning the spreading of seeds across the soil to plant them so they will grow up to become harvestable. Sew, with the same pronunciation, is done with needle and thread. And sow, pronounced with the -ow diphthong, is a female pig.
new levels of fear in our communities, Mayor Kenney is making sure local officials have nothing to do with it.”
See? It's okay to disregard federal law. Nothing wrong with it at all. Perhaps conservative states could do this and cite the good Mayor Kenney as their inspiration. And it's time to put the IRS on the spot...
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The group of 17 detainees expected to be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay as early as this week includes “multiple bad guys” and “Al Qaeda followers,” a source who has reviewed the list told Fox News. Little is known publicly about which prisoners are being prepared for transfer, but the Obama administration has notified Congress it plans to ship out 17 detainees – some of whom could be transferred within days.
While the identities of the men are closely held, the source who spoke with Fox News said it includes “multiple bad guys … not taxi drivers and cooks.”
This is a reference to the administration’s transfer of Ibrahim al Qosi to Sudan in 2012. Despite entering a “re-integration program,” the one-time cook for Usama bin Laden has now fled to Yemen, where he is among the leadership of Al Qaeda in Yemen. That transfer is now said to be a source of considerable heartburn for the Obama administration.
But it doesn't stop them, does it...
As for those on the docket for immediate transfer, the source told Fox News the administration will not identify the detainees until they are relocated in their new home countries -- because knowing who they are in advance would create further roadblocks and increase the controversy.
Which makes clear that the administration knows that it's doing something wrong, but it's doing it anyways...
Multiple countries have agreed to take the men,
Saudi Arabia. Yemen. Somalia. Sudan. Eritrea. Qatar...
in small groups, and the source said some of the countries were so-called first timers -- a reference to the fact those countries had not taken Guantanamo detainees in the past.
The move to clear out 17 detainees is seen as part of the administration’s long-term plan to ultimately shutter the detention camp. The transfer of 17 prisoners would bring the number of detainees left down to 90 – the bulk of whom cannot be transferred to another country.
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the bulk of whom cannot be transferred to another country.
I guess they'll need to be transferred to a non-country. Antarctica comes to mind. Or Atlantis.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Death toll of the six-month-old siege imposed on the town of Madaya northwest of Damascus has risen to 31, local activists and medics said Wednesday.
Of 31 deaths in Madaya in recent weeks, 10 were attributed to a lack of food and the rest were either shot to death or blown up by mines planted by the Syrian regime and Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah forces, activists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Despite all pleas, regime keeps tuning a blind eye on the tragic living conditions in Madaya which is surrounded by a belt of 6000 landmines.
Up to 40,000 people have been left for death of hunger in the border town with Leb for over 200 days due to the suffocating siege, activists said.
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[Al Ahram] Djibouti cut its diplomatic relations with Iran on Wednesday, Saudi-owned al-Arabiya news channel said, quoting an official source.
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... severed its own ties with Shia Iran on Sunday after protesters stormed its embassy in Tehran in an escalating row between the rival Middle East powers over Riyadh's execution of a Shia Muslim holy man.
Fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Bahrain has also cut ties with Iran and Kuwait has recalled its envoy to Iran.
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[Bangla New Age] The Appellate Division on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman Nizami ...During the liberation war of 1971, Nizami formed the Al-Badr Force and acted as its supreme commander. The Al-Badr militia took active part in rape, extortion, looting and killing of Bangladeshis who supported the liberation, including a pre-planned massacre on December 14, 1971, when the Al-Badr militia along with Pakistan Army rounded up hundreds of doctors, professors, writers, and other Bengali intellectuals, and executed them... for planning the killings of intellectuals in Dhaka and mass killings at two places in Pabna during the War of Independence.
A four-judge bench chaired by Chief Justice SK Sinha, delivered the unanimous verdict at about 9.10AM amid pin drop silence the courtroom.
The bench included, Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
Later, Nizami's counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain told news hounds that no decision was taken as yet whether a petition would be filed seeking review of the verdict.
It depends on the client, he said, adding, if Nizami asks a review petition would be filed.
But Nizami might as well not seek a review of the apex court verdict as no previous petitioner got any benefit from their review petitions.
Khandker Mahbub also said his client did not deserve death sentence as an abettor as none of the principal accused in Pakistain army were tried.
Nizami would get the opportunity to seek a review of the verdict, attorney general Mahbubey Alam told news hounds.
On October 29, 2014, the International Crime Tribunal-1 sentenced Nizami to death on four counts of war crimes.
The apex court upheld Nizami's death sentences on three charges which include planning intellectuals' killings and two charges of mass killings at two places in Pabna, his home district.
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(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – According to a local source in Nineveh province, 19 Afghan ISIS elements, including an explosives expert, had been killed while trying to booby-trap vehicles east of the city of Mosul.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “We have received accurate intelligence indicate that 19 Afghans, including the leader Habibullah al-Afghani who is an explosives expert in the so-called Wilayat Nineveh, had been killed while booby-trapping vehicles in a warehouse in the area of Badush in eastern Mosul.”
The source, who requested anonymity, added, “The ISIS evacuated the bodies of its militants from the area of the incident.”
[Tolo News] Police in northern Balkh province have started investigations to identify the identities of the Indian Consulate attackers, said security officials on Wednesday.
The officials said they believe the attackers were Urdu speakers.
Balkh Police Chief Gen. Abdul Razeq Qadiri said the attackers' cell phones were recovered and efforts are underway to find out their identities and nationalities.
"The investigation team has found the attackers' cell phones. We will make it clear if they were from Afghanistan or foreigners -- using the cell phones and other resources," said Qadiri.
He added that the police force members will also identify those who helped the attackers to reach the building close to the Indian Consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif city.
"No doubt, there is someone involved in this incident that helped the attackers to reach the area. We will find them and will bring them to book," Qadiri added.
The attack, which started Sunday night, on the Indian Consulate in Mazar lasted 25 hours and raised many questions on how the attackers were able to get to the area and access the building they holed up in.
On Tuesday, Mohammad Ali, a guard at the building where the attackers took cover, said he managed to escape when the attackers stormed the building. He said: "I saw two people and they were talking in a language I did not understand.
I was in the basement when they went upstairs and then I ran to the yard and beat feet from the building."
