h/t Instapundit
The Affordable Care Act suffered another jolt late last week with the news that UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, was making good on its threat to pull out of Obamacare, beginning with its operations in Georgia and Arkansas.
UnitedHealth roiled the market last November when it revealed that it was considering exiting Obamacare after incurring hundreds of millions of dollars in losses related to ACA business.
People have long predicted that California could eventually collapse into the ocean following a mega earthquake. Now, an eerily similar true-life scenario is playing out - but it's thanks to the weather. And farming for vegetables. And Delta Smelt conservation.
The state has sunk more than 45 feet since 1935 - something the U.S. government calls the "largest human alteration of the earth's surface." It's happening because of excessive groundwater mining brought on by farming and drought, and geologists say all the rain in the world won't reverse cave-ins of dirt and rock in underground aquifers.
California is entering its fifth year of drought, with the past two years being the warmest on record. Everybody knows you can't have a dust-bowl drought without manmade-global-climate-change.
"We've not seen anything like this in recent history," Lund said. "The last time we saw this was in the '20s and '30s when we had the Dust Bowl." When manmade-global-climate-change was at its' previous zenith.
Recent storms have brought some reservoirs back to their average levels but, according to a state website, many others are still below average as summer approaches. As lakes dried up, the water tap was shut off to farmers in Central California where 60 percent of the nation's fresh vegetables are grown. For the past two years, farmers have received no above-ground water and have had to rely solely whatever they can pull out from earth. Well, a few farmers will lose their jobs, but then they'll go on the government dole and vote democratic. We'll just have to import more food, maybe from Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
Farmers use 40 percent of the state's water supply. Residential and commercial usage is 10 percent, and the rest is released into the waterways or used by the government. Federal and state water agencies share control over California's maze of lakes, dams, canals, rivers and the aqueduct ‐ the largest waterway system in the world. Good thing they have manmade-global-climate-change to cover their mismanagement and Smelt-saving.
But while celebrities shell out for green lawns and farmers struggle to water their crops, an environmental showdown is taking place between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and conservative lawmakers, farmers and residents who accuse the agency of wasting millions of gallons of water to protect salmon and an endangered anchovy called the delta smelt. Yeah, that Delta Smelt.
Low river levels means an increase in water temperature, and the government periodically releases enough water to decrease the temperature so fish won't die.
But California's water problem is bigger than fishes or farmers. A famous photo on the U.S. Geological Survey website shows geologist Joseph F. Poland in 1977 standing next to a telephone pole where placards are placed up to 30 feet above his head marking various ground levels dating back to 1925. Poland began publicizing the disaster of disappearing groundwater back in the 1940s.
As the population exploded and farming acreage increased, the land collapse accelerated - one area dropped nearly 40 inches between 2007 and 2010. And in just eight months leading up to February 2015, it sank another 13 inches. Coming soon! More beach-front real estate!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2016
12:16 ||
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#1
The state has sunk more than 45 feet since 1935
By this logic, moi should have drowned decades ago.
As the former doorman said in K-PAX, "...bullshitbullshitbullshit..."
#2
All the aquaducts in the Bay Area are full. I don't think we are in the 5th year of drought. We may still have a ways to go to replenish the Aquafers but that doesn't equal Drought.
Oops. Next time.
A failure to adequately plan for the aid and governing of Libya after the U.S.-led NATO attacks in 2011 "probably" was his biggest error in office, President Barack Obama said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday." What about the total ignorance which is your normal operating state? Does that fit in anywhere?
Asked by host Chris Wallace about the "worst mistake" of his soon-to-end White House years, Obama listed the aftermath of the ouster and death of Moammar Qaddafi, even as he defended the intervention. How did he manage to just pick one? What about the agreement with Iran? Obamacare? Dissing Poland? The Apology Tour? Jeebus, where do I begin? Not supporting the rebellion in Iran? The border disaster?
"Probably failing to plan for the day after," Obama said in the session, which was taped at the University of Chicago on April 7. He added that intervening in Libya "was the right thing to do." Maybe. If only you had one of them 'day-after' plans.
The Libya operation and its chaotic aftermath has been resurrected in the 2016 presidential campaign. That's in part because of the increasing presence of the Islamic State there, and U.S. airstrikes to disrupt its operation.
Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, as Obama's secretary of state, strongly supported the intervention. In a 2011 interview with CBS News when still secretary, Clinton said of Qaddafi, "We came. We saw. He died." So did a lot of other good people. And while he was no good man, Qadaffy wasn't as bad as he was made out to be.
At a March 7 town hall meeting, Clinton said what has happened since then "is deeply regrettable. There have been forces coming from the outside, internal squabbles that have led to the instability that has given terrorist groups, including ISIS, a foothold in some parts of Libya." Yeah. That's why we couldn't foresee the obvious.
"I think it's fair to say, however, if there had not been" an intervention "we would be looking at something much more resembling Syria now, than what we faced in Libya," she said in March. Bull$hit. Your ignorant policy of having your cake and eating it too in Syria effed up things beyond all recognition.
Army General David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters last week that the Islamic State presence in Libya has doubled since 2015 to as many as 6,000 fighters. I understand we kill about 50/day. It won't be long before they're all demoralized and dead, right?
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Yahoo News in January that he thought Clinton's "influence was pivotal in persuading the president to broaden the goal in Libya beyond just saving the people in Benghazi" from Qaddafi's forces and "essentially focusing more on regime change. The president told me that it was one of the closest decisions he'd ever made, sort of 51-49, and I'm not sure that he would've made that decision if Secretary Clinton hadn't supported it." Saving which people in Benghazi? The embassy staff, or the terrorists?
The Congressional Research Service this month wrote that Libya's "political transition has been disrupted by armed non-state groups and threatened by the indecision and infighting of interim leaders" after the armed uprising toppled Qaddafi's regime. You mean the toppling that happened right after 0bean called it one of his big success stories?
"Interim authorities" have "proved unable to form a stable government, address pressing security issues, reshape the country's public finances, or create a viable framework for post-conflict justice and reconciliation," according to CRS, the public policy research arm of the U.S. Congress. Maybe you shouldn't have left Inshallah in charge?
A United Nations-sponsored unity government led by Fayez Serraj assumed office last month and has won support from politicians and militias, offering hope that Libya may begin to emerge from the turmoil that has uprooted nearly half a million people since Qaddafi fell in 2011 after more than four decades in power.
Obama told Fox News that his best day in office was the one on which his signature health care plan was passed, and his worst was "the day we traveled up to Newtown," after the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Only because the former didn't interfere with your tee time, I'm sure.
#4
So if intervening in Libya was the "right thing to do" that means the next right thing to do would be to occupy that country indefinitely; dealing with al Qaeda, ISIS, Qaddafi loyalists, and all the other various and assorted nut jobs who inhabit that part of the world. Good thinking, Baraq. Now forget about it and go play another round of golf.
#5
"Probably failing to plan for the day after," Obama said. He added that intervening in Libya "was the right thing to do."
I vaguely recall a couple of folks skewering G. W. Bush for poor planning of the Iraq adventure, not too long after everyone in the whole world endorsed the idea.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2016 14:26
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At Israeli Apartheid Week, campus haters claim to be fighting "colonialism" by fighting Jews. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, dedicated to a country that doesn’t exist and which has produced nothing worth studying except terrorism, features diatribes such as Palestine Re-Covered: Reading a Settler Colonial Landscape". This word salad is a toxic stew of historical revisionism being used to justify the Muslim settler colonization of the indigenous Jewish population.
You can’t colonize Palestine because you can't colonize colonizers. The Muslim population in Israel is a foreign colonist population. The indigenous Jewish population can resettle its own country, but it can’t colonize it.
Muslims invaded, conquered and settled Israel. They forced their language and laws on the population. That's the definition of colonialism. You can't colonize and then complain that you're being colonized when the natives take back the power that you stole from them.
There are Muslims in Israel for the same reason that there are Muslims in India. They are the remnants of a Muslim colonial regime that displaced and oppressed the indigenous non-Muslim population.
There are no serious historical arguments to be made against any of this.
The Muslim conquests and invasions are well-documented. The Muslim settlements fit every historical template of colonialism complete with importing a foreign population and social system that was imposed on the native population. Until they began losing wars to the indigenous Jewish population, the Muslim settlers were not ashamed of their colonial past, they gloried in it. Their historical legacy was based on seizing indigenous sites, appropriating them and renaming them after the new conquerors.
#2
If this talk of history was run by vegetarian women rather than flesh-eating men, this whole Israeli disaster would never have happened. You know right now, we're working to raise the consciousness of the vegetarian minorities with diet sensitivity training, so that people will be able to deal foul past.
President Barack Obama is guaranteeing that evidence, not politics, will dictate the outcome of the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails as secretary of state. As evidenced by the Ignoramus in Chief sticking his nose and two cents into the equation, of course.
Obama's comments came during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, his first as president. Obama said he continues to believe Clinton didn't jeopardize America's national security with her private email server, but he added that "there's a carelessness in terms of managing emails" that she has recognized. They only had to club her about the head and shoulders with it for a year before she recognized it. Yeah, she's fit to be president.
"What I also know, because I handle a lot of classified information, is that there are -- there's classified, and then there's classified," Obama told Fox News. "There's stuff that is really top-secret, top-secret, and there's stuff that is being presented to the president or the secretary of state, that you might not want on the transom, or going out over the wire, but is basically stuff that you could get in open-source." There are little people, and there are big people . . . .
Obama said no one has suggested that Clinton's handling of government emails detracted in any way "from her excellent ability to carry out her duties." When asked specifically whether he can guarantee that Clinton will "not be in any way protected" during the course of the investigation, Obama said he maintains a strict line about not talking to FBI directors about pending investigations.
