North Korea blamed the South for the defection of 13 North Koreans from China, calling it an "unprecedented kidnapping incident." Even if it were true, it would hardly be unprecedented. I seem to recall a number of Japanese citizens were kidnapped by the Norks about 30 years ago in order to learn the language.
Calling the incident "a grave provocation," the North Korean Red Cross also warned of "unthinkable consequences" if Seoul doesn't repatriate the defectors, Yonhap reported. Sure. Right after those Japanese hostages are returned.
This event, a fabrication of the South Korean puppet regime, is a grave provocation against [North Korea], an intolerable insult that cannot be allowed," a North Korean Red Cross spokesman said in statement, according to North Korean media outlet Uriminzokkiri. So we can agree that those who take hostages are the scum of the earth, right?
This is the first public statement North Korea has issued since 13 North Koreans -- a man and 12 women --arrived in the South last Thursday, after they sought asylum at Seoul's embassy in Bangkok.
North Korea slammed Seoul, claiming South Korea "dragged" the North Koreans to a "Southeast Asian country." We saw 'em do it!
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said the group defection should serve as a sign to the North. Another sign to the North would be that South Koreans aren't exactly flocking to the North.
"If the North Korean government continues to make the wrong choices that include nuclear weapons development, similar incidents will continue to arise," Yun told reporters in Seoul, adding the "winds of change" are sweeping across Asia and around the world. They will if 0bean and his ilk remain in charge.
"I believe the North Korean restaurant workers came to the South, to find new freedoms," Yun said. It was probably a leap of faith driven by desperation.
The number of North Koreans defecting to the South has slightly declined since Kim Jong Un fully assumed power in 2012, but in the first quarter of 2016, that number was up from the same time period in 2015. I wonder what the numbers would be had he not cracked down on defections.
A total of 342 North Koreans defected to the South January-March 2016, 51 more people than in 2015.
A significant majority of defectors are women, but the number of male defectors was up in early 2016 - 77 of the 342 defectors were men, up 22 from the first quarter of 2015. I wonder what their family situation was.
A former journalist who joined the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab was executed in Somalia's capital for the killings of five Somali journalists.
Hassan Hanafi Haji, who was extradited from Kenya last year on the request of the Somali government, was killed by firing squad at a police academy in Mogadishu on Monday. Firing squad is the only execution method in Somalia.
In his role as a liaison officer with al-Shabab, Haji was known to threaten journalists and radio stations for any reporting not in favor of the Islamic extremist rebels, forcing many media outlets to practice self-censorship for security reasons. Haji later led al-Shabab's media unit, inviting journalists to press conferences and giving them tours of battlefields.
He often urged journalists to report according to al-Shabab's media rules, which included avoiding stories related to the group's military setbacks.
Haji was one of the few suspects prosecuted by the Somali government following years of criticism by rights groups who urged authorities to do more to establish the rule of law and end the killings of journalists.
The killings of media workers often happened in government-controlled areas that journalists generally consider safe.
Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. At least 18 Somali journalists were killed last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
It's not entirely clear who has been killing journalists. Al-Shabab rebels, warlords, criminals, and even government agents all could have reasons to see journalists killed in Somalia.
An NYPD cop was caught on video telling a Bronx driver that it's Mayor Bill de Blasio's fault he's getting a ticket -- and that he himself never would have voted for the guy.
"Mayor de Blasio wants us to give out summonses, OK? All right?" the cop says to the man, who is seen holding the summons in a YouTube video that has since been taken down.
"I don't know if you voted for him or not. I don't live in the city. I wouldn't have voted for him because this is what he wants. He wants us to give out summonses," the officer adds.
The driver responds, "I feel you, this is a hard job."
The 10-second video was posted Saturday by a user with the handle 181elvis before being removed from the site Monday.
A police source said the incident took place in the 46th Precinct, in the west Bronx. Police weren't able to say when it happened, but said the officer has been suspended during an investigation. I'll bet he has.
"The incident is under review by the Precinct Commanding Officer," the NYPD said in a statement, without identifying the cop.
City Hall spokeswoman Monica Klein defended the mayor's traffic safety enforcement policy, saying, "Vision Zero is saving lives. Traffic fatalities are down 22 percent since Vision Zero started, making 2015 the safest year on city streets since record-keeping began."