The attackers were holed up on the 4th floor in the kitchen of the building and wrote messages in what appeared to be blood on the wall. The messages were in Urdu and warned of suicide kabooms and of Dire Revenge.
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[Daily Excelsior] DIG North Kashmire, Garib Dass, today said that security forces in Kashmire are well prepared to deal with Pathankot type of attacks.
When asked about his comments on Pathankot attack, Dass said that counter-insurgency grid in Kashmire is strong to deal with such type of Fidayeen attacks in Kashmire. "We take appropriate steps to foil such acts. You already know this. The counter-insurgency grid in Kashmire is strong and we, all the security forces, are well prepared here to deal with such attacks. We are trained for it", he said.
The DIG, when asked about the infiltration of Death Eaters into Kashmire, said that with the heavy snowfall passes have been closed and chances of infiltration has become less. He, however, said that counter-infiltration grid is strong to deal with any kind of infiltration on the Line of Control (LoC).
"Counter-infiltration grid is strong. There was lot of snowfall in North Kashmire, the passes are closed and there are less chances of infiltration. If there is any attempt in snow, it will be dealt with", said DIG.
In the meantime while addressing a presser in North Kashmire, Dass said that Police locked away ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... three Death Eaters of Hizbul Mujahideen who were behind the killing of their colleague last year by suspected him of misusing funds and planning his surrender.
"On September 19, last year, a bullet ridden body of Fayaz Ahmad Bhat alias Showkat son of Abdul Rahim Bhat of Wailoo Pattan who was an active bad boy of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit was found lying in the orchards of village Devbug Kunzer", the DIG said.
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[Al Ahram] Enrique Marquez, the man accused of purchasing the two assault rifles used in the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 people dead, pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." on Wednesday to terror-related charges.
Marquez, 24, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, lying about the purchase of the two weapons used in the December 2 shooting, marriage fraud and lying on the visa application for the woman he married.
During his brief arraignment in federal court in Riverside on Wednesday, Marquez, who has been held without bond since his arrest last month, simply said "not guilty" when asked how he wished to plead.
According to the charges against him, Marquez in November 2011 bought a Smith & Wesson assault rifle and three months later purchased another rifle.
Both weapons were allegedly purchased on behalf of Sayed Farook. Authorities say he and his wife Tashfeen Malik used them in the attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino that maimed 22 along with the 14 killed, many of them Farook's former co-workers.
Marquez in 2011 and 2012 also allegedly plotted with Farook to carry out terror attacks at an area college that both men had attended and on a busy freeway.
Marquez, a long-time friend of Farook -- Marquez converted to Islam after Farook introduced him to the religion -- told Sherlocks that both plots were abandoned and he eventually distanced himself from Farook.
He also allegedly entered into a sham marriage with a woman linked to Farook's family in November 2014 and lied on her visa application.
Marquez, who has cooperated with authorities, is set to be tried on February 23. He faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
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They should make an example of him over the strawman purchase.
#3
Would be interesting to see the left's natural inclination to attack firearms and strawman purchases pitted against their natural preference for terrorists of color.
[Al Ahram] Troops loyal to Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi seized a Red Sea port town Wednesday in the country's northwest following fierce fighting with Iran-backed sock puppets of the Medes and the Persians, a military chief said.
"We have full control of the port and the town, along with its historic castle," Fifth Military Region commander General Adel al-Qumairi said of Midi.
Intensive festivities had raged in the area since mid-December when government forces trained in nearby 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... crossed the border and seized the town of Haradh.
The rebels, known as Houthis, have reportedly used Midi's port to bring weapons into their traditional stronghold in the north.
Despite losing Midi, they and their allies of renegade troops loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , continue to control a long stretch of the coastline.
Government forces have enjoyed air support from the Saudi-led coalition, which launched a campaign against rebels in March after they advanced on the southern city of Aden where Hadi had taken refuge before fleeing to Riyadh.
The rebels continue to control the capital, which they overran 2014, but loyalists have captured areas east and northeast of the capital recently.
On Wednesday, coalition warplanes bombed rebel positions in Sanaa, including the presidential complex, witnesses said.
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Kenyan military convoy has been targeted in huge land-mine blast near Afmadow town of Lower Jubba region on Wednesday morning, according to a resident. The resident told Radio Shabelle that the landmine exploded near Tabta village as Kenyan defense forces (KDF) convoy passed the area on their to Qoqani town.
The resident could not however confirm the extent of casualties suffered by the KDF by the time of going to press. Reports said one vehicle was damaged in IED explosion.
No group has yet claimed responsibility of the attack on KDF army convoy in southern Somalia.
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Turkey has started to build a military training base in Somalia as part of its pledge to build up the national army for the Somali government, a senior Turkish diplomat has said.
Emel Tekin, the head of the Foreign Ministry department responsible for Somalia, stated that Turkey is establishing a military base in Mogadishu, a first for Turkey, to train Somali soldiers. She said the initiative is part of a framework agreement between the two countries on military cooperation.
“This military training facility will also be an important base for [providing] military training for the entire [continent of] Africa,” she added.
Col. Murat Yaman said at the commission meeting that the agreement is a framework deal to boost defense cooperation between the two countries. He noted that it built on two earlier agreements signed with Somalia in 2010 on military financial cooperation and military training. Turkey has been providing defense assistance to Somalia since then to shore up Somalia’s security forces.
The Turkish military is also building a military school in Somalia to educate and train both officer corps and noncommissioned officers.
Tekin said that, when she visited Somalia, she noticed Somali soldiers were wearing different uniforms and shoes provided by various donor countries from the Gulf and the European Union.
“They [Somalis] are trying to overcome this,” she said, by establishing a military structure that is complete and under a single chain of command. Turkey is trying to support this as well,” she explained.
Turkey has provided $400 million in aid to Somalia in recent years, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Turkey will be hosting the High-Level Partnership Forum in Turkey in İstanbul on Feb. 23-24, which is a follow-up to the High-Level Meeting on Somalia held in New York on Sept. 28, 2015.
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Turkey has provided $400 million in aid to Somalia in recent years,
Awfully thoughtful ek se. With all of their current border challenges, I wonder where Turkey came up with $400 million to spend on such a distant and apparently unrelated security effort ?
[CNN] Cologne's mayor has come under fire for advising women to stay "an arm's length" from male strangers after alleged sexual assaults and muggings during New Year's Eve festivities in the German city.