"I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case," Obama said during an interview that was taped during his visit to the University of Chicago School of Law, where he taught. I wonder if General Petraeus would agree with you.
The FBI is investigating whether sensitive information that flowed through Clinton's email server was mishandled. The inspector generals for the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies are separately investigating whether rules or laws were broken. Maybe Guccifer might have something to say about this. Things were fine until he hacked Clinton's email.
Obama touched on several issues during the interview, including the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and how he deals with the threat of terrorism.
- On Garland's nomination, Obama said he will stick with him through the end of his term. "What I think we can't have, is a situation in which the Republican Senate simply says, 'Because it's a Democratic president, we are not going to do our job, have hearings, and have a vote,' " he said. It was fine when Dingy Harry did just that on your behalf. But now the shoe is on the other foot, isn't it?
- On terrorism, Obama said he doesn't think Americans have made too much of the threat of terrorist attack. He also said he hasn't let acts of terror disrupt some of his regular activities because it's important to communicate a message of resilience and "that we don't panic, that we don't fear." We don't fear because we're ignorant because you keep obscuring what's really going on from the general public. Don't think so? Ask a few in San Fran what they think of the Norks and Iranians getting nukes, who ISIS is, etc.. It's a real eye-opener!
"There isn't a president who's taken more terrorists off the field than me, over the last seven-and-a-half years," Obama explained to Fox News. Any idea how those terrorists got to be there in the first place? Don't think that I don't recognize it was you who created the target-rich environment.
"I'm the guy who calls the families, or meets with them, or hugs them, or tries to comfort a mom, or a dad, or a husband, or a kid, after a terrorist attack. So let's be very clear about how much I prioritize this: this is my number one job." Right after giving Iran the bomb and golfing, not necessarily in that order.
- On what he most looks forward to when leaving office: "Being able to take a walk outside." No comment. I don't want to get banned for stating the obvious.
- On his best and worst day in office. Obama said the best was the day health insurance reform passed and the worst was the day he traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, after the massacre at Sandy Hook. What about your best day out of the office? And Sandy Hook is bad, but nothing like the day Israel gets nuked.
#1
I don't understand the "Obama said he maintains a strict line about not talking to FBI directors about pending investigations" whilst talking in an interview.
[WAPO] White women have been dying prematurely at higher rates since the turn of this century, passing away in their 30s, 40s and 50s in a slow-motion crisis driven by decaying health in small-town America, according to an analysis of national health and mortality statistics by The Washington Post.
Among African Americans, Hispanics and even the oldest white Americans, death rates have continued to fall. But for white women in what should be the prime of their lives, death rates have spiked upward. In one of the hardest-hit groups -- rural white women in their late 40s -- the death rate has risen by 30 percent.
#2
Auto accidents.
As ladies entered the workforce and now that rural employees are commuting farther for work, there are more highway deaths among the working class. Something like 50k/yr.
Only the popular social meme causes are mentioned of course.
#9
Glenmore, I'm sure what the overall trend is, but I look around this town and see way too many young women just ruined. I'm sure their kids do not have a chance, especially young lungs with haz-mat level house air, then the lack of food, hygiene, household maintenance, a whole cascade.
The lucky kids get raised by grandma, which of course is a lot of stress on grandma.
I wouldn't call it then, decaying health, but decaying lifestyle. I'd say there are the traditional losers who work odd jobs in between binges, and then the locusts - city people find a house for rent cheap and gather as many locusts as can possibly fit in said rental, they then supplement their government money by theft and/or selling. Boom, don't have to work, just have to make sure they don't run out of product, oh and change the diapers if someone thinks about it.
The Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has announced he will resign next week, blaming politicians' failure to enact "real changes". Mr Yatsenyuk, in office since former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February 2014, said he would inform parliament on Tuesday.
The current President, Petro Poroshenko, asked him to quit in February, saying he had lost support. His government has been accused of inaction and corruption.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has threatened to withhold aid money if it does not carry out reforms. More at the link
[Guardian] A future president Trump or Cruz could be defied by his own intelligence chief, after CIA director John Brennan said on Sunday he would not allow members of his agency to carry out torture techniques such as waterboarding.
"I will not agree to carry out some of these tactics and techniques I’ve heard bandied about because this institution needs to endure," Brennan told NBC News.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the leading two Republican candidates in a field of three, have suggested they would use waterboarding and other controversial "enhanced interrogation techniques" against terror suspects.
Cruz has said he does not consider waterboarding to be torture, and would "use whatever enhanced interrogation methods we could to keep this country safe".
In the aftermath of the Brussels bombings last month, Trump told NBC: "If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from people."
#7
Puppet master Brennan is angered not by comments about water boarding, this is of little concern to him. His angst has surfaced as a result of the recent anti-regime media interviews by former directors and high ranking intelligence professionals.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/11/2016 9:28
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#10
Water boarding does not work as a tactic to educe intel from a detainee. It is, however, an effective straw man cleverly designed to shift focus away from the elephant in the room. We need folks to please open their eyes and see the elephant...which is the idiotic Obama policy that does not let us capture, hold and interrogate terrorists. Detainees equal intel. Intel that leads to additional targets. A detainee equals not only intel, but forces decentralization of bad guy ops, and changes or cancellation of future bad guy ops. All good stuff. An EKIA, as referred to by Boeseker, tells no tales and equals little, if any, opportunity to target more bad guys.
#14
Much easier to find and administer a bucket of water and a towel than approved psychotropic chemicals. The multi-nuanced responses from the interrogation are easier to correlate as well.
#17
Snopes says that Brennan's conversion to Islam while in Saudi Arabia is Unproven. and springs from one former CIA agent. However, he's certainly said and done a few odd things over the years that would lead one in that direction.
#18
...Something about this was bothering me, and it took a while to figure out, especially after I remembered an article about EPA chief Gina McCarthy yelling that the EPA will 'fight tooth and nail' against a President Trump or President Cruz.
You almost wonder after putting that together if these two are implying that they will not step down if Trump or Cruz win.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2016 17:24
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#19
I remembered an article about EPA chief Gina McCarthy yelling that the EPA will 'fight tooth and nail' against a President Trump or President Cruz.
Solution - cut their salaries to $1 - see how long they stick around.
#23
That's pretty much what he ought to say. And if there were a real ticking nuke situation that demanded torture, he should not try to justify it, but lie like a rug. Saying you'd be willing to torture is a really bad road to start down.
We've seen this sort of slippery slope before: Spying on citizens is only for national security, except when it is for drug enforcement, or ...
Posted by: james ||
04/11/2016 20:59
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[CNN] A top intelligence officer with the North Korean military has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean officials. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun and Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said that the defector was a senior colonel with the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau.
Speaking in separate press conferences, the ministry spokesmen confirmed that reports on the defection by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency were accurate, but they could give no further details.
North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau is the agency responsible for handling clandestine operations, including espionage against foreign countries and cyber-warfare operations.
Last week, 13 North Koreans who had been working at a Pyongyang-owned restaurant in an unnamed Asian country defected to South Korea. They said they had defected after "feeling pressure from North Korean authorities" to send foreign currency back to their homeland.
[ABC] A U.S. Naval officer who has been charged with espionage has been identified as Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, a Taiwanese-born flight officer assigned to a Naval reconnaissance unit. Lin was arrested eight months ago but his case did not become public until a pre-trial hearing this past Friday that will determine whether he will face a court martial.
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that Lin was the officer whose identity had been redacted in court documents presented at an Article 32 hearing held Friday in Norfolk, Virginia. USNI News was first to report Lin's identity in a posting Sunday.
The U.S. official told ABC News that preliminary indications point to possible espionage for either China or Taiwan, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI are continuing to investigate the case.
Lin is currently assigned to Commander Patrol and Reconnaissance Group, a maritime patrol and reconnaissance unit in Norfolk that provides airborne anti-submarine warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance using P-8A Poseidon aircraft, P-3 Orion aircraft and MQ-4 unmanned aircraft.
Three suicide bombers carried out explosions in a village in Russia's Stavropol region, close to the North Caucasus, Interfax news agency quoted a police source as saying on Monday.
The suicide bombers were killed by the blasts and no one else was hurt, according to RIA news agency.
I believe there is more to this than meets the eye specially with this current administration. The pride of our country. A symbol of strength and power. Obama will leave these craft to waist away. His finger in the eyes of America.
#5
Couple that with the acknowledgement of 100s more SF, the troops already there gives me a bad feeling someone caught wind of somebody got ahold of something really nasty, and if it can be found then B-52 it to death. Dare I say, arclight?
I just hope it isn't air cover for Turkey vs. Kurds.
[USATODAY] Virtual reality can bring us to the top of Mt. Everest. But Stanford University researchers believe it can conquer an even steeper challenge: racial and sexual discrimination. This is of course the absolute first priority of the National Football League. Anything else is just playing games.
“Feeling prejudice by walking a mile in someone else’s shoes is what VR was made for," says Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Thirty-some men, most of them supersized, have been frittering their time away playing football when they should have been concentrating on postmodernist deconstructive feminist afro gay studies. Damn them.
Its diversity training scenarios, which aim to engender empathy, have attracted interest from one large organization: the National Football League. The NFL is in the early stages of determining how it will use the new technology to train league staffers and players on understanding bias, league executives tell USA TODAY. As long as they're not abusing dogs or raping women I'd think they could be left alone. A simple "don't do that" should suffice for most adults.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#1
As opposed to real reality in which discrimination (me, not me) spatial analysis is a survival trait.
[ARA News] DAMASCUS ــ Extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS) have reportedly killed scores of workers who were captured at a cement factory located to the east of Syria’s capital Damascus, activists reported on Sunday.
This comes after the Syrian state agency SANA reported that 300 workers from the governmental cement factory, near the city of Dumair eastern Damascus, had been kidnapped and that efforts continue to free them from the radical group.