De Blasio launched Vision Zero in 2014. The initiative included lowering the speed limit to 25 mph in many areas, adding traffic cameras and increasing criminal charges against violators.
Through February of this year, NYPD officers had handed out 181,892 tickets, a more than 20 percent increase over the same period in 2015 and about the same as in Mayor Mike Bloomberg's final year in office, 2013.
This isn't the first time a cop was filmed getting real with a driver. An NYPD detective caught on video last year chewing out an Uber driver was stripped of his shield and gun and placed on modified duty.
Detective Patrick Cherry was removed from the department's elite Joint Terrorism Task Force after mocking the driver's accent and berating him.
#1
Using security personnel as revenue agents. Doesn't play out well in the long run. Hey, you exist to serve the state. Be grateful. (do I need to put a /sarc on that?)
[Federalist] When John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit, Reuters reports that he had witnessed "haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs."
"It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display," explained Kerry. "It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries ... to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons."
Iran exempted, of course.
But, really, is this the lesson of Hiroshima? That those in public life have an obligation to do away with nuclear weapons? A lot of people might argue that existence of those weapons have saved lives from broader world conflicts and conventional warfare. That includes ending the Second World War sooner.
Yesterday, The Washington Post dutifully reported that, "In Hiroshima, Kerry won’t apologize for atomic bombs dropped on Japan." Technically, he didn't. What we witnessed was one of the administration's inverted non-apology apologies.
Barack Obama will also travel to Japan next month for the G-7. There's a lot of speculation he will visit Hiroshima and offer some sort of apology. (If we're to believe WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have been toying with the idea of having Obama say sorry for Hiroshima for a while now. And it comports well with his history.)
#1
The 20 or so million Japanese not killed because of the shortening of the war (and their subsequent decedents) were not available for comment, apparently.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/12/2016 13:19
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#2
..they also got to skip the division of their country German-style for generations.
#4
The Japanese bombarded a federal military installation and reaped the consequences. I recall some Southerners likewise bombarded a federal military installation nearly 80 years prior and suffered a similar fate. A lot of Japanese cities looked a lot like Charleston after Sherman got done with it. So, is Obama going to go to Richmond and apologize?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 11:03
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#2
Most young like socialism because leaving the care of the parents and getting a real job is scary. Then once a decent job is attained the fear is generally replaced by anger at how much is taken from the checks.
Of course this transition doesn't occur for folks that stay in the university system (and to a lesser extent Unions) where jobs are protected.
#3
In the defense of the Millennials they all know they are going to pay for the Boomers in the rest homes and probably want to get what they can out of the Boomers now before it is too late.
[AnNahar] A citizen's arrest of three illegal migrants colonists sparked controversy in Bulgaria on Monday, with rights groups protesting while the government refrained from condemning the practice.
Amateur video footage broadcast on several Bulgarian televisions and in social media showed three men lying on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs as someone shouts: "Go back to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey!" ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... Border police who arrived at the scene found the three unhurt and with their hands free.
Such arrests have happened increasingly in recent weeks, targeting migrants colonists arriving through the border with Turkey in a move denounced by the Bulgarian branch of the Helsinki Committee (BHC) rights group.
"These images (show) the most brutal citizen's arrest so far in Bulgaria. The prosecution must open a probe immediately," BHC president Krasimir Kanev said, warning that a failure to act by the authorities would only encourage such acts.
But the authorities' reaction has been ambiguous.
"This is.. illegal," border police chief Antonio Angelov told private bTV television in comments a week after he handed out certificates of appreciation to another vigilante group for intercepting some 20 migrants colonists near the border with Turkey.
Prime Minister Boyko Borisov also expressed his thanks to the group's leader in a telephone call. "The state belongs to all of us, whoever wants to help (protecting it) is welcome," he said on Monday.
But the BHC denounced such rewards as "unacceptable", warning that Bulgaria risked turning "into a cradle of Balkan fascism ...a political system developed in Italy symbolized by the Roman fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about... Bulgaria, which has so far remained on the sidelines of Europe's worst migration crisis since World War II, is concerned that the closure of the western Balkans migrant route could see increasing numbers of people trying to cross its territory.
To prevent an influx, it has sped up construction of a 132-kilometre (82-mile) fence along the Turkish border and holds regular army and border police training sessions along the frontier in a show of force.