Germany has been shocked by the apparently coordinated crime wave, in which Cologne police received more than 100 criminal complaints from women who said they had been sexually assaulted or robbed by gangs of men of Arab or North African appearance in the city center during New Year's Eve festivities. Cologne police would not elaborate Wednesday on the total number of crimes reported, as the figure continued to rise.
Police have said that about a quarter of the complaints related to sexual assaults, including a rape, and that they believed the assaults were probably intended to distract the victims, allowing attackers to steal mobile phones and other devices.
Three suspects had been identified and were being questioned, a police representative told CNN. Police were working through a large amount of cellphone footage from the evening to identify further suspects.
Similar attacks were reported in Hamburg on New Year's Eve, with 39 reported sexual assaults and 14 robberies, according to police in the city, while police in Stuttgart said two women had reported their phones were missing after they were assaulted by a group of men of Arab appearance during New Year's festivities there.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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#1
Arm's length? What kind of arms? Remington 700? M1911? I thought those were pretty much illegal in Germany.
#5
A man escapes from prison where he has been for 15 years. He breaks into a house to look for money and guns and finds a young couple in bed. He orders the guy out of bed and ties him to a chair while tying the girl to the bed. He gets on top of her, kisses her neck, then gets up and goes into the bathroom.
While he's in there, the husband tells his wife: "Listen, this guy's an escaped convict, look at his clothes! He's probably spent lots of time in jail and hasn't seen a woman in years. I saw how he kissed your neck. If he wants to sleep with you, don't resist, don't complain, do whatever he tells you. Satisfy him no matter how much he nauseates you. This guy is probably very dangerous. If he gets angry, he'll kill us. Be strong, honey. I love you."
To which his wife responds: "He wasn't kissing my neck. He was whispering in my ear. He told me he was gay, thought you were cute, and asked me if we had any Vaseline. I told him it was in the bathroom. Be strong honey. I love you too!"
QUETTA: Security forces arrested 10 suspected militants, among them three activists of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), from Qila Saifullah, Zhob and Kalat areas on Wednesday.
They also recovered a large quantity of illegal arms and ammunition from Gawal Ismailzai area of Zhob district.
Official sources said that the Frontier Corps troops accompanied by intelligence personnel raided a place on the outskirts of Qila Saifullah town and arrested three suspected militants of the banned TTP.
“The arrested suspects belong to the TTP,” an FC spokesman said, adding that they were handed over to the authorities concerned for interrogation.
The spokesman said that acting on a tip-off the FC teams raided a place in Gawal Ismailzai area of Zhob district and took four suspects into custody. “Arms were recovered from their possession,” he said. The weapons seized included two rifles-303, one SMG, one rifle-7mm, one pistol and ammunition.
In another action, the FC personnel detained three suspected militants from Kalat and seized weapons from their possession.
He said that the recovered weapons included one SMG, two rifles and 2,100 rounds.
[NYTimes] Sometimes in American politics it seems as if we are all talking past each other, that whatever one side says about an issue like, say, taxes zooms right past the other side. The current fight over gun control is not one of those moments. It is a howling storm of misrepresentation, sadly almost entirely from one side. This week’s developments fit the pattern. A bit of projection on the editorial writer's part. I would say "misrepresentations" is a liberal way of saying "lies"...
On Tuesday in the East Room of the White House, President Obama formally announced that he would be taking a series of executive actions — all of them within his powers as president. It was an important step, since he sometimes seems alone in Washington in his willingness to take on the issue of guns. But none of his actions are aimed at taking weapons away from law-abiding citizens, and none will have that effect. In fact, there has been no bill in real contention in Congress for many years that would reduce the number of guns currently in circulation, or disarm any law-abiding Americans. In fact, none of the Executive Orders he has issued impact firearms possession except the one that forces private gun sellers into the Federal Firearms Licensing system. What the NYT is complaining about, between the lines, is that Champ really is ineffectual. It's the first time in a long time the NYT and I have agreed about anything...
And yet, as happens every time, the response from the anti-regulation crowd (even before the White House said a word in public about Mr. Obama’s plans) was to deliberately misstate what Mr. Obama was intending. The president said he wanted to increase the number of government agents to process background checks and make the existing system more effective. He also plans to modestly expand the number of dealers who need federal licenses under current law and said he would ask Congress for more money to combat mental illness. He wants to expand government control over guns. Does that about sum it up?
The Republican machine’s reaction took none of that into account.
“From Day 1,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, “the president has never respected the right to safe and legal gun ownership that our nation has valued since its founding.” Mr. Ryan said that “rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens. His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.”
Unlike Mr. Ryan, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, arch-right candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, did not even wait for the president to talk before he started spitting out his usual talking points on Monday. “This is a president who for seven years has abused his constitutional authority,” he said, adding: “We don’t beat the bad guys by taking away our guns. We beat the bad guys by using our guns.”
There may be an interesting argument over whether having more civilians walking around with guns and empowered to use them enhances public safety. Our position on this page has been that it makes people less safe. Especially if liberals have guns, as is their right.
But propagandists like Mr. Cruz are not interested in conversation. Mr. Obama is not proposing “taking away our guns.” In truth, Mr. Obama is not currently advocating renewal or expansion of the expired assault weapons ban, which is politically understandable but still unfortunate. It’s impossible to believe that Mr. Cruz does not recognize what Mr. Obama is doing, and not doing. Obama is setting up his own supporters for the next mass shooting by saying: "Look. I tried to do something but it wasn't enough. Contact your Congressional representative if you want meaningful gun control."
Given the situation, it’s hard to imagine a serious conversation about guns as long as politicians in thrall to the gun lobby choose to misrepresent what supporters of gun safety laws are actually saying. Those supporters, by the way, include the 90 percent of Americans who favor universal background checks for gun buyers. Even if they could count 99 percent who want universal background checks, the law fails in two fundamental respects: 1) It is unconstitutional, and 2) It doesn't have consent of the governed. Laws on the books that fail either of these two standards are not laws at all. They are Constitutionally null and void, and should be ignored. Additionally, in the instance in which universal background checks get passed, as a gun owner I still get a vote. "Conversations" on "gun control" wind up being lectures by the terminally liberal and end up as personal attacks. No thanks.