Speaking to ARA News in Damascus, rights activist Jamal Dumani said that ISIS has executed around 150 abductees who were captured in the area to the north-east of Abu al-Shamat in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
The hardline group reportedly abducted the employees after an ISIS-led offensive on Monday near Dumair city.
On the other hand, pro-ISIS media sources reported that the group has released nearly 300 workers subsequent to its control over the Sin factory in the eastern Qalamoun.
“Islamic State’s fighters have freed around 300 hostages, but there remain some 20 members of the pro-Assad People’s Committees militia along with four others from the Druze religious group,” ISIS-linked Amaq agency reported.
“The whole Assad’s thugs, including the Druze group members, were executed,” it added.
“The international community must bear its responsibilities to contribute to the liberation of the innocent civilian workers from the most brutal group in the world,” Syrian journalist Ahmad Salim told ARA News, pointing out that the abductees are not involved in any military conflict in the country.
In January, the group kidnapped more than 380 civilians, including women and children, in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, whose fate remains unknown.
Last year, ISIS had abducted at least 220 Assyrian Christians from the areas surrounding Tel Temir town in Hasakah province, northeast Syria. However, many of them have been released through tribal mediators.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016
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[IsraelTimes] Conflicting reports in Paleostinian media blame rain, Egyptian military action for 12th deadly cave-in of the year
A dreadful way to die, crushed under the uncaring earth in accordance with Allah's will. Could it be that he loves the Palestinian branch of the Moslem Brotherhood as little as he loves the Egyptian branch?
At least two members of the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror group were killed and several injured in a tunnel collapse in the Gazoo Strip on Sunday evening.
Conflicting reports in Paleostinian media outlets say between two and five people were killed when the tunnel collapsed beneath the city of Rafah in the southern end of the coastal territory, along the border with Egypt.
At least two were said to have been injured and one person may still be missing.
One report said unseasonable rains had caused the collapse, while another outlet reported that the Egyptian army had detonated the end of the tunnel that entered its territory, and flooded the remainder.
The collapsed tunnel was the 12th reported incident of its kind since the beginning of the year.
At least 16 people, most of them reportedly members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, have been killed in the collapses.
(IraqiNews.com) Basra – A security source in Basra Province revealed on Saturday, that a local-made improvised explosive device was detonated by unidentified persons near customs services and shipping office.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “A local-made improvised explosive device exploded near customs services and shipping office in al-Jazaer area in central Basra,” pointing out that, “The explosion only caused material damage to the office.”
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added, “The police forces opened an investigation into the incident to determine its circumstances.”
By subduing dissidents and eliminating rivals, Taleban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour is rapidly consolidating his authority over the fractious Afghan insurgent movement as it prepares for "decisive" battles in its upcoming spring offensive.
Mansour was declared Taleban leader last summer after the announcement of long-term chief Mullah Omar's death, but many top commanders refused to pledge their loyalty alleging that he rigged the hastily organised selection process.
Despite the infighting, the group saw a new resurgence under the firebrand supremo last year with striking military victories. Analysts predict that this year's offensive, expected to start this month, will be on a bigger scale.
"Let's prepare for decisive strikes against the enemy purely for the sake of Allah with strong determination and high spirits," Mansour told his followers in a recent message posted on the Taleban website.
Ahead of the offensive, Mansour has been rooting out the last vestiges of opposition to his leadership, buying the support of rebellious commanders, quashing renegade groups and luring dissidents with leadership positions, militant sources say.
The Taleban recently announced that two of the most influential dissenters - Mullah Abdul Manan, a brother of Mullah Omar and the deceased leader's son, Mullah Mohammed Yaqoub - will be given posts in Quetta Shura, the Taleban's leadership council.
Last week another vocal critic, Mullah Qayum Zakir, pledged his loyalty to Mansour.
It is not clear if they changed their mind willingly or came under duress from the Pakistani military establishment, which is said to have close ties with Mansour.
Mullah Dadullah, a prominent dissident commander, was killed last year in a gunfight with Mansour loyalists. And Mullah Rassoul, who formed a Taleban breakaway faction, has reportedly been detained by the Pakistani military.
"It's quite clear that Mullah Mansour is putting his power consolidation strategy into overdrive," Michael Kugelman, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based think tank the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said.
"Mansour understands that the time is ripe to do all he can to eliminate what is arguably the Taleban's greatest weakness - its internal power struggles."
New Taleban military gains in recent months have helped cement Mansour's authority by burnishing his credentials as a commander.
His resurgent group has opened new battlefronts across Afghanistan with local forces struggling to beat back the expanding insurgency.
They briefly captured the strategic northern city of Kunduz in September in their most spectacular victory in 14 years and southern opium-rich Helmand province is almost entirely under insurgent control.
"Mansour is preparing for a major military push, more spectacular victories against the government this year," Mullah Qasem, a retired Taleban commander in Helmand, said.
A senior Quetta Shura source said that Mansour is mobilising fighters for major offensives in up to six provinces.
[REUTERS] The hard boy cell behind bombings in Brussels had been plotting to hit La Belle France again after carrying out the Gay Paree attacks in November, but was forced to strike closer to home as police closed in, Belgian prosecutors said on Sunday.
Investigations into 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.... attacks in Gay Paree, which killed 130 people, showed that many of the perpetrators lived in Belgium, including surviving suspects who managed to evade police for more than four months.
Prime suspect Salah Abdeslam was placed in durance vile Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! on March 18 in the Belgian capital. Four days later, jacket wallahs killed 32 people in Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train.
"Numerous elements in the investigation have shown that the terrorist group initially had the intention to strike in La Belle France again," Belgium's federal prosecutor said in a statement.
"Surprised by the speed of progress in the investigation, they took the decision to strike in Brussels."
Belgian intelligence and security forces had been criticised abroad for not doing more to dismantle the hard boy cell, because of its links to the Gay Paree attacks.
As of Friday, all publicly identified suspects were either in detention or dead, but Belgium remains on its second highest threat level, and Prime Minister Charles Michel said his government would remain alert.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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At least 25 suspected militants and drug smugglers were reported killed in separate drone strikes in South of Afghanistan, local officials said Sunday.
Provincial police spokesman for southern Kandahar province Zia Durani said the airstrikes were carried out by coalition forces two nights ago in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.
Durani further added that the suspected militants and drug smugglers were targeted in Maiwand district of Kandahaar and in the bordering regions of Helmand with Kandahar province.
He said the suspected militants and drug smugglers were travelling in three different vehicles when they were targeted by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the airstrikes so far.
Helmand is among the volatile provinces in South of Afghanistan where anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating and frequently carry out insurgency activities.
Kandahar is the birth place of the Taliban insurgents however the Afghan security forces have managed to maintain security and stability in this province during the past several months.
The anti-government armed militants have been trying to expand their insurgency activities in this province lately amid deteriorating security situation in the south.
At least 3 Afghan civilians were killed and 4 others were wounded in indiscriminate firing by the Iranian border guards across the Afghan-Iranian border.
According to the local officials in western Herat province of Afghanistan, the victims were residents of Kohsan district of Herat province.
The officials further added that the incident took place as the Afghan men were trying to cross into the Iranian soil.
Provincial governor’s spokesman, Jilani Farhad, confirmed the incident and said the indiscriminate firing on Afghan civilians attempting to enter into the Iranian soil continues despite several pleas made by the local authorities to the Iranian consulate in Herat.
According to reports, the dead bodies of the victims have been taken to Herat province and will be handed over to their relatives by the local authorities.
Iran is home to millions of Afghan refugees have escaped the country due to civil war and deteriorating security situation of the country.
A large number of Afghan youths are attempting to illegally enter Iran in a bid to find work opportunities who are usually targeted by the Iranian border guards.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Rather, an insert made to look like a Globe front page from the year 2017, after Trump's theoretical election, is slated to run Sunday on page one of the newspaper's "Ideas" section.
The satirical insert will feature a series of imaginary Trump-related headlines, including "Deportations to Begin: President Trump calls for tripling of ICE force; riots continue," "Curfews extended in multiple cities," "Markets sink as trade war looms," "US soldiers refuse orders to kill ISIS families" and "New libel law targets 'absolute scum' in press."
The "front page" will also feature a story that refers to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as Attorney General, and a report about Trump naming his dog after China's first lady.
More from the Washington Examiner
The insert includes an editor's note that reads, "This is Donald Trump's America. What you read on this page is what might happen if the GOP frontrunner can put his ideas into practice, his words into action."
"Many Americans might find this vision appealing, but the Globe's editorial board finds it deeply troubling," it added.
The Globe's "Ideas" editor explained Saturday that they're merely trying to start a conversation about what a Trump presidency would look like.
Boy howdy, imagine trying to start a conversation about what a Hilarity presidency would look like by doing something like this...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#1
These people live in their own little world. No interest in changing their minds as they are the best and the brightest. I have never known people to be so closed minded. Its like a mental illness. They also run in packs. The new mental Zombies. I like to poke them now and then. They hiss and sputter for awhile. Then spew 1% are all at fault.
(IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – Media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday destroying five boats belonging to the ISIS in the district of Shirqat in Salahuddin province.
The officials said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aviation, based on information by the National Intelligence Agency, conducted an aerial strike, resulting in the destruction of five river boats carrying terrorists belonging to the ISIS, in addition to destroying a ferryboat used by ISIS elements to move between the two banks of the river in the district of Sharqat.”
Posted by: badanov ||
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[AnNahar] Turkish police have smashed a cell of Kurdish snuffies in a usually tranquil region between Istanbul and Ankara who had hoarded explosives, guns and boom jackets, the Dogan news agency reported Sunday.
Police in the Bolu province east of Istanbul, said they had detained seven members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as part of an investigation into plans for a suicide kaboom.