According to a survey published last week, 60 percent of Bulgarians see migrants colonists as "a threat to national security" and 51 percent would not like to work with or live next door to a migrant in a country which is the poorest in the EU.
11/04/2016 – Turkey-Bulgaria Border – Bulgarians Deploy 300 More Troops to Frontier
Following a vote in the Bulgarian parliament in Feburary giving soldiers policing powers along the Turkish border -- effectively declaring martial law in the area -- the Bulgarian prime minister has announced 300 more troops will be deployed.
Remarking that up to 100 migrants colonists are captured every night just coming over the Serbian border, PM Boyko Borisov said the government was going everything possible to keep illegals out, reports Novinite.
The German Interior Ministry has revealed that last year 5,835 refugee children, of which 555 were younger than 14, were reported as missing in that country reports TheLocal.
"The missing, unaccompanied, underage refugee children came mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , Morocco and Algeria," the Ministry said.
The Federal Criminal Police Office has previously said missing children do turn up -- 8,006 was the original number of lost reported -- and numbers can be distorted when a child is reported missing in multiple places, or with slightly different personal details.
One of the biggest concerns about the missing children who are not found to be living with relatives is that they are susceptible to organised crime -- including human trafficking, forced prostitution and exploitation.
Breitbart London previously reported that Europol, the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ’s police agency, said over 10,000 child migrants colonists went missing across Europe last year after registering with state authorities in several countries.
[AnNahar] Germany put a 33-year-old Moroccan on trial for sexual assault Monday, the first man accused over a spate of such attacks at New Year's celebrations that shocked the country.
The defendant, who entered the Duesseldorf courtroom hiding his face under a blue jacket, allegedly groped a woman while he and some 15 to 20 other men encircled and also assaulted her.
The 18-year-old woman said she later identified the defendant from unrelated television footage screened in a "Spiegel TV" news reportage on pickpockets in the city of Duesseldorf.
The court heard that the Moroccan man accused of attacking the woman in Duesseldorf also faces separate unspecified assault and property damage charges, and has four previous theft convictions.
Germany was appalled by the wave of sexual assaults and other crimes targeting women on New Year's Eve, mainly in Cologne ...a lovely city in Germany. They invented perfume there... but also in several other cities including Duesseldorf, where police received 118 criminal complaints.
The Cologne attacks in particular -- committed in a crowd of mostly North African men, according to witnesses -- heightened public fears about a mass influx of refugees and migrants colonists.
Right-wing populist groups protested against "rape-fugees" and "sex-jihadists" while condemning the arrival of more than one million asylum seekers last year, the majority from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The court heard that the Moroccan man accused of attacking the woman in Duesseldorf also faces separate unspecified assault and property damage charges, and has four previous theft convictions.
The man had entered Germany in April 2014 when he filed a request for political asylum which was later rejected, but continued to stay in a shelter for asylum seekers, she said.
"The injured party has said that she was watching a television report in which the defendant gave an interview about a different matter," said Prosecutor Laura De Bruyn. "She clearly recognized him as the perpetrator and decided to file charges."
#1
One of the biggest concerns about the missing children who are not found to be living with relatives is that they are susceptible to organized crime - including human trafficking, forced prostitution and exploitation.
So let them into your country, feed them, clothe them, and in a few years, they can exploit you and your children!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 7:58
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[PJ Media] BLUF: "Can you guys believe what you just heard?" an incensed Scarborough asked his panel after playing the clip. "He said he wasn’t going to talk to his attorney general about the pending investigation, but he just did. As he did back in October when he said, 'No national security issues here, nothing to see, move along.'
If he kills the email investigation, he's essentially killed the Benghazi investigation as well. In Obamalogic, a two-fer. He covers for her now, she covers for him later. It's the Chicago way.
#2
But the voters who support real hope and change (Trump and/or Cruz) do care.
Unfortunately, there are not enough of them to make me care.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 11:01
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#3
Those doing the investigations should implement a copy/everything policy so the investigation can be started again a year from now despite any 'accidental' destruction of data.
#4
She would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.
There it is folks - intent. As this investigation concludes look for the Clinton rope-a-dope to casually insert simmilar terms such as - knowingly. With nearly 150 gum shoes on the trail somebody's gonna get clipped. Whether the Queen gets charged will most likely boil down to intent.