The hear-nothing crowd did not budge when college students were slaughtered on campuses like Virginia Tech, when grade school children were massacred in Connecticut, when people were shot to death in a movie theater in Colorado — and in so many other places, including every day on our streets and in our homes. Why? Because 99.999 percent of gun owners did not commit those crimes and should not be held accountable by having their only means of protection controlled or taken from them.
They were not even moved to have a serious conversation about gun safety after self-proclaimed Islamist terrorists attacked law-abiding American citizens in California using weapons obtained in the free market of death-dealing instruments so highly prized by the National Rifle Association and those who do its bidding. It would be at this point I have to ask if they are really serious, but alas they really are.
#1
Hmmm, bad choice in mentioning Virginia Tech because it was a private gun owner who went to his car and retrieved his side arm who confronted the shooter and caused him to flee.
They also didn't mention how Virginia Tech is the poster child for gun free zones.
#4
They also call Senator Cruz "arch-right" and describe him "spitting out his usual talking points". When will they call Obama the "arch-left President spitting out his usual talking points?"
The Rada Special Deterrence Force (SDF) released further videoed confessions last week of suspects accused of being IS/Daesh terror operators in Tripoli.
The two videos follow on from an earlier video entitled: ‘‘Execution/implementation Orders’’. Many of those featured in the latest videos had been featured in the earlier video released on 15 December.
However, the latest video also contained confessions of two women with Libyan accents.
The confessions and videos provide some useful insights into the recruiting, thinking and operations of these alleged IS/Daesh members.
Further to the operations confessed to in the earlier December video, twelve operations were confessed to in these latest two video releases.
These were: South Korean embassy; the Moroccan embassy; Iranian ambassador’s residence; Spanish embassy; police station at Zawiet Al-Dahmany; Janzur (Ghiran) checkpoint; Police patrol car; Diplomatic police office; Al Najma factory; Central Security HQ and Mitiga prison.
Those confessing on video said they were from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine and Sudan. They admitted that they carried out kidnappings in order to finance their operations. Smuggling across the Libyan border was used for Tunisians to enter Libya illegally.
One Tunisian confessor claimed that his armed Tunisian IS/Daesh colleagues were driving in their cars freely in the city of Sabratha. They carried out kidnappings in order to finance operations in Tunisia, he claimed.
There was cooperation with Libyan accomplices in obtaining fake passports to facilitate travel to Turkey and on to Syria. One was returned by Turkish authorities who spotted his fake Libyan passport. One accused claimed that he had obtained a travel document from the Libyan embassy in Istanbul.
Numerous Libyans from various part of the country were named as accomplices. The internet was often cited as their means of conversion to the IS creed.
Explosive devices were often tied together in bags/rucksacks and set off remotely by mobile phones. Most operations were videoed by a second car in order to be posted on the internet for propaganda purposes.
At the South Korean embassy operation, the accused said they had used a Berretta gun fitted with a silencer. Two security officers were killed.
An accused said that two explosive devices were left at the Iranian ambassador’s residence. While the first device was set off remotely by mobile, the second was only set off once security personnel had surrounded the residence. They established the arrival of the security forces by listening in to their walkie-talkie communications.
The Spanish embassy bomb was 6 kgs of anti-armoured explosives held in a bag and placed next to the plant container outside the embassy.
These latest videos by the Media Office of Rada were, like the first one, of high quality and very slick in their production. However, it is not clear under what circumstances these videoed confessions had been obtained by Rada. None of the accused have been charged by the Public Prosecutor nor taken to court.
Critics of Rada also see these video releases as a partial marketing tool for Rada brigade which is nominally under government control and part of the Ministry of Interior, but operates with much autonomy under its leader Abdel Rauf Kara.
Critics accuse Rada of angling to be given a role in the security role in Tripoli as part of the UN-brokered Libyan Political Agreement and the Faiez Serraj Government of National Accord.
It will be recalled that Rada has been accused of using excessive force in its anti-criminal actions which have led to the death of accused criminals prior to them being sentenced by a court.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Syrian regime and rebel bombardment killed at least 20 civilians and maimed dozens in the capital and a nearby Eastern Ghouta suburbs on Wednesday, state media and am activist group said.
Mortar rounds fired from the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region onto residential areas of Damascus left nine civilians dead and 25 maimed, local monitoring group tracks rebels shelling on Damascus said.
The attack came after the regime fired 6 cluster rockets onto the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma earlier in the day, killing five civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and media center.
Eastern Ghouta, which is largely controlled by the 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... (Army of Islam) rebel group, is regularly bombarded by government forces.
Seven other civilians, including a child, were later killed in government Arclight airstrikes on the nearby towns of Hazzeh and Zamalka, the Observatory said.
The group also gave the same toll as state media for the attack on Damascus and said some of the maimed there were at death's door.
In the Southern Ghouta suburbs, regime army pounded Moadamiya and Daraya towns with 6 barrel bombs and three surface-to-surface missiles.
On Tuesday, 4 surface-to-surface missiles hit Daraya, activist said.
Last December, Syrian regime army had targeted the poor outskirts of Daraya with 853 barrel bombs, 72 surface-to-surface missiles and 400 shells, killing at 21 people, the town's local council said.
For two weeks, Syrian Elite Republican Guards and notorious Division 4 have intensified siege on Moadamiya town and Daraya as rebels refuse to surrender or to evacuate the town in similar scenario to fellow fighters in Homs and Zabadani.
More than 260,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with protests against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... 's government.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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[The Nation] A Thai ranger was killed Wednesday morning after militants detonated a homemade bomb to ambush his patrol unit in Narathiwat province. Police said Maneethorn Kanchanakarn and 11 other rangers were on patrol when insurgents set off a gas cylinder bomb to ambush them. The two sides exchanged gunfire for about 10 minutes after the blast. Maneethorn died en route to the hospital.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – The US-led international coalition announced, that it has carried out 19 air strikes on the ISIS organization near eight cities in Iraq, while indicated to the conducting of another air strike in Syria.
A statement received by IraqiNews.com said, “The international coalition warplanes had carried out 19 air strikes near eight Iraqi cities,” pointing out that, “The air strikes hit a number of hideouts, tactical units, as well as various equipment.”