The arrests come three days after Bolu police potted two suspected PKK members in an unusual raid in the province which is about half-way between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's biggest city Istanbul and the capital Ankara, and far from the Kurdish-dominated southeast.
Police uncovered two pistols, four homemade bombs, two Kalashnikovs, C4 plastic explosives and two boom jackets, the Dogan news agency reported.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday, that six members of al-Hashed al-Shaabi had been either killed or wounded in a bomb blast in northern Baghdad.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “This morning, a bomb exploded targeting a patrol of al-Hashed al-Shaabi while passing in the district of Tarmiya in northern Baghdad, killing two of its occupants and wounding four others, as well as causing material damage to the vehicle.”
The source, who asked to remain anonymous, added, “A security force rushed to the area and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital for treatment and the dead bodies to the forensic medicine department, while carried out a raid to search for the perpetrators of the bombing.”
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Sunday, that six people were either killed or wounded in a bomb blast northeast of Baghdad.
The source said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “This morning, a bomb exploded near shops in al-Shaab District northeast of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five others.”
The source, who requested anonymity, added, “A security force rushed to the area and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital for treatment and the dead body to the forensic medicine department, while cordoned off the area of the incident and barred approaching it.”
PESHAWAR: Police and security forces on Saturday arrested 40 suspects and a target killer during a search operation in Muhammad Zai and Nusrat Khel areas.
The suspects were shifted to an undisclosed location for further interrogation. A target killer was also arrested from the Hayatabad area. Arms and ammunitions were recovered from his possession. SSP operations said that the target killer Saif has also confessed the killing of a police sub-inspector. The SSP said that the target killer was wanted to police in various cases adding that the target killer hailed from Afghanistan. Further interrogation is under way.
[Rudaw] A commander of the Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... armed Islamist group, Abdullah Mohammad al-Hasm, was reportedly killed in southern Aleppo on Saturday night during festivities with the Syrian Army.
This was confirmed on Sunday evening according to Iran's Fars News Agency which added that several of his men were also killed along with him during the festivities.
al-Hasm was a Kuwaiti national.
His death comes as the Syrian military is gearing up for another offensive against Aleppo, an escalation which may break the ceasefire between the Syrian regime and the recognized opposition since February 27 and also jeopardize the fragile Geneva peace talks.
While Ahrar al-Sham is a Salafi Islamist group it hasn't been excluded from that ceasefire like the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nursa and the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) are. Russia has confirmed it will support this latest offensive with its air force.
#1
ahrar al sham was a creation of the Saudis and Turkey
the goal was to unite a number of smaller factions into one powerful anti Assad force - by 2013 or so they actually had somewhere near 10,000 active fighters and had won some victories against Assad's coalition
since then its been downhill - they were hammered by ISIS, al Nusra and the Assad coalition -- they probably have fewer than 1000 active fighters now
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/11/2016 0:44
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[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Huge fire broke out during fireworks display at Puttingal temple in Kerala
Hindu festival was taking place in Indian state when explosion took place
Believed a firework may have landed in storage area filled with firecrackers
Local official said around 102 people died, with more than 200 injured
'I stayed for a while with an old man near Umballa; anon with a household of my acquaintance in Umballa. With one of these I went as far as Delhi to the southward. That is a wondrous city. Then I drove a bullock for a teli [an oilman] coming north; but I heard of a great feast forward in Patiala, and thither went I in the company of a firework-maker. It was a great feast' (Kim rubbed his stomach). 'I saw Rajahs, and elephants with gold and silver trappings; and they lit all the fireworks at once, whereby eleven men were killed, my fire-work-maker among them, and I was blown across a tent but took no harm. Then I came back to the rel with a Sikh horseman, to whom I was groom for my bread; and so here.'
'Shabash!' said Mahbub Ali.
--Kipling, Kim
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#1
India has a LOT of people. The birthrate will replace these dead in about a hour and a half ( maybe even faster). A week from now, no one will even notice these are gone.
The Hindus themselves will hardly care. Lots of other things are bigger problems to the average Hindu. The garbage is ten feet deep between here and the curb and you will have to climb over that before reaching the street.
Good luck on your next meal. But remember, its just your karma and everything is bird of Paradise fly up your nose otherwise.
[ARA News] ALEPPO ــ Subsequent to fierce battles with the pro-regime army forces, Syrian Islamist rebel groups on Sunday gained control of strategic positions in Syria’s central province of Hama.
Islamist groups targeted the pro-regime forces with several car bomb attacks, killing and wounding dozens of soldiers. In return, the regime’s army responded through heavy air raids and artillery bombardment on Islamists’ strongholds.
Speaking to ARA News in Hama, Syrian journalist Rahman Taha said that the Tahreer Army, the Nasr Army, and other Islamist rebels from Jund al-Aqsa faction, carried out a major offensive on headquarters of the regime’s army in the district of Mansoura silos, taking over the area subsequent to conducting a car bomb attack.
“The Islamist-led attack caused the death of scores of soldiers from the Syrian army and the flight of many others, leaving their heavy and medium weapons behind,” Taha reported.
The source confirmed that Islamist rebels were able also to destroy a tank belonging to the regime’s army forces in the Mansoura district.
Taha emphasized that the Syrian army launched several rockets on the headquarters of the rebel factions inside the towns of Tel Wasit and Mansoura. No casualties reported.
The Islamists also clashed with the regime’s army in the vicinity of Khirbet an-Naqous town, the first line of defense for the pro-regime forces stationed in the camp of Jorin.
Local activists reported that one of Jund al-Aqsa fighters blew up a booby-trapped Bulldozer among dozens of the regime’s army forces at the entrance of the town, which led to the outbreak of fierce clashes between the two sides.
“The rebel fighters were eventually able to take control of parts of Khirbet an-Naqous town, and destroy a regime-led tank by targeting it with a thermal rocket,” Hasan Salama, an activist based in Hama, told ARA News.
In a related development, the villages loyal to president Bashar al-Assad in western Hama witnessed the displacement of dozens of civilians, especially after Islamists seized control of their villages in the region, according the same source.
Over the past few months, Islamist rebel factions led by the Conquest Army group were able to capture a number of villages and towns in the al-Ghab plain, especially after taking control of the city of Idlib and Jisr al-Shughur, in northern Syria.
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Heet District Council in Anbar Province announced on Sunday, that the security forces started to cleanse the areas of al-Qalaa and al-Omal neighborhood in Heet District, while pointed out to the killing of dozens of ISIS members west of Ramadi.
The Head of Heet District Council Mohammed Mohannad al-Hiti said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The joint forces managed to cleanse the areas of al-Qalaa and al-Omal neighborhood in Heet District after fierce battles, while killed dozens of ISIS fighters and destroyed a number of their vehicles.”
Hiti added, “The cleansing battles of Heet are now different,” pointing out that, “ISIS is carrying out suicide attacks, street fights and sniping operations in an attempt to open havens for its fighters to escape from the city.”
Hiti continued, “We will liberate other parts of Heet and raise the Iraqi flag over the government buildings in the coming few hours, after dismantling the improvised explosive devices and booby-trapped buildings that impede the advance of the security forces in the remaining areas of the city.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The commander of al-Jazeera Operations Major General Ali Ibrahim Daboun announced on Sunday, that a bombardment conducted by the international coalition aviation killed 35 ISIS members west of Ramadi.
Daboun said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aviation in coordination with the intelligence of Jazeera Operations and the army’s 7th brigade managed to bombard one of ISIS hideouts in Kasriyat area northeast of Baghdadi vicinity.”
“The aerial bombardment destructed the hideout completely and killed 35 ISIS militants,” Daboun added.
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The commander of Anbar Operations Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi announced on Sunday, that nine members of the so-called ISIS were killed and three vehicles belonging to ISIS were destructed by an artillery shelling in the province.
Mahalawi said in a brief statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Today the artillery of the army’s 8th brigade shelled ISIS headquarters in Kurtan area in Khalidiya Island, killing three ISIS members and destroying a vehicle carrying fuel belonging to the terrorist gangs.”
Mahalawi added, “A force from the army’s 8th brigade also managed to destroy two armed vehicles belonging to ISIS in al-Falahat area west of Fallujah, killing 6 ISIS members.”
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016
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At least 26 militants were killed in the latest counter-terrorism operations conducted by the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in the past 24 hours.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 8 militants were also wounded during the same operations conducted in Khost, Takhar, and Kapisa provinces.
A statement by MoD said at least 11 of the militants were killed in Alisher district of Khost province and 4 others were killed in Darqad district of Takhar province.
The statement further added that 3 militants were killed during a separate operation in Kohband and Nejrab districts of Kapisa province.
According to MoD, at least 11 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) lost their lives during the same operations.
“The Afghan National Army (ANA) forces are prepared for all kinds of devotion and with all force to maintain security and comfort for the people of Afghanistan,” the statement by MoD said, adding that 11 Afghan soldiers were martyred during counter-terrorism operations against the internal and foreign terrorists.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the reports so far.
[BIGSTORY.AP.ORG] As a spoken word artist, Abdirizak Mohammed Warsame liked to talk to other young Somalis about following their dreams. In a video posted online in 2011, the teenager stands at a microphone and encourages teens to stay focused on their goals in life.
"You guys are tomorrow. And all you have to have, to get anywhere you want, is determination," said Warsame, who was active in a local arts group, was a regular at a neighborhood center, and whose mother and cousin were leading voices against radical recruitment in Minneapolis' large Somali community.
In recent years, about three dozen young men from Somali neighborhoods in Minnesota have left to join bad boy groups fighting in Somalia and Syria, making the area one of the leading sources of U.S. recruits for radical Islam. Local leaders have launched a major effort to stop the flow by building up positive influences on the thousands of young Somalis in the area. And in many ways, Warsame seemed to embody the key points: hopeful attitude, engaged in the community, with strong family support.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#1
You don't choose the bullet.