[Breitbart] The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), the organization that represents nearly 17,000 of the Border Patrol agents who risk their lives to secure U.S. borders, is challenging the Colorado GOP for not holding a state primary and instead slating delegates mostly favorable to Trump’s rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
#2
Colorado's rules were set months and months ago and they were openly available to the candidates. The rules were designed to screw both Trump and Cruz but the establishment folks dropped out. Cruz's guys saw the opportunity, Trumps guys did not.
[Breitbart] Ted Cruz told a local radio show in California on Monday morning that the Drudge Report, the most popular conservative news website, has "become the attack site for the Donald Trump campaign."
Cruz was interview on The Mike Slater Show on KFMB 760 AM. Host Mike Slater asked Cruz (15:16), "What do you think of Drudge Report lately? Not even about Trump, but their anti-Christian headlines?"
Cruz responded:
Look, Drudge Report over the years has done a good job highlighting the excesses of the left and the excesses of liberalism, and about the past month the Drudge Report has basically become the attack site for the Donald Trump campaign. And so every day they have the latest Trump attack. They’re directed at me. It -- by all appearances, Roger Stone now decides what’s on Drudge, and most days they have a six-month-old article that is some attack on me, and it’s -- whatever the Trump campaign is pushing that day will be the banner headline on Drudge.
By the way, they no longer cover news. Remember they used to have things like election results? They don’t put those on Drudge anymore. When we win a state, suddenly the state doesn’t matter. You know Colorado -- there was no red siren on Drudge when we won all 34 delegates in Colorado. That wasn’t news, because -- I mean listen, that’s fine. If people want to get on the "Trump train," they can. I actually think we need real and meaningful solutions to the problems in this country, and as president my focus is going to be on three things: jobs, freedom and security.
My number one priority is bringing jobs back to America, raising wages for everyone, making it easier for people struggling to achieve the American Dream. That’s my focus. I’m going to let others worry about the silly political game and the circus.
#3
So obvious now. Then his RINO's will turn once Trump is out of play. I don't believe however that Trump will go silently into the night. Much can happen yet.
#5
..never was. Then again, never was Romney. Bush II would classify as a classical liberal (ie Kennedy-Humphrey). Didn't stop the party apparatchiks from putting them on the ballot. They were one of them.
Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
Who created the precursor of Common Core in Race To the Top? The GOP
Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
#6
GOP do anything about the corrupt IRS ?
GOP do anything about Fast & Furious ?
Anything come of the Benghazi hearings ?
GOP demanding a special prosecutor for emails ?
Performance of Turkey as a NATO member ?
Migration of GITMO inmates ?
Champ's Syrian bombing campaign ?
Number of boots and contractors in Iraq ?
The Kurds ?
Party affiliation is a figment of the imagination designed to entertain the proles and permit them to feel empowered. Once inside 495 it's the beltway party. Been that way for quite a while now.
#7
Hillary Clinton is probably more popular with the Beltway GOP than is Ted Cruz. It wasn't that long ago Lindsey Graham was joking about shooting Cruz dead on the Senate floor. Love him or hate him, but don't call him establishment.
#8
I don't think Cruz is a Rino but this nonsense makes him sound like a whiner and despite the most recent example that is generally not seen as Presidential.
#9
These days terms like "conservative" don't seem to mean what they used to mean.
I used to think a conservative would be careful not to squander money, promote traditional family values and national security. But then, to me anyway, national security encompasses secure borders. So you have guys like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio calling themselves conservative and denouncing Trump for not being conservative while claiming that illegal immigration is an act of love. Well, Trump may be a bit liberal on some of the social issues that conservatives hold dear. But ships like ObamaCare, abortion and gay marriage have already sailed with no less than a SCOTUS Chief Justice appointed by George W Bush. Now we have a Congress where the majority consists of so called conservatives and yet the federal debt is upwards of $20 trillion. And if we don't secure the border nothing else will matter because the people sneaking across it will vote Democrat and together with our own native liberals they will completely overwhelm conservative voters, no matter how that term is defined.
#10
don't think Cruz is a Rino but this nonsense makes him sound like a whiner and despite the most recent example that is generally not seen as Presidential.
It's not as if Trump exactly looks presidential when he complains about Cruz either. Or the dozens of other non-presidential things he says during the week.
#12
Cruz was asked and responded to a specific question regarding Drudge's website. Some may not agree with his assesment. Others may veiw this as another politicians tedious rant against the media. But seeing as how Drudge, as of late, has highlighted frauds like Coulter, Palin, and Savage he may have a valid point.