The statement added, “The strikes were concentrated near Ramadi and Kisik, while wounded a number of ISIS elements, in addition to some vehicles and buildings,” indicating that, “The coalition had also carried out an air strike in Syria, destructing a building belonging to the ISIS organization near al-Reqqa area.
[Manila Times] The Philippine Army's 73rd Infantry Battalion based in Davao del Sur has begun pursuit operations to track down Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, the alleged leader of Ansar al-Khilafah (Supporters of the Caliphate) in the Philippines (AKP). He is believed to be in the hinterlands of Sarangani Province.
Colonel Ronnie Babac is leading the operation against Maguid and his close associate, identified as Limbo Jusin Pala. The two are top on the list of high-profile members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) under its fallen leader Abdul Basit Usman. Maguid was tasked to continue the role of Usman and Malaysian bomb maker Zulkifli bin Hir, also known as "Marwan."
Maguid, alias Tokboy, who escaped from a four-hour firefight with security forces in the town of Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat on November 23, was reportedly on a mission to create large-scale violence in Central Mindanao.
The AKP has claimed affiliation with Daesh, whose presence in Mindanao was confirmed by a ranking military intelligence officer. Another source from Maguindanao said that Maguid directly trained under two Indonesian nationals who arrived in Mindanao three years ago. The Indonesians are reportedly training Daesh recruits organized by Maguid in undisclosed areas near the MILF camp. Their recruits are thought to be disgruntled MILF commanders who now strongly support Daesh in the region.
Maguid and Pala were also tagged as former cell leaders of the 3rd Battalion, Headquarters Brigade of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters’ (BIFF) inner defense group led by its regional field commander Ustadz Haun Salindatu.
Maguid, charged for attacks on the town center of Maasim, Sarangani in August 2008 that killed three people, was arrested in July 2009 but managed to escape from the Sarangani provincial jail in March 2010. Maguid is also facing a series of other charges including for a grenade attack in Maasim Town in June 2009; the murder of Sarangani Rep. Emmanuel Pacquiao's cousin Rogelio Pacquiao in July 2009; the killing of Maasim Vice Mayor Sawab Pangolima last October; and several other incidents.
Posted by: ryuge ||
01/07/2016
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#13
That is one of your best, Zenobia! You drank deep of the well of creativity. I will never get your lyrics out of me head. They are seared, seared, I say, into my memory.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/07/2016 19:42
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Nearly 1.1 million people were registered as asylum-seekers in Germany last year, more than 400,000 of them from Syria, the government said Wednesday.
The Interior Ministry said that 1,091,894 people in total were registered between January and December. Syrians were by far the biggest single group, accounting for 428,468 people.
They were followed by Afghans, 154,046 of whom were registered, and 121,662 Iraqis.
Germany has seen more refugees and other migrants arrive than any other European country. In the early part of 2015, that included large numbers of people from Balkan countries who have very little chance of winning asylum. The fourth- and fifth-biggest groups of asylum-seekers last year came from Albania and Kosovo.
The influx was slower in December than in previous months, with 127,320 people arriving -- down from 206,101 in November. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that was largely because of stormy weather in the Mediterranean Sea.
The total tally of registered asylum-seekers includes an as-yet undetermined number of people who were registered twice at different locations or continued to Scandinavia or elsewhere, de Maiziere said. He added that the number of people who actually sought asylum will only become clear as applications come in -- "it is under 1 million, but how far under 1 million can only be said in the course of 2016."
Actual asylum applications have lagged behind arrivals. The government said that 476,649 people formally applied last year -- the highest number on record and more than double the previous year's figure of 202,834.
"We think the level of refugees and asylum-seekers who have come to Germany is too high, and are working so that it isn't repeated on this scale in 2016," de Maiziere said.
There's widespread agreement on that in Germany, but disagreement on how to go about it.
Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... has emphasized the importance of diplomacy and getting other European countries to share the burden, but her conservative allies in Bavaria advocate setting a cap on the number of refugees Germany can take. Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer has suggested a figure of 200,000.
"International efforts haven't yet won through," Seehofer said Wednesday. "We must wait and see what happens in this field in January and February ... and then evaluate what we need in addition."
Seehofer said that if arrivals continue at the pace they did in December, "we would have this year ... more refugees than in the whole of 2015."
Merkel played down the differences as she arrived at an Alpine retreat of Seehofer's Christian Social Union, insisting that her party and his have much more in common than they have divisions.
She said it was very important both to "achieve an appreciable reduction of the refugees" -- by tackling the reasons people are fleeing and sending home rejected asylum-seekers -- and preserve freedom of movement within the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... .
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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#1
And every single one wants a nice Aryan Fraulein to molest?
#4
Angela Merkel said recently when she met Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook,‘What can you do to stop people writing anti-immigration comments on Facebook?’. That’s the German chancellor, the most important woman in Europe these days. That’s what your political class and our political class in Europe are worrying about - ‘How do we stop people noticing what’s going on in front of their eyes?’ -- Douglas Murray
#8
Constitutional standoff between the Bundesrepublik and Bavaria, probably.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/07/2016 22:48
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#9
In the USA, states are, at least in theory, sovereign. The federal government is supposed to be there to conduct foreign affairs, provide for the common defense, and regulate (i.e., make regular) commerce between states. Of course, this has not been the case for nearly 100 years - possibly since the end of the Civil War in 1865.
EC, are the German states the same? I know that many of them used to be independent countries.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/07/2016 22:59
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Difficult to compare, but Bavaria is a Free State (Republic) and actually has its own democratic constitution (1946) predating the German Basic Law.
The position of the länder is quite strong and they can make life very difficult for the Federal Government.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
01/07/2016 23:24
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PESHAWAR: Capital city on Wednesday arrested 61 suspects including seven proclaimed offenders, 47 Afghan refugees and 44 outlaws and recovered arms and ammunition them.
Police official said that search operations were carried out in different parts of the city. The police also recovered two Kalashnikov, 16 pistols, two rifles, 266 rounds, nine kilogramme hashish and 20 bottles liquor from them.
I had an officer like that. The gung-ho moron nearly got me killed. He did get some of my friends killed---for nothing. Fortunately, he got a bullet in the head and joined the vegetable kingdom.
[REUTERS] President Hassan Rouhani asked Iran's judiciary on Wednesday to urgently prosecute the people who attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran in protest at the kingdom's execution of a prominent Shi'ite holy man.