The bullet chooses you.
Your path simply makes you eligible.
#2
The worrisome Warsame from Wobegone
Advanced his pen for A-Zak Zak gun
To the forefront locals hurried
Apple pie in hand, "Don't worry"
Normal little Mog poet laureate foregone
[AlAhram] A Syrian journalist who opposed Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) group bully boyz was in intensive care Sunday after being shot in the head by a masked gunman in southern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , reports and activists said.
Mohammed Zaher al-Shurqat was walking down a street in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border when he was targeted by the gunman, the Dogan and Anatolia news agencies reported.
El-Shurqat worked for a channel called Aleppo Today TV which is strongly opposed to IS group bully boyz who have taken control of much of Syria's northern Aleppo province.
He was immediately hospitalised and is in intensive care, the Turkish reports said, without giving further details.
According to Ibrahim al-Idelbi, a Syrian activist in Gaziantep, this was the second attempt against Shurqat's life in three months.
Idelbi told AFP in Beirut that Shurqat was a rebel commander who had fought Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... 's troops and a media activist in his home town, Al-Bab, until IS took over. He became a journalist with Aleppo Today after he moved to Turkey.
Citing a friend who visited Shurqat in hospital in the southern Turkish city, Idelbi said he was "still alive".
Another activist, Assaad al-Achi, confirmed the report. "When ISIS took control he started a programme on Aleppo Today against ISIS," he said, speaking to AFP via the Internet in English and using an Arabic acronym for IS group.
Turkish police have studied security camera footage and interviewed witnesses and believe the shooting was carried out by a member of IS, Dogan added in its report.
Several Syrian journalists who fled the country's five year civil war use Gaziantep as a base but it has become an increasingly dangerous location from which to report.
A Syrian activist who produced documentaries hostile to the Islamic State group, Naji Jerf, was rubbed out in Gaziantep in December in a crime that caused international concern
At the end of October, IS group grabbed credit for killing young activist Ibrahim Abdelkader and his friend Fares Hamadi. They were found decapitated in a house in the city of Sanliurfa just east of Gaziantep.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/11/2016
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"Yew betcha, just as soon as I finish this here foie gras!"
"Or until the French bottled spring water runs out..."
The announced ceasefire in Yemen took effect on Sunday one year after the Saudi-led coalition launched the brutal aggression on the country.
Peace talks are supposed to be hosted in Kuwait later in April in an attempt to reach political solution for the crisis.
Prior to ceasefire announcement, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen Jamie McGoldrick invited the parties to abide by the cessation of hostilities and protecting civilians.
"Regardless of negotiation results, the United Nations and its partners involved in humanitarian work are determined to proceed with their response to the humanitarian needs of the population, wherever they are and whatever the obstacles would be," McGoldrick said.
The United Nations had also sponsored two rounds of negotiations in Geneva, but things did not reach the desired results.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the cease-fire in Yemen, the Yemeni army and Popular Committees managed to fend off attempts of aggression forces to advance on the front of Marib.
A military source said that 30 gunmen of the aggression mercenaries were killed and dozens others were injured as the national military thwarted their attempt to progress toward Sirwah District in Marib province, detaining a number of militants and destroying three armored vehicles and four armed crews.
From the "not all bad" files. No "Lucky Hat", Lurch?
Secretary of State John Kerry was the target of Taliban rocket attacks that violently shook the Afghan capital, authorities said on Sunday
Kerry had been in Kabul, meeting with top government leaders as they struggle to hold their together their fragile democracy.
At least three explosions rocked central Kabul on Saturday night as Kerry left his surprise meeting, CNN and Al Jazeera both reported. Rockets hit near the presidential palace and a compound where the US Embassy and the CIA are housed, Al Jazeera reported.
Kerry was the target of the attack â though he been gone for an hour when the rockets struck, according to CNN.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2016
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[ARA News] ERBIL ــ Radical group of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Sunday executed a man in the northeastern Syrian city of Raqqa after accusing him of “fighting the Caliphate” and leaking information to anti-ISIS forces on ground, local sources reported.
After beheading him, the terror group has crucified the victim’s corpse in a public square downtown.
Speaking to ARA News in Raqqa, rights activist Ahmad Raqqawi said that ISIS jihadis publicly beheaded Hussein Atallah in front of dozens of locals on Sunday afternoon near the Clock Tower in Raqqa downtown.
“Atallah was accused of fighting ISIS months ago and leaking information to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) recently before being arrested by the Hisba police,” the source reported.
Raqqawi stressed that the victim was innocent according to his kinsmen.
The SDF forces include the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) along with Arab and Christian groups. Backed by the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF alliance is mainly focused on fighting ISIS, al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups in northern Syria.
A masked member from the ISIS-linked Sharia Court in Raqqa read a statement, accusing the victim of having fought ISIS alongside the Awakening group of Hasakah [in reference to the SDF-led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units “YPG”] several months ago.
“We hereby behead this apostate according to the Caliphate’s rules. We hang his dirty corpse to be an example for those who dare to fight alongside the Caliphate’s enemies,” the statement read.
Also, the ISIS-led Sharia Court in Raqqa threatened to execute anyone who violates the group’s rules in the areas under its control.
In the meantime, local activists confirmed that hundreds of people have been slaughtered by ISIS for baseless reasons over the past two years, stressing that the charge against the victim [Atalah] was “baseless”, according to his family members.
“The terror group killed my cousin too for trifling reasons last month,” an eyewitness told ARA News, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“We will avenge the bloodshed of our kinsmen someday,” he said.
Over the past 24 hours, the US-led coalition forces conducted several air raids on ISIS headquarters in the city of Raqqa and its suburbs, resulting in the death of 20 militants and the injury of more than 50 others, according locals.
Posted by: badanov ||
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"What did you do during the war against the infidel, father?"
"Well, son, I attacked a girl's school in Kabul!" "Oh that's so neat! My Dad, the hero!"
"Aw shucks, son, t'weren't nothing."
Insurgents, who fired off a number of rockets, targeted a girls school in Kabul city just hours after the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, wrapped up a joint press conference with President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday night.
The Ministry of Education would not however allow the media access to the school on Sunday but footage in TOLOnews' possession shows that principal's office at the Aisha-e-Durani High School was destroyed in the attack.
"Education institutions are civilian facilities and they should not be attacked. That's why, we urge all warring parties to recognize schools as civilian facilities," said Mujib Mehrdad, spokesman for the Ministry of Education.
The incident has also shocked Kabul residents.
"Schools are sacred places and more effort should be made to ensure their security. Schools should be a peaceful environment, so that students will have peace of mind," said Neda Mohammad, a resident of Kabul city.
"They [militants] attack schools, because they are against education. They don't want the country to have schools, to have law and to have knowledge," said Mosleh, another resident.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) meanwhile said that new measures will be put in place to ensure better security in Kabul city.
Najib Danish, the deputy spokesman for the MoI, said they have decided to strengthen Kabul city's security belt and to strengthen intelligence organizations in the city.
According to reports a rocket also landed near the Presidential Palace on Saturday night. The MoI however rejected this report.
Aden-Sunday midnight is when the anticipated ceasefire launch will take place in Yemen, as a part of implementing the U.N. agreement. The consensus has been reached as to start the next round of negotiations in Kuwait, which are to start on April 18.
The pro-legitimacy governmental delegation had convened in a meeting chaired by the Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in Riyadh yesterday. Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Abdulaziz Jabari told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the legitimacy government’s desire to attend the upcoming round of negotiations is part of its commitment to the peace-making process by implementing U.N. resolution 2216.
Jabari said “we support any concrete stance in any efforts spent on implementing U.N. resolution 2216 that preserves the rights of all Yemenis, including Houthis; and guarantees them to live in the guard of the Yemeni legitimate government.”
The deputy PM pointed out that the meeting in Riyadh had dealt with the topic on nearing cessation of hostilities, which begins as of midnight Sunday. The Yemeni legitimate government is expected to make an announcement on the event which is to depict the government’s commitment to implementing the U.N. resolution 2216 and ceasefire.
“We hope that ceasefire becomes a permanent one,” Jabari added.
Meanwhile, Al Wazi’iyah District citizens, located west of Taiz, have sent out a cry for relief due to all the bloody massacres taking place. The insurgents and pro-Saleh Supporters (militants supporting the ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh) are butchering throughout the district.
Brig.Gen. Ahmed Saeed warned of an unprecedented accrual of terrorist groups in the Hadhramaut Governorate. He emphasized that all the incoming masses of terrorists indicate that the governorate is the loot which will be divided among those who fund, support, manage and traffic arms for terror groups.
The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen’s rebels has said that the alliance is ready to commit to a ceasefire as long as the rebels abide by a UN Security Council resolution 2216 that calls for their retreat from Yemeni cities.
Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri said the Iran-backed rebels should “display commitment” to the April 18 peace talks that could yield a political settlement. He said the rebels should also recognize the government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and hand over heavy weaponry.
[WASHINGTONPOST] No. He. Can. Not.
He is not Benito Mussolini.
He is not Juan Peron.
He is not Louis XIV.
He is not an elected dictator.
He is not a divine right monarch.
He is not the Galactic Overlord.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#1
A "lawyer" I wouldn't trust to do a house closing. Attn: clients of this firm, get a new law firm!
#4
...I've seen more than a few comments since this appeared suggesting that this was a trial balloon. Fortunately, the response has been an overwhelming, "Aw, hell no."
But I'm still waiting for one more, especially if Malificent gets indicted. One that asks, "Do we really need to be worried about that pesky Twenty-Second Amendment?"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2016 4:57
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#5
The problem is that too many people actually believe he is all of those things. And not a few in congress too!