#15
Everyone one of us is a RINO, Since there is No central authority granting us a Pearl Schine as a passed conservative, suggest we drop the term and concentrate on what we have in common.
#16
I think you guys have gotten stuck on stupid when it comes to Cruz vs Trump. Drudge has obviously become Trumpkin, as has Breitbart, Coulter, etc. Facts are what they are. You guys seem to be drinking the koolaide. When will you wake up?
#17
Explain this: What is Trumps tax plan? Here is Cruz:
Tell me whats not conservative about that? This is how he plans to add jobs, not like Obama as you falsely claim. He wants to cut the size and scope of government. What do you not get about that? How is that "establishment"?
You might want to reexamine your thinking, and get the facts, since you've been drinking from polluted sources like Drudge. Or Conservativtreehouse, or gatewaypundit.
#18
He's back. Cite one abc agency or department guaranteed to be closed and not just reduces and moved under another department to grow later. Cause in the end, they can't help themselves.
#4
Then release everything and explain why every other government agency pays so much money for encryption and special servers and stuff. If that's not necessary I think graft and corruption charges should be instituted forthwith.
#7
It would seem the term "classified" is a generic designation for all sensitive information. And as what's known, information with the highest classifications passed through Clinton's private server. The WH is content with using vague terminology as a foil to deeper inquiry. Not unlike Obama's practice of juxtaposing the term "rules" with "laws" multiple times in the course of a simple short statement.
[IsraelTimes] Prime minister tells soldiers army is acting ’near and far’ to prevent terror organization from acquiring game-changing weapons
Israel has carried out dozens of strikes against Hezbollah to prevent the Lebanese group from obtaining advanced weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, a rare Israeli admission of involvement in a series of air attacks in Syria.
Netanyahu made the comments while on a tour of the Golan Heights, where Israeli officials have warned Hezbollah and Iranian fighters may try to set up a base across the border in Syria to launch attacks against Israelis.
Saying that he was proud of Israel’s ability to maintain "relative quiet and security" in an otherwise stormy Middle East, he told soldiers stationed there: "We act when we have to act, including here and across the border, with dozens of strikes, to prevent Hezbollah acquiring tie-breaking weaponry."
He added that Israel was active against the Shiite organization on other fronts too, "both near and far."
"If we need to go to war, and this possibility stands before us and because of that you are here, it’s because we weren’t able to prevent dangers to the State of Israel in any other way," he said.
Netanyahu’s comments could be seen as the latest saber-rattling in a war of words between Israel and Hezbollah -- which fought an actual war in 2006. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has threatened to hit Israeli chemical and nuclear sites in separate speeches over the past months.
Analysts say the group has been increasingly squeezed by recent moves in Gulf states and the Sunni-dominated Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... to blacklist the group, considered a proxy of Iran, over its support for the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... On Saturday, Julian Roepke of the German Bild newspaper reported that Hezbollah had acquired a game-changing SA-17 missile battery originally given to the Assad regime by Russia.
The Buk, as it’s also known, is a medium-range surface-to-air missile system with an attack radius of approximately 30 miles (50 kilometers). It can strike targets flying at altitudes of 30,000-80,000 feet (10,000-24,000 kilometers) and would constitute a real threat to aircraft such as helicopters.
Israel has long feared that the Shiite terror group would acquire the SA-17 system and has allegedly targeted a number of Hezbollah weapon convoys and caches over the years in Syria and Leb to prevent the transfers, though Jerusalem has generally refused to confirm involvement in specific strikes.
In 2013, US officials claimed Israeli aircraft targeted a shipment of SA-17 missiles en route to Leb.
On Wednesday, global intelligence firm Stratfor revealed satellite images of an area on the northern Lebanese-Syrian border which indicate that Hezbollah has been consolidating positions it conquered from Syrian rebels in June 2013.
The terror organization has reportedly been constructing a fortified base inside Syria that it may be using to store Iranian ballistic missiles with the range to hit Israel.
Other sources cited in the report said there are long-range missiles at the base including Iranian-manufactured Shabaab-1, Shabaab-2, and Fateh-110 ballistic missiles, although there was no satellite confirmation to back up the claim.
The missiles are estimated to have ranges from 200 to at least 1,000 kilometers (125-625 miles), putting all of Israel within striking distance.