Rouhani's comments appear to show his determination to reduce tension with Iran's Sunni Gulf neighbors and continue his attempts to normalize ties with world powers by speaking out on a practice that has become a challenge for the Islamic Theocratic Republic's foreign policy.
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... , Bahrain, Sudan and Djibouti broke all ties with Iran this week, the United Arab Emirates downgraded its relations and Kuwait recalled its ambassador after the embassy was stormed. Jordan summoned Iran's ambassador.
After reaching a landmark nuclear deal with world powers in July, Rouhani is seeking to end Iran's long isolation with the West. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... the repercussions of the attack could jeopardize that, posing the biggest diplomatic crisis of his government.
Members of the U.N. Security Council released a statement on Monday condemning the attack, and another on a consulate in the city of Mashhad, "in the strongest terms".
"By punishing the attackers and those who orchestrated this obvious offense, we should put an end once and forever to such damage and insults to Iran's dignity and national security," Rouhani was quoted as saying in a letter published on the state news agency IRNA.
While embassies are often a focus of protests worldwide, Iran still celebrates the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran every year and refers to it as the Second Revolution.
Since then, Iranians have attacked several embassies in Tehran, including those of Kuwait in 1987, Saudi Arabia in 1988, Denmark in 2006 and Britannia in 2011, most of which have led to a breach in diplomatic relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
President Hassan Rouhani asked Iran's judiciary on Wednesday to urgently prosecute the people who attacked the Saudi embassy at the direction of Rouhani's Government and IRGC in Tehran in protest at the kingdom's execution of a prominent Shi'ite holy man.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/07/2016 8:51
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] 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.... threatened to destroy 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... n prisons holding jihadists after Riyadh's execution of 47 people including 43 convicted al Qaeda bully boys.
The bully boy group, which has grabbed credit for attacks in the kingdom and stepped up operations in neighboring Yemen, singled out the al-Ha'ir and Tarfiya prisons where many al Qaeda and Islamic State supporters have been detained.
"The Islamic State always seeks to free prisoners, but we calculate that the ending of the issues of prisoners will not happen except with the eradication of the rule of tyrants, and then destroying their prisons and razing them to the ground," it said in an article posted online on Tuesday.
An Islamic State supporter killed himself in a boom-mobile at a checkpoint outside Ha'ir prison near Riyadh in July.
While Islamic State and al Qaeda are rivals who have condemned each other on ideological grounds, they are both united in enmity towards Saudi Arabia, which has declared them terrorist groups and locked up thousands of their supporters.
Riyadh's mass execution on Saturday included four Shi'ite Muslims, among them prominent holy man Nimr al-Nimr, a move that heightened sectarian tensions with Shi'ite power Iran. But anamysts say it was mostly meant as a message to bully boy Sunnis.
Islamic State has grabbed credit for a series of bombings and shootings in Saudi Arabia since Nov. 2014 that have killed more than 50 people, most of them Shi'ites but also more than 15 members of the security forces.
Saudi security officials say the group's supporters inside Saudi Arabia mainly act independently, depending on Islamic State for only limited logistical help and advice, making them harder to detect, but also less capable of attacks on well protected targets.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... (AQAP) threatened in December to "shed the blood of the soldiers of Al Saud" if its members were executed.
AQAP is the Yemen-based wing of the global bully boy movement and was formed by local jihadists and veterans of al Qaeda's earlier uprising in Saudi Arabia from 2003-06, for participation in which most of those executed on Saturday were convicted.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2016
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PESHAWAR: The Special Police Unit arrested a terrorist wanted to Hangu police from Kohat on Wednesday.
According to police, the Special Police Unit arrested a terrorist identified as Chan Beg. The arrested terrorist was wanted to Hangu police in connection with terror attacks in 2009. The terrorist was handed over to City police for further interrogation.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Joint Special Operations Command announced, that the so-called ISIS War Minister was killed in an aerial bombardment in Barwana District in Anbar Province, along with three of his assistants.
The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The Iraqi Army Aviation has bombarded the hideout of the so-called ISIS War Minister Dohan al-Rawi in Tel Khrintha in Barwana District, killing him along with three of his assistants,” adding that, “A security force have besieged him for five hours before the aerial bombardment.”
A woman with a western Libya accent said that she regretted how she was ‘‘brainwashed’’ by IS/Daesh into converting her to their cause.
The alleged confession came in the latest video released by the Rada (Special Deterrence Force) in Tripoli last week.
The woman, who said she was a Tripoli resident and is referred to in her alias name of Umm Al Aina, said that she had been converted by a Libyan in the eastern city Derna through Facebook. She was converted and became a follower of his preaching on the basis that his interpretation of Islam was ”right”.
After her conversion she was called upon to leave Tripoli the land of heretics and travel to Sirte the land of Islam, she explained.
After she joined IS, she was married-off to a fellow IS member. Other Libyan women were married off to various other Arab nationalities, she revealed.
However, she said that IS ‘’used us’’ in the short term to ‘’satisfy their desires’’ and then ‘’discarded us’’. Her so-called husband divorced her after a month. She also discovered they ‘’fooled’’ other girls too.
She noted the shallowness of their theological foundations saying that they did not implement Islamic Sharia law properly. This had ‘’increased her suspicions’’ of them she added. They considered all of Tripoli a heretic city of non-believing Kafirs (apostasy).
They considered her practice of Islam as heretic as well as all her family as heretics. She found their theological reasoning unconvincing, she said.
When I queried them on Islam they proved they were not educated in theological understanding, she explained.
She warned others that she was a victim and that others should not allow IS to fool them too. She also warned youngsters to consult established ‘’Sunni theologians on (proper satellite TV) channels not ‘‘hidden’’ ones behind the internet’’.
A second woman revealed in the alleged confessional video with the alias Umm Leith Al-Trabulsia said she was only 18 years old. She said she had been arrested in her way to Sirte.
She too said that she had been converted through the internet. She also said that once converted she started to see her family as heretics.
She advised girls of her age to’’ look for the (theological) truth and ask learned people before they base their beliefs on falsehoods’’.
It must be noted that critics of Rada see these videos as a partial marketing tool for Rada brigade which is nominally under government control and part of the Ministry of Interior, but operates with much autonomy under its leader Abdel Rauf Kara.