Because it is easier and more lucrative for them to believe and act in that fashion. They are like courtiers of any emperor from history or fiction....I find myself thinking of Shaddam IV often these days.
[CBSNEWS] Days after the deadly Brussels attacks, which killed 32 people at the city's airport and a metro station, right-wing demonstrators appeared at a memorial to denounce the country's Muslim community. A week later, police had to intervene when similar right-wing protesters squared off against anti-racism demonstrators. The confrontations underscore an important, though perhaps uncomfortable, question: to what extent does Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... contribute to the atmosphere of isolation that breeds violent radicals?
The more important question, and one that CBS News, the experts, and the nomenklatura will refuse to address, is: to what extent have their own preconceptions and ideologies contribute to the atmosphere of distrust and hatred? Some questions, you see, aren't allowed to be asked, let alone answered...
"When you have no life objectives, no long-term objectives, you try to find your quest for self elsewhere," explains Tewfik Sahih, a lifelong resident of Schaerbeek, Brussels, the neighborhood in which the bombs used in the Gay Paree and Brussels attacks were made. "Many people feel discriminated [against] here. Some citizens here don't feel part of the national community."
There is no 'national community' of Belgium. There's a Walloon community, a Flemish community, a small German community, and an Islamic community. None of these communities really get along, which is why you barely have a government, let alone a country.
Further, the Islamic community doesn't consider itself to be 'Belgian', and moreso doesn't want to be. They don't want to be Belgian, they want Belgium to be Islamic.
Experts
...and what would we do without experts...
tell CBSN that many of Belgium's disenfranchised Muslims feel more loyalty to their nuclear communities than their country.
Like I was just saying. Their Islamic community offers them what is most important to them -- social structure, belonging, belief and future.
It's like asking "What's wrong with Kansas" without realizing that the people of Kansas are asking, "what's wrong with you?" This article is a clear demonstration of the cluelessness of the 'experts'.
So, even if they don't necessarily agree with how certain members of their neighborhood or mosque choose to lash out, they might not be inclined to report those people to the authorities either.
"The mafia protects itself. Hooligans with soccer clubs don't betray themselves as well. It's very much a group mentality where you don't betray," explains Michael Privot, director of the European Network Against Racism. "The Muslim community feels really under siege. They are victims themselves of hate crimes.
There have been precious few 'hate crimes' against the community. The recent colonists were welcomed with open arms, social workers, aid, housing, and political cover. The large abundance of 'hate crimes' are the ones committed against European women, though it's impolite to call them 'hate' crimes.
So, if you want to really help them make the change from within ... you have to give them breathing space ... open space for them to build a future."
The colonists will take your breathing space, and then they'll take your country. It's sorta how it works with colonialism...
As it currently stands, most Moroccan and Turkish immigrants colonists live in what is known as the "poor croissant" of Brussels. And the conditions in those neighborhoods offer little hope for social or economic success.
"In Molenbeek, one young person of Moroccan background out of two is unemployed. One family of Moroccan origin [out of two] is below the poverty line. You see, it's dire," says Privot. "Schools are ghettoized. ... You have a whole generation of youngsters, aged 15 to 25, that have no skills because they didn't receive proper support. Not from parents and not from the state. Those young guys are living in Brussels, which is one of the most competitive cities [in the world], but without skills to find a job in their own city."
The reason is simple and yet incomprehensible to the EU nomenklatura: the students and their parents realize that the schools would turn them into infidels. That is something that the immigrants, whether just off the raft or 2nd generation, will never accept. Therefore they won't accept the schools.
The actions of the few then spawn a vicious cycle for the many, according to Privot.
Yes, it's the rejection by the 90% that make it so difficult for the other 10%...
The societal factors that contributed to the radicalization of the Brussels and Gay Paree attackers are heightened by the fact that they executed attacks. Discrimination against Muslims in neighborhoods like Molenbeek and Schaerbeek worsens. It becomes even harder for members of those struggling communities to find jobs. And perhaps worst of all, it excludes them even further from the Belgian mainstream.
The large proportion of recent refugees from Syria have the equivalent of a 5th grade EU education. If you were going to help them 'find jobs' you'd first have to put them back into primary school, the very infidel schools that they'd reject. You can't do German-style technical training because the refugees don't have the background and educational accomplishments to take advantage of that. You might pull it off it they were 10, or 100, but with 1,000,000 (and more arriving) the cohesiveness of the community prevents them from accepting the Faustian bargain you offer them -- that to "get ahead" in the Belgian "community" they have to lose themselves.
"There is an increase in polarization within the majority community, and a sense of exasperation towards Muslims," Privot said in the aftermath of the March 22 attacks on a Brussels airport and metro station.
Because the people in flyover Belgium, be they Flems, Loonies or Krauts, have figured out that the colonists don't want to be like them.
"This is really in the mainstream. It's the man and woman on the street who decides to take justice in their hands and insult someone. ... A few months back, people would not resort to insults. Now, people do resort to racists slurs. You really see and feel the tensions within the society. So, this is one more nail in the coffin of social cohesion."
The speaker hasn't quite figured it out: first that racism is a stain on human nature and that it's something that a community will do, given half a chance; and second, that the 'Belgian' community, like the rest of the EU community, has been sorely goaded, not just by the colonists, but by the nomenklatura. The ordinary people are beset on two sides: by Islamists who want to take their country from them, and by leaders who don't believe in the country in the first place.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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It's all the fault of the Juden (and Putin: who's probably a secret Jew---he's too smart for Russian)
#2
...The Instapundit has a running joke that addresses this quite well. It's a mock headline that says, "MUSLIM LEADERS WARN OF BACKLASH FROM TOMORROW'S BOMBING."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2016 5:02
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#3
Islamophobia is "racism". It's self-defense and common sense
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2016 9:24
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#4
isn't
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2016 9:24
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How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Faith: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
#8
Gotta credit Trump -- he delivered the dagger to the MSM, and nobody has to even pretend that this drivel has any influence.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/11/2016 14:19
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Progressives have long pushed the idea that nations are just land with nothing special about them worth fighting for, only stuff that everyone should be embarrassed about.
Most none-Elites took this as the nonsense it is.
Muslims took them at their word.
#10
"Islamophobia" (a term invented by the Muslim Brotherhood) is a propaganda device used to silence criticism of Islamist theocratic fascism and to deflect blame from the motivating ideology of terrorists to the victim society.
It enables society to blame the victim instead of the attackers.
that way nothing is done to limit the spread of Islamist theocratic fascism.
It is actually more dangerous to our societies than the actual violence.
It is used to lobby for legal exceptionalism for Islam eg - blasphemy laws by stealth (no making fun of Mohammad or even drawing a cartoon, eg) or elevating Islam to the status of race so that anti-discrimination laws can be used to silence opponents of sharia by dragging them through the courts.
In which Fred takes on this article from a few days ago.
[DAILYCALLER] James Harrison, history professor at Portland Community College, said in a lecture Monday for the college’s April Whiteness History Month that peace in the U.S. is impossible so long as whiteness still exists. Several things dippy about the first para. He's a "professor of history" at a community college? What are his actual qualifications? History or Black History? Does the "professor" have a Ph.D. from other than a Prestigious Unaccredited University?
Bachelor from Hunter College, taught high school for a while before moving up to community college, now is a department chair. One article in my google search referred to him as Dr. Harrison, but that one only mentioned the Hunter College degree.
In a talk entitled “Imagine A World Without Whiteness,” Harrison declared confidently conflict can only cease once the power structure of whiteness is totally eliminated. Either that or when the Colored Man is relegated to his rightful place. Both statements carry the same intent in reverse.
“Imagine everyone living life in peace,” Harrison said, building off John Lennon’s famous song “Imagine.” The crime rate in the United States is much higher than crime rates in Europe, at least they were before Europe was overrun by Moslems. Yet the crime rate among whites is not much different from the crime rate among Europeans. What's that tell you, professor? Or do we still do deductive reasoning? Deductive reasoning conflicts with critical theory. Guess which one wins...
“And how do we get to that good world is the question — a world without conflict. And to me, my interpretation of these words, is it would be a world, or U.S., without whiteness, in terms of the power structure,” Harrison said, offering his own interpretation of Lennon’s song. Yeah! Keep the Colorless Folks in their place!
For Harrison, the term whiteness is essentially a social category to which whites belong. And blacks and Hispanics don't. Except for those light-colored Hispanics. But Asians do.
And a social category, Harrison continued, is a group of people sharing in a common similar attributes, even if they have never actually met. Like all white folks and all Asians. And light-colored Hispanics. And Jews. They're all white regardless of of what color they are.
“So whiteness, white people, share a whole lot of things, even if they don’t interact, and one thing that they share is whiteness, or white privilege,” Harrison said. There are places where it doesn't exist. Like Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Uganda. pick a place. Go try it on for size. See how you like it.
Harrison then went on to explain that demolishing whiteness is a matter of a lot of individuals each taking small steps to achieving the objective. “Can there be a world without whiteness, a world in which white privilege doesn’t exist?” Harrison asked his audience. Are you really, really sure it would be one you wanted to live in?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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As Thomas Hobbes wrote:
In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."
That pretty well describes places like Compton, Baltimore, Detroit, Camden, Gary, East St. Louis, as well as parts of Chicago, Philadelphia, and DC.
#5
I'd like to imagine a world without academic nonsense.
Imagine a white professor saying that the US would do better with 5% fewer blacks. Does anyone think he wouldn't be fired the next day.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/11/2016 8:16
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These people have always seemed quite content with their surroundings and culture. Could there have been some sort of original geographic assignment which has since been violated ?
Plum Paisley Begonias don't do well in Fargo. Just saying.
Posted by: Tyranysaurus Smiter of the Visigoths2546 ||
04/11/2016 12:08
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Dunno about Oregon but community colleges in California all have governing boards whose members are elected by the community. Seems to me the community members ought to descend upon one of the board meetings some evening and express their "feelings" about said professor.