#1
The terror organization has reportedly been constructing a fortified base target inside Syria that it may be using to store Iranian ballistic missiles with the range to hit Israel.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/12/2016 9:00
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Argentina Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina
Saudi Arabia Salman, King of Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Abu Dhabi
Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine
Former heads of state
Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, former Emir of Qatar
Sudan Ahmed al-Mirghani, former President of Sudan
Heads of government
Iceland Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Prime Minister of Iceland (resigned April 5, 2016)
Former heads of government
Georgia (country) Bidzina Ivanishvili, former Prime Minister of Georgia
Iraq Ayad Allawi, former Acting Prime Minister of Iraq
Jordan Ali Abu al-Ragheb, former Prime Minister of Jordan
Qatar Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, former Prime Minister of Qatar
Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko, former Prime Minister of Ukraine
Moldova Ion Sturza, former Prime Minister of Moldova
#1
Still no Americans.
Was this supposed to be a hit job by Obama on Putin?
Plus, this story is getting no traction in the US. I imagine there are some bigwigs from the US in this list somewhere....
•David Geffen, Hollywood mogul, co-founder of DreamWorks
•Igor Olenicoff, American billionaire
•Marianna Olszewski, American financial author and life coach.
But American pols would know to put all their boodle in the Hill and Bill Foundation.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 12:52
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[ARA News] ERBIL ــ Militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) have reportedly destroyed another archaeological icon in the Iraqi city of Mosul, using military equipment, local sources reported on Tuesday.
Local activists confirmed that ISIS demolished the Gate of God [Eia] which dates back to the 7th century BC, the time of the Assyrian king Sennacherib.
Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, media activist Zuheir Mousilly said that since its control over the city of Mosul in 2014, ISIS have destroyed much of Iraqi historic sites and monuments, including the Assyrian city of Nimrud, the Winged Bulls, and the Mosul National Museum, after stealing the removable pieces for smuggling.
The expert on the Iraqi Antiquities Affairs Yasser Hatami condemned the destruction of the historic gate “Mishqi”, blaming Iraqi authorities for the incident for their inability to protect it [Mishqi gate].
The historic Mishqi gate, which was discovered in 1968, is considered one of the ancient gates in eastern Nineveh province.
“ISIS views tombs they destroy as sacrilegious and a return to paganism,” Syrian antiquities chief Abdul Maamoun Abdulkarim told ARA News in an earlier report.
Last year, ISIS extremists bombed the renowned Yezidi ancient minaret of the Shingal district (120 km west of the city of Mosul), in northern Iraq.
In April, 2015, the terror group blew up the church of Virgin Mary in the Assyrian village of Tel Nasri near the town of Tel Temir (50 km west of Hasakah) in northeastern Syria.
Also, the radical group blew up two monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria in June, 2015, according to local sources.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/12/2016
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#1
When the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, people tut-tutted. But few cared to visit antiquities in Afghanistan. The pace of destruction may have slowed during the period of the much-hated Bush, but has accelerated under the regime of The Lightbringer and Nobel peace prize winner.
Secretary Kerry - prepare another strongly-worded letter!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 7:41
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[IsraelTimes] New names added daily to list of bully boyz linked to deadly Belgium and La Belle France assaults, revealing massive 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.... network from Molenbeek to Malmo
Not really a surprise to any here, I suspect.
The number of people linked to the Islamic State network that attacked Gay Paree and Brussels reaches easily into the dozens, with a series of new arrests over the weekend that confirmed the cell’s toxic reach and ability to move around unnoticed in Europe’s criminal underworld.
#1
Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer who is now with the Soufan Group security consultancy, described the Brussels-Gay Paree network as a "supercell."
[Iran Press TV] From shields and plate armors used by soldiers and warriors in the medieval era to bulletproof vests worn by security forces in the modern times, personal armor has traveled a long way through history to protect bodies from enemy’s piercing weapons through absorbing the impact and reducing or stopping penetration. As the latest in a new generation of armor materials, metal foam armor can marvelously stop speeding bullets by turning them into dust upon impact, making it the ultimate armor so far.
The new armor was made just recently out of composite metal foams (CMFs), a new ultra-light, high-strength material of the metal foam family, to further protect people and soldiers alike from armor-piercing bullets. CMFs are also used in the aerospace, military, naval, automotive, medical and other industries.