Critics accuse Rada of angling to be given a role in the security role in Tripoli as part of the UN-brokered Libyan Political Agreement and the Faiez Serraj Government of National Accord.
It must also be recalled that Rada has been accused of using excessive force in its anti-criminal actions which have led to the death of accused criminals prior to them being sentenced by a court.
Rest in Peace, soldier...
[ArmyTimes] The Defense Department identified the soldier killed Tuesday in Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock, 30, died from wounds suffered when the enemy attacked his unit with small arms fire, according to the DoD announcement released late Wednesday.
The incident is under investigation.
McClintock, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was assigned to 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, in Buckley, Washington.
McClintock and his fellow Green Berets, from 1st Battalion’s A Company, deployed to Afghanistan in July, according to information from the Washington Army National Guard.
McClintock joined the Army in 2006. After completing his training, McClintock was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division, deploying to Iraq in 2007.
He was chosen for selection in the U.S. Army Special Forces School in May 2009, according to information from the Guard. He was assigned to 1st Special Forces Group, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, in November 2010.
He deployed to Afghanistan from August 2012 to May 2013.
McClintock left active-duty in December 2014 and was assigned to 1st Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group, which is part of the Washington Guard. He was a Special Forces engineer sergeant, according to information from the Guard.
“Staff Sergeant McClintock was one of the best of the best,” said Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, commander of the Washington Guard, in a statement. “He was a Green Beret who sacrificed time away from his loved ones to train for and carry out these dangerous missions. This is a tough loss for our organization.”
McClintock is survived by his wife, infant son and his parents, according to the Guard.
McClintock was killed and two others were wounded in hours-long fighting Tuesday near the city of Marjah, in southern Helmand province.
Col. Mike Lawhorn, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said “all casualties have been evacuated,” the Associated Press reported earlier on Wednesday.
The troops’ evacuation was delayed Tuesday when one helicopter took fire and was unable to land, and another was unable to take off.
Lawhorn told the AP that U.S. special operations forces were advising their Afghan counterparts during the battle. The Taliban have recently attacked a number of cities in Helmand, one of several fronts where the insurgents have advanced in the year since the U.S. and NATO formally concluded their combat mission.
Initial reports about the battle were sketchy.
“There is still a fight going on,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Tuesday afternoon, hours after the casualties were sustained. “We don’t yet have all the details surrounding what has taken place.”
Cook added two U.S. helicopters were dispatched to the scene to provide medical evacuation for the U.S. casualties but could not complete the mission, according to the AP. One was waved off after taking fire and returned safely to its base, Cook said. The other, an Air Force HH-60 Pave Hawk, landed safely but was unable to take off because its rotor struck a wall.
[Tolo News] An Afghan National Army soldier has been caught on camera switching sides and joining the Taliban in Dand-e-Ghori area in Pul-e-Khumri, Baghlan province.
In footage received by TOLOnews, the soldier receives a warm welcome from Taliban fighters in the area -- where officials believe that the holy warrior group has a huge presence.
"Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... son of Mohammad Akbar resident of Laghman [province] who served in the ANA ranks for past 11 months, today [Wednesday] joined Mujahideen along with his US-made PK gun," a Taliban member says after welcoming the former soldier.
Security officials at the 3rd Brigade of the 209th Shaheen Corps of the ANA base confirmed the soldier switched allegiance to the Taliban and said he had been part of the 6th battalion of the ANA troops in Samangan province.
The officials said it appeared as if the soldier joined the Taliban voluntarily.
"A few days ago, the weather was bad and the solider lost his way and went to the area under control of the Taliban," said Ghulam Farooq Ahmadi, the Commander of the 3rd Brigade of 209th Shaheen Corps.
Meanwhile, ...back at the hanging, Butch continued with his last words, trying not to repeat himself too often...... Baghlan Police Chief Abdul Rashid Bashir said he cannot confirm the issue, but said he is concerned about the presence of Taliban fighters in Dand-e-Ghori.
"We are not in a position to confirm the footage, but yes the soldier who joined the Taliban was from Kunduz [province] who came to Dand-e-Ghori -- an area where the Taliban has more presence," said Abdul Rashid Bashir Baghlan acting Police Chief.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) has not commented.
According to a controversial agreement signed last year between the Ministry of Tribal and Border Affairs and the tribal elders in Dand-e-Ghori, the locals agreed to not allow activity of any holy warrior group or security forces in their area, but now reports indicate that the area has turned into a safe haven for the rebels.
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Amid concerns that the loyalists of 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.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group are gaining foothold in Afghanistan, the Chief Executive Officer, Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... has said the presence of the loyalists of the terror is not a significant force.
Admitting that the terror group poses threats not only to Afghanistan but the entire region, CEO Abdullah said the Afghanistan is determined to deal with the terror group loyalists as the Afghan government continues to work with its international allies to deal with the security challenges.
CEO Abdullah is currently on a state visit to Iran to discuss issues of bilateral interest between Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... and Tehran.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales... Abdullah said the loyalists of ISIS terror group in Afghanistan have good resources. "There is no doubt that they [Daesh [Islamic State] terrorists] have good resources," Abdullah told Press TV during an interview.
"It [Daesh [Islamic State]] is a threat. It is a threat for Afghanistan. It is a threat for region. It is a threat for global peace and Afghanistan is determined to deal with it and at the same time it is not as significant force in Afghanistan as Taliban," he added.
The remarks by Abdullah comes as the loyalists of the terror group have recently stepped up insurgency activities and anti-government propaganda as they continue to expand foothold in the country.
The terror group also launched an FM radio late last year in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province and later issued a propaganda video which purportedly shows the cruel terrorist activities of the terror group in Afghanistan.
The US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter also warned regarding the emergent threat of the terror group during a surprise visit to Afghanistan late in December last year, however he said the threat posed by the terror group is being tracked very closely as they have started creating 'little nests' in Afghanistan.
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
The head of the Libyan armed forces, General Khalifa Hafter, has ordered fighter planes at Benghazi’s Benina air force base to move to Ras Lanuf to protect the oil terminals and nearby oil fields from further attacks by the so-called Islamic State (IS).
The order follows an accusation from Ibrahim Jedhran, who heads the central region Petroleum Facilities’ Guards (PFG), that Hafter’s air force did nothing to defend the oil installations at the Ras Lanuf and Sidra terminals when they were attacked by IS yesterday and the day before. He said Hafter and IS were two sides of the same coin.