Nothing gets passed Emirates 24/7
Ahead of the planned ceasefire, heavy fighting erupted between Al Houthis and the government forces.
The rebel fighters stepped up their battle in Taiz, Marib, Shabwa and Lahj in a bid to regain control before the truce is in place, reported ‘Al Bayan’.
As per an earlier agreement between Al Houthis and the government forces, a ceasefire would come into effect at midnight today [April 10], a week before the scheduled peace talks.
President Hadi said he will go ahead with the scheduled talks in Kuwait on the 18th of this month and work towards stopping the war and achieving peace as per the UN resolution.
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A Labour councillor has been suspended after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were found on her Twitter account.
Aysegul Gurbuz, 20, is the latest name drawn into a row threatening to divide the party following claims of harassment of Jewish students at Oxford University.
Gurbuz represents the High Town ward in Luton after being elected in May 2015. She also sits on a panel supervising Bedfordshire Police.
But messages on her Twitter account, now deleted, suggest strong support for Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like... who is referred to as "my man Hitler" and the "greatest man in history".
Another tweet hoped that Iran would use a "nuclear weapon" to "wipe Israel off the map".
Other tweets expressed "disgust" that "Jews are so powerful", and one even stated "Ed Miliband is Jewish. He will never become prime minister of Britannia." Adherent of the Master Religion deeply admires the Master Race and its proponents.
This young politician is fully in tune with her party:
[AnNahar] The Airport Security Apparatus has locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! two Lebanese airport employees on charges of "communicating with terrorist groups," state-run National News Agency said on Sunday.
The two employees were apprehended "two days ago," NNA said.
"They were employed at a company that provides services at the airport," the agency added.
"Investigations are underway to unveil more information and the probe is being conducted in utmost confidentiality," NNA said.
LBCI television identified the two employees as A. al-Ahmed and Kh. Samay, saying they worked for the Middle East Airports Services SAL company (MEAS), a subsidiary of Leb's national carrier Middle East Airlines.
MEAS is in charge of operating and maintaining the facilities of the Rafik Hariri International Airport.
The two employees' tasks involved "delivering luggage to planes in a direct manner," LBCI said.
"The two detainees are currently being held at the army's Intelligence Directorate and one of them had worked at the airport for more than six years while the other has occupied his post for the past year and a half," the TV network added.
"Al-Ahmed raised suspicions after a weapon was seized from his drawer at the airport," LBCI said.
The TV network said the weapon was smuggled to the airport despite the fact that "workers and airliner cabin crews undergo security checks" prior to their entry to the airport's restricted areas.
"Al-Ahmed is a relative of the suspect M. al-Ahmed, the main suspect in the case of the Naameh booby-trapped car and the Bir al-Abed and Rweiss bombings," LBCI said.
"M. al-Ahmed is a member of the Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades ... Leb's current al-Qaeda affiliate, named after a guy whose car the current head of al-Qaeda had boomed... and one of the associates of detained terror criminal mastermind Naim Abbas," the TV network added, noting that the man has been sentenced to hard labor for life in absentia and that he has sought refuge at the Ein el-Hellhole Paleostinian refugee camp.
Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq has recently vowed that he will exert efforts to address "security gaps" at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport, hours after jacket wallahs killed 35 people and maimed over 200 at Brussels airport and a metro train.
He warned that the said gaps "might be equivalent to those that were present at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport and led to the bombing of the Russian plane, according to Western reports."
Mashnouq also noted that he had instructed Airport Security Chief Brig. Gen. George Doumit to "step up security readiness at Beirut's airport," while calling on all security agencies to "maintain the highest levels of alert and vigilance and boost preventative measures."
"The only choice will be to ask the Ministry of Finance to earmark the necessary funds in order to sign the needed contracts, in coordination with the Public Works and Transport Ministry," the minister added.
He said "administrative obstacles that have been running for around 20 months" have prevented the government from "inking necessary contracts that have to do with repairing the airport's fence and buying advanced equipment and devices for baggage scanning."
[ARA News] ERBIL – There has been an increasing competition between Syrian rebels, the regime and the Kurds over retaking control of the ISIS-held border strip near Turkey in northern Aleppo.
Speaking to ARA News, Aydin Selcen, the former Turkish consul general in Iraqi Kurdistan, said that while the priority for the US is to seal the 98 kilometers Syria-Turkey border stretch, for Turkey the main priority is to prevent the Kurds from connecting Kurdish cities of Kobane and Afrin. Nevertheless, the US will support Kurdish demands.
“For US the priority is to seal that 98km Turkish border stretch with Islamic State, no matter who does it with the possible exception of Nusra,” he said. “For Turkey the priority is to stop PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurds to connect Kobane and Afrin cantons, no matter what it takes,” he said.
“[Turkey] encouraging and enabling radical Islamists including the Islamic State and Nusra to attack YPG [Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units], pounding YPG positions from inside the border with howitzers, infiltrating, equipping and training FSA elements to take control of that border stretch,” Selcen said during an exclusive interview with ARA News.
According to the former Turkish diplomat it is most likely that the United States will listen to Turkish demands.
“The US must and will accommodate Ankara’s wishes to be able to assert influence on Syria from the north while entertaining communication with and offering some sort of support to PYD and YPG as they are the single successful element till today against ISIS,” he added.
“The 98 km wide, 45km deep Manbij Pocket (“Shahba”), it seems to me, will look three layered in the future: with the Turkish border from Azaz/Marea to Jarablus under Ankara affiliated FSA elements, a PKK affiliated PYD/YPG or SDF and the Manbij Council corridor underneath to connect the two cantons from Tel Rifat to Manbij to Tishrin Dam and last north of Aleppo the regime in Al Bab,” he said.
On Friday, one US coalition airstrike destroyed an ISIS rocket rail, seven ISIS rockets, and an ISIS mortar system near Manbij. The Islamic State news agency Amaq said on Sunday, that U.S. aircraft carried out 20 airstrikes in support of the Turkish-backed opposition south of the Turkish border, near the village of Baraghidah.
“Yet, one may speculate that Ankara would encourage radical Islamists to attack YPG in areas north of Aleppo like Sheikh Maqsoud, might even turn a blind eye to Nusra’s attempt to create an (ISIS style) “emirate” in Idlib. Within that context I took note of Ahrar’s downing a Syrian Arab Army jet with MANPADS and the chemical attack on Kurds in Sheik Maqsoud with grave concern,” Selcen said.
Ranj Talabany, a senior Kurdish intelligence officer, told ARA News that it is very important that the Kurdish forces in Syria retake Manbij. “It is very important, because it’s the last major ISIS city in the north. Jarabulus is important also, but not as big as Manbij. Manbij is a major connection point [for ISIS].”
Idris Nassan, a former senior Kurdish official in Kobane, said it is clear the liberation of Manbij depends on who will take al-Bab city.
“It is clear that the campaign to liberate Manbij and Western Euphrates will wait until the military operations in the al-Bab countryside are over, I think the campaign will kick off as soon as the opposition forces’ operations stop there,” Nassan told ARA News.
“The Map of Western the Euphrates in my view is going to be like this: SDF [Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces] will liberate Manbij and probably Jarablus. But the fate of Jarablus is not clear due to the Turkish opposition. As for al-Bab, despite the big possibility that the Syrian regime may take over it, the opposition has its share in the possibility of taking control of it and they haven’t made their decision yet. But there are signs that SDF will be allowed to liberate it’s countryside and open a corridor to Afrin,” he added.
So far, the situation is not clear yet due to negotiations set up by the Algerians between the Syrian government and Turkey that came on the request of Ankara over the federal region set up by the Kurds in northern Syria in mid March.
“There are discussions between the regime and Turkey mediated by the Algerians. It seems so far, that the regime has more chance to control al-Bab than the Syrian opposition,” Nassan added.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016
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(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A source in Nineveh Operations Command announced on Sunday, that the Iraqi Army forces had foiled ISIS attack on the outskirts of a village south of Mosul.
The source said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “A force from the army’s 15th brigade repulsed ISIS attack on the outskirts of al-Nasser village in Makhmur District, and killed 10 ISIS militants.”
The source, who requested anonymity, added, “coalition aircraft also bombed a booby-trapped vehicle during the attack and killed its occupants.”
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016
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[THELOCAL.SE] Osama Krayem, a Swedish national, was one of the five men nabbed I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! in police raids yesterday alongside Mohammed Abrini, one of the chief suspects in the attack on Brussels airport.
On Saturday Krayem was charged over his role in the suicide kaboom at a Brussels metro station on March 22nd.
A friend of the family told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, "He was brainwashed here in Malmö, but we do not know by whom."
Krayem is remembered back home as an idle youth who smoked and drank before suddenly turning radical and heading off to wage jihad in Syria.
The son of Syrian exiles from the Rosengard district of the southern Swedish city of Malmo, where football great Zlatan Ibrahimovic also grew up, Krayem was arrested on Friday in Brussels with Gay Paree attacks suspect Mohammed Abrini and several other men.
Belgian prosecutors said Saturday that Krayem is the man caught on closed circuit television cameras speaking briefly to Khalid El Bakraoui moments before the latter went kaboom! in a subway station near the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... headquarters in Brussels on March 22nd.
Krayem was also said have been caught on camera buying bags in a Brussels shopping mall that were used to carry the suicide bombs that Khalid's brother Ibrahim and fellow jacket wallah Najim Laachraoui, believed to be the bomb maker, set off at Brussels airport on the same day.
Thirty-two people were killed in the twin attacks.
Osama Krayem is the product of a "now classic cocktail of social marginalisation, ideological radicalisation" and criminality, Magnus Rainstorm, an expert on radical Islamist movements at the Swedish National Defence College, told AFP.