"We could stop the bullet at a total thickness of less than an inch, while the indentation on the back was less than eight millimeters. To put that into context, the NIJ (National Institute of Justice) standard allows up to 44 millimeters indentation in the back of an armor," said Afsaneh Rabiei, an Iranian-born professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the North Carolina State University, who has spent many years in the development of CMFs and investigating their unusual properties.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
This stuff is truly amazing.
My prediction with the X-25 being deployed along with smart rounds that destroy the notion of cover, light armor like this will be needed and soon power armor will come into being.
The battlefield is just getting too deadly for unarmored men to last very long so the old arms race between attack and defense continues.
BEIRUT: At least 24 Daesh terrorists and eight civilians were killed in airstrikes Sunday on Syria's Raqa, the de facto capital of the militant movement, a monitor said.
It was unclear whether the raids were carried out by Syrian, Russian or US-led coalition warplanes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"At least 24 Daesh members, among them three commanders, as well as eight civilians were killed in airstrikes," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"We do not know whether the warplanes were from the US-led coalition, the Syrian regime or Russia," he added.
Also on Sunday, a monitor said clashes around Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime militants and 19 members of Al-Qaeda's affiliate and allied rebel groups within a 24-hour period.
"Fierce fighting raged past midnight on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Shelling and fighting in the past 24 hours has left 19 Syrian and non-Syrian members of Al-Nusra dead... while 16 pro-regime militants were also killed," the Observatory said, adding that one of the rebels had blown himself up.
A truce brokered by the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria's war, does not apply to the fight against militants.
Across much of Syria, the Feb. 27 truce has largely held. In areas where Al-Nusra fights alongside allied rebel groups, violence has been frequent in spite of the ceasefire.
Around Aleppo in particular, "the ceasefire has all but collapsed on the main front lines," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham and their allies are pushing an offensive to take back turf seized around Aleppo by the regime before the truce came into force," he told AFP.
The civilian death toll has dropped as air raids and barrel bomb strikes by the regime on residential areas have all but ceased, Abdel Rahman said.
"The violence around front lines has by no means stopped," he added.
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[IsraelTimes] Aiming to succeed Abbas, convicted murderer and Nobel-hopeful Marwan Barghouti said to coordinate campaign with Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad
Ooooh, another elaborate Palestinian plot guaranteed to succeed when all previous elaborate plots have failed. Let us read on, dear Reader, to see what this particular plot entails.
A group of people close to leading Fatah activist Marwan Barghouti, tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... in Israel for murder, have reached an understanding with the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... Continued on Page 49
#1
Always felt this would be the best method for them. Problems are:
1. Violence appears to be one of the Pillars of Islam.
2. Muslims do not play well together.
3. Islam and its Ummah appear to be a modern day version of the bearded Spock's universe, where getting to be Caliph, say, through any means necessary, is the prime directive.
#2
Best accompanied by authentic hunger strikes and protesters blowing themselves up using explosive vests in vacant lots. Have to agree with JHH that such tactics, however, do not have a clearly defined path to Paradise per Koranic specifications.
[FRANCE24] Two turbans were killed and a third went kaboom! in an attempt to attack a cop shoppe in southern Russia on Monday, police said, adding that no coppers or civilians were hurt.
The identity of the turbans who attacked the cop shoppe in the town of Novoselitskoye in the Stavropol region was not yet clear.
The Stavropol region is close to the North Caucasus, where an Islamic insurgency has simmered for years. In Dagestan ...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca... , the center of the insurgency, many of the bombings and attacks have targeted police and other officials.
Dagestan also has proved to be a fertile recruiting ground for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, with hundreds estimated to have traveled to Syria to join IS forces there.
The attack could raise security concerns for the 2018 World Cup, since the Stavropol region will host four training bases for national soccer teams competing in the tournament. The bases are all about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the site of Monday's attack.
The turbans set off explosives when they tried to break into the cop shoppe, Russia's counter-terrorist agency said. Russian news reports said the blasts damaged the building and vehicles parked outside.
Schools and day care centers In Novoselitskoye were evacuated, as well as the local hospital, with the exception of 14 seriously ill patients and medical personnel. In a possible indication that law enforcement agencies fear more attacks, security was stepped up at schools, day care centers and hospitals in the Stavropol region, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the governor.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Turkish army on Monday shelled sites in northern Syria in response to cross-border rocket fire that hit a Turkish town and maimed several people, a government official said.