Six oil tanks – four in Sidra and two at Ras Lanuf – were set ablaze as fires spread as a result of the initial attacks. The National Oil Corporation has called for international help to put them out.
Aircraft were used to attack IS following the attack, but they are said to have come from Misrata. IS has now threatened it with reprisals because of the air strikes.
The situation at both terminals was this afternoon said to be calm although some missiles were reported to have landed at Sidra in the morning. IS forces have now pulled back to their new base at Ben Jawad, 30 kilometres further west. However, PFG officials have told the Libya Herald that they expect a fresh attack by IS.
It took Ben Jawad at the beginning of the week. A year ago, the town was used as the base for Libya Dawn’s failed assault on Sidra during which three oil tanks were destroyed.
Meanwhile there are reports that one of the four suicide attackers who launched the initial attack at Sidra on Monday was a 15-year-old from Tripoli who disappeared four months ago. Yesterday, IS had claimed that all the attackers were Sudanese. The boy, named as Abdulmonem Duelah, is said to have been recruited in Daesh at a local Tripoli mosque and then sent to Sirte.
Last month, Mustafa Sanalla, the NOC chairman recognised by the Tripoli authorities, warned that IS could attack the terminals and oil fields. His fear was that they would do so not to seize and keep them but to destroy them and deny the Libyan state oil income.
KARACHI: Five suspected militants affiliated with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group were killed in an 'encounter' in Karachi on Saturday, police said.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rao Anwar said the 'militants' were killed during an exchange with police at a graveyard in Machar Colony area of Sohrab Goth.
"The militants had set up a hideout in the graveyard and on police's arrival, they opened fire," claimed Rao Anwar.
In the encounter that ensued, five attackers were killed, he said.
Two of the attackers were identified as Naeem and Hafeezullah, while identities of the other have not asceratined so far, the police official added.
Police also claimed to have recovered 2.5 kilograms of explosive material and other arms and ammunition from the hideout.
Earlier today, police claimed to have detained four men, also allegedly affiliated with the TTP, from Karachi's posh Defence Housing Authority Phase 1 neighbourhood.
Karachi-South Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Dr Jamil Ahmed said a shopping bag containing ball bearings, suicide jackets and 4 kilograms of explosive material was recovered from the arrested men.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] 31 bully boyz have been killed in fresh festivities between Taliban and Daesh [Islamic State] groups in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
Spokesperson for the governor of Nangarhar said the festivities took place in Bati Kot and Achin districts.
Atuallah Khogyani added that the shootout that erupted in Doyam Farm area of Bati Kot District on Wednesday morning left 18 members of Daesh [Islamic State] group killed and four others maimed.
He said those killed include two commanders of the group by the name Ajmal and Abdul Ahad.
The governor's spokesperson further said that the second clash erupted in Achin District leaving five fighters of Taliban killed and four maimed.
It also left eight members of Daesh [Islamic State] killed, Khogyani add.
This comes a day after 15 fighters of Daesh [Islamic State] were killed in a clash with security forces in Saluram Farm area Bati Kot District.
The group planned to attack a security post but security forces raided them before they could launch their attack.
Nangarhar has turned into a hotspot of the group where it is trying to establish a regional command.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Al Ahram] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... on Wednesday refused to condemn 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... for its execution of 47 convicts including a prominent Shia holy man, saying it was an "internal legal matter" of the kingdom.
"The executions in Saudi Arabia are an internal legal matter. Whether you approve or not of the decision is a separate issue," Erdogan, who last month visited Riyadh in a new sign of Ankara's warm ties with the kingdom, said in a televised speech in his first reaction to the controversy
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Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
Tunisian authorities have extended the state of emergency until February 21 as the threat of terrorism in the country remains high in the North African country.
Following the beach terror attacks perpetrated last July in Sousse killing 38 foreign tourists, including 30 Britons, Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi declared a 30-day state of emergency. Five months later, another terrorist blast hit a bus packed with Tunisian presidential guards in the capital Tunis on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, pushing president Essebsi to impose again a one-month state of emergency.
The North African country, which has been targeted by the Islamic State group, is believed to be the biggest exporter of jihadists, with the authorities saying at least 3,000 of its nationals are fighting in Iraq and Syria. According to the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, the number of Tunisian militants joining the Islamic State in Syria & Iraq is one of the highest among the foreign jihadists adhering to the radical terror group.
The factors pushing Tunisians to join the extremist group are as varied. Some are enticed by gunsex religious and political ideologies, while others are lured by financial gains, stressed the UN experts.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/07/2016
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Speculation is swirling that front-running Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton still suffers from the effects of a 2012 concussion and blood clot that sidelined her while she was secretary of state, Breitbart News reports. 
North Korea
It's the Daily Mail so way too long to be quoted here. Lots of pictures as well. 
[Gulf Today] Philippine security forces rescued 26 people aboard a 
North Korea
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Death toll of the six-month-old siege imposed on the town of Madaya northwest of Damascus has risen to 31, local activists and medics said Wednesday.
[Bangla New Age] The Appellate Division on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Jamaat chief 
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – According to a local source in Nineveh province, 19 Afghan ISIS elements, including an explosives expert, had been killed while trying to booby-trap vehicles east of the city of Mosul.
[CNN] Cologne's mayor has come under fire for advising women to stay "an arm's length" from male strangers after alleged sexual assaults and muggings during New Year's Eve festivities in the German city.
...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...
[The Nation] A Thai ranger was killed Wednesday morning after militants detonated a homemade bomb to ambush his patrol unit in Narathiwat province. Police said Maneethorn Kanchanakarn and 11 other rangers were on patrol when insurgents set off a gas cylinder bomb to ambush them. The two sides exchanged gunfire for about 10 minutes after the blast. Maneethorn died en route to the hospital.
[Manila Times] The Philippine Army's 73rd Infantry Battalion based in Davao del Sur has begun pursuit operations to track down Mohammad Jaafar Maguid, the alleged leader of Ansar al-Khilafah (Supporters of the Caliphate) in the Philippines (AKP). He is believed to be in the hinterlands of Sarangani Province.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Nearly 1.1 million people were registered as asylum-seekers in Germany last year, more than 400,000 of them from Syria, the government said Wednesday.