In Malmo, people close to him described Krayem as an ordinary but idle young man from a working class neighbourhood who took part in petty crime in between bouts of drug taking and worship.
"He visited the mosque with his friends, as usual," a man close to the family told the Aftonbladet daily.
"He prayed five times per day. Nobody suspected he would go fight in Syria," he added.
"He comes from an ordinary family of Swedish Muslims. His father does not approve and his mother has been so sad since he left for Syria that she was taken ill," the family friend was quoted as saying.
A personal friend of Krayem recalled how the young man lived it up in the Seved neighbourhood which has a reputation for drug trafficking.
But he adopted healthier habits after he started working as part of a job training programme in recreation centres in his hometown.
He stayed there for a year before leaving to wage jihad in Syria, his parents' native country.
His radicalisation came "suddenly, unexpectedly," another person close to Krayem told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.
"In the two or three months before he left, he stopped seeing his friends. He listened to the sermons of the imams on his cell phone. He grew his beard. He became someone else," another friend recalled.
Muhammad Khorshid, who runs a program in Rosengard to help immigrants colonists integrate into Swedish society, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that Krayem comes from a Paleostinian family.
Nabil Chibib, a 46-year-old Paleostinian from Leb who has lived in Sweden since 1990 and said he knows Krayem’s father, said Krayem’s father used to be a medical doctor and a holy man in one of the area’s many mosques -- "not a radical one."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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#2
Botulism toxin extract used in very miniscule amounts can be used for cosmetic purposes (Botox), all for appearance. At a certain level botulism can be lethal to the body.
#6
Obama didn't mention that votes taken by House Democrats, led by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, to muscle his economic recovery plan and health care law through Congress early in his first term ended up souring the public and costing Democrats the House majority.
Nobody else mentions it either.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2016 16:54
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Fertilizer. Sort of like how the Indians taught the Pilgrims to use fish.
[EXPRESS.CO.UK] A rampaging pack of more than 500 refugees
...also known as the 'colonial militia'...
attacked guards defending the country's southern border with Greece on one of the worst days of migrant violence this year. Migrants with their faces covered by masks and war paint were seen picking up and hurling rocks at officers, who responded by firing tear gas canisters to drive them back.
Greece, which is desperate to move on tens of thousands of migrants stranded within its order, described the use of force by Macedonian police as "dangerous and deplorable".
In a strongly-worded statement, Greek government spokesman George Kyritsis said police had made "indiscriminate use of chemicals, rubber bullets and stun grenades against vulnerable populations". It's always been my opinion that cops should throw rocks back at them in such incidents. Then just stare and look stupid when they complain about getting hurt.
Dozens of people were hurt on Sunday when police fired tear gas on a group of migrants colonists as they tried to break through a fence on the Greece-Macedonia border, the medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said.
"Dozens of people were hurt, mainly suffering respiratory problems, and three had to be taken to hospital," MSF official Achileas Tzemos told AFP of the incident near the Idomeni crossing, a frequent flashpoint.
A Macedonian police source said three officers were also injured by stones thrown by the protesting migrants colonists.
Tzemos also said several of the migrants colonistswere maimed by plastic bullets but Macedonian police denied using such ammunition.
"We are using all allowed chemical means," police spokeswoman Liza Bendevska told AFP. "We are not using any kind of bullets as they are in Macedonia forbidden by law. We are not using batons as we are on the other side of the fence."
Thousands of anonymous leaflets written in Arabic had been in circulation at the 11,000-man Idomeni migrant camp, calling on the inhabitants to rise up together this afternoon and to charge down the fence stopping them from moving north into continental Europe. A rumour had also been circulating that the border was to be opened by Macedonian authorities at 9am this morning.
Declaring "Today we either break the border fence or die", large groups of up to 500 migrants colonists moved to the fence, with reports by journalists on the ground showing tear gas grenades being dropped on the Greek side of the border by Macedonian forces, and patrolling armoured cars. Migrants hurled stones at police.
Foreknowledge of the existence of the leaflets calling the migrants colonists to action led to Greek and Macedonian police deploying in great numbers to protect border crossings today.
While it is not known exactly who produced the detailed instruction leaflet handed to migrants colonists -- which featured a map of the border with military style instructions on where to strike and when -- Greek media has named hard-left ’No Border’ and Anarchist activist groups.
The disparate activist groups working in Greece to destroy Europe’s borders came under heavy criticism in March after another such mass march on the border intended to overwhelm Macedonian border forces. Instead of leading thousands of migrants colonists to the European promised land, thousands found themselves in detention and three drowned as they attempted to cross a swollen river.
The groups have given much more support to illegal migrants colonists than just advice. Breitbart London reported on gifts given to those attempting to gain access to Europe such as bolt cutters, allowing them to open holes in the wire border fence.
A snippet of video at the Breitbart link may have caught shouts of "Allahu akhbar!" from the military age male migrants, or so it seems to my untrained ear.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Not a whole lot different than TX, NM, and AZ borders.
The US media is just less responsive.
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A security source in Kirkuk Province announced on Saturday, that the Peshmerga forces foiled ISIS attack on one of its sites west of the province, while pointed out to the killing of six ISIS fighters.
The source said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “ISIS terrorist gangs tried to attack Kawaz village, using an armed vehicle carrying six gunmen,” pointing out that, “The Peshmerga forces backed by the international coalition aircraft managed to foil the attack , killing all the attackers.”
Noteworthy, ISIS had seized the southern and western areas of Kirkuk since June 2014, while the Iraqi security forces are still continuing preparations to liberate these areas.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/11/2016
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[HOSTED2.AP.ORG] SpaceX has made good on a high-priority delivery: the world's first inflatable room for astronauts. This is going on in one corner of consciousness. In the other people are chopping heads off, just like they did in the 7th century.
A SpaceX Dragon fat merchantman arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, two days after launching from Cape Canaveral. Station astronauts used a robot arm to capture the Dragon, orbiting 250 miles above Earth.
The Dragon holds 7,000 pounds of freight, including the soft-sided compartment built by Bigelow Aerospace. The pioneering pod -- packed tightly for launch -- should swell to the size of a small bedroom once filled with air next month.
It will be attached to the space station this Saturday, but won't be inflated until the end of May. The technology could change the way astronauts live in space: NASA envisions inflatable habitats in a couple decades at Mars, while Bigelow Aerospace aims to launch a pair of inflatable space stations in just four years for commercial lease.
For now, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module -- BEAM for short -- will remain mostly off-limits to the six-man station crew. NASA wants to see how the experimental chamber functions, so the hatch will stay sealed except when astronauts enter a few times a year to collect measurements and swap out sensors.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2016
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I thought it was cold in space. How you going to heat it?
Exposed to the sun it gets very hot. In the shadow super cold. Satellites and manned craft have to keep rotating to provide a uniform heating and cooling to the craft so the radiator systems can keep up.
I would expect some sort of radiator system that hooks into the space station on the pod.
#6
Bigelow has or maybe still has 2 test units flying. There were webcams on them. Pretty boring ones. No idea if they are still working. July 12, 2006, and June 28, 2007, Bigelow launched the Genesis I and II modules.
"One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in 13 seconds. A solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." - Leonard McCoy
#11
So did the shuttle external fuel tanks, Chuck.
One time engineering in a throwaway society doesn't allow for reuse when you can get less, much later for more money.
Posted by: Those Phaiter1709 ||
04/11/2016 23:15
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(IraqiNews.com) Diyali – A security source in Diyali province said on Sunday, that unidentified militants killed a civilian in the vicinity of Abi Saida northeast of Baqubah.
The source, who requested anonymity, said in a brief statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Unidentified [gunmen] killed a civilian near his house in the vicinity of Abi Saida (30 km northeast of Baqubah),” adding that, “A security force cordoned off the area of the incident and transferred the dead to the forensic medicine authority.”
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.
President Barack Obama is guaranteeing that evidence, not politics, will dictate the outcome of the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of emails as secretary of state.
[WAPO] White women have been dying prematurely at higher rates since the turn of this century, passing away in their 30s, 40s and 50s in a slow-motion crisis driven by decaying health in small-town America, according to an analysis of national health and mortality statistics by The Washington Post.
[Guardian] A future president Trump or Cruz could be defied by his own intelligence chief, after CIA director John Brennan said on Sunday he would not allow members of his agency to carry out torture techniques such as waterboarding.
[CNN] A top intelligence officer with the North Korean military has defected to South Korea, according to South Korean officials. South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun and Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said that the defector was a senior colonel with the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau.
[ABC] A U.S. Naval officer who has been charged with espionage has been identified as Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, a Taiwanese-born flight officer assigned to a Naval reconnaissance unit. Lin was arrested eight months ago but his case did not become public until a pre-trial hearing this past Friday that will determine whether he will face a court martial.
Bound to be a few bad apples from time to time. The DoD multi-cult integration programs must continue however. 
[REUTERS] The
[BIGSTORY.AP.ORG] As a spoken word artist, Abdirizak Mohammed Warsame liked to talk to other young Somalis about following their dreams. In a video posted online in 2011, the teenager stands at a microphone and encourages teens to stay focused on their goals in life.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[CBSNEWS] Days after the deadly Brussels attacks, which killed 32 people at the city's airport and a metro station, right-wing demonstrators appeared at a memorial to denounce the country's Muslim community. A week later, police had to intervene when similar right-wing protesters squared off against anti-racism demonstrators. The confrontations underscore an important, though perhaps uncomfortable, question: to what extent does 
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A Labour councillor has been suspended after a series of anti-Semitic tweets were found on her Twitter account.
[THELOCAL.SE] Osama Krayem, a Swedish national, was one of the five men 
[HOSTED2.AP.ORG] SpaceX has made good on a high-priority delivery: the world's first inflatable room for astronauts.