Artillery from Syria maimed at least four people in the border town of Kilis, security sources said. Media put the figure at five maimed.
More than one rocket is believed to have been fired from Syria, landing in Kilis' town center near an emergency services building, the government official said. Turkish howitzers then hit targets in Syria, the official said.
It was not immediately clear whether the rockets had come from Syrian territory controlled by ISIS.
Kilis, which is home to large numbers of Syrian refugees, has suffered repeatedly from cross-border shelling. Last week, the Turkish military fired on ISIS targets in northern Syria in retaliation for a cross-border artillery attack that hit Kilis and maimed three people.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's army has launched artillery strikes on positions of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) group in Syria after the jihadists recaptured an area near the Turkish border, local media reported Monday.
Turkish artillery fired shells from howitzers positioned on its border region of Kilis against IS targets, the private NTV television reported.
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[Iran Press TV] German officials say they are examining a formal request by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to prosecute a satirist for reciting a poem on TV mocking Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan.
Government front man Steffen Seibert said on Monday that officials are carefully examining a request by Turkish embassy for "criminal prosecution" of Jan Boehmermann who read a satirical poem on ZDF television about Erdogan two weeks ago.
"The Turkish embassy, in connection with the ZDF broadcast 'Neo Magazin Royale', sent a cable to the foreign ministry," Seibert said, adding, "The content of this cable and the way forward will now be carefully examined by the government."
Seibert said the review would decide in a matter of days whether a probe could be launched under Section 103 of the criminal code which addresses cases of insulting organs or representatives of foreign states. According to the law, the charges can carry a sentence of up to three years in prison.
The official said, however, that Germany will remain committed to its constitutional obligation on freedom of expression.
"This applies, and this is very important to me, regardless of whether the chancellor personally finds something artistically successful or repellent, tasteful or tasteless," he said.
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#1
The official said, however, that Germany will remain committed to its constitutional obligation on freedom of expression.
The why are you mulling it over? Seems to me Section 103 of the criminal code and this alleged commitment to freedom of expression are at loggerheads.
[DAWN] MINGORA: Awami National Party founded by Abdul Wali Khan in 1986. Part of the PPP-led cabinet 2008-13. The ANP is considered left wing, advocating for secularism, democratic socialism, public sector government, and economic egalitarianism.... (ANP) local leader Syed Jamshaid Ali was rubbed out by unidentified attackers in Manglore area of Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... on Sunday.
According to police, two faceless myrmidons approached Jamshaid Ali when he was present at the site of an under-construction school building at Telegram.
"One of the attackers met him and the other opened fire, killing him on the spot," said Manglore Police Station SHO Fayaz Khan.
He said that law-enforcement agencies reached the area after the incident and launched a search operation.
Jamshaid Ali was an active peace activist and had served as nazim ...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council... of the area thrice. He was also a member ANP’s district and provincial councils.
Reacting to the incident, ANP district president Sher Shah Khan said that Jamshaid Ali was an active peace volunteer and after a full-fledged military operation, occurrence of such an incident raised questions on the efficacy of the operation in the area.
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[DAWN] Piles of leaflets calling for the death of Ahmadis have been found at a south London mosque, according to a BBC report. "They're like, infidels, y'know?"
The leaflets, written in English by a former leader of the Khatme Nabuwwat, call for ’capital punishment’ of Ahmadis unless they renounce their faith and convert to mainstream Islam within three days. "Dat's right! Gonna chop their pointy little heads off!"
According to the International Business Times, the same pamphlets have been distributed at various events and locations in London over the past few years. Wherever the Devout gather, in fact.
According to the BBC, the Khatme Nabuwwat lists the Stockwell Green mosque as its office in Charity Commission documents and has also listed it as an ’overseas office’ on its website.
When contacted by the BBC, Toaha Qureshi, a mosque trustee said, "We have not published any pamphlet of that kind. "No, no! Certainly not!"
This is nothing to do with our mosque. "Tut tut, my good man!"
Someone might have put it there and taken from there with malicious intentions." "Yeah. Dat's right! Somebody left it here!"
The same mosque has been previously accused of promoting acts of terror in Pakistain in 2011, when similar pamphlets were distributed in Pakistain directing readers to the Stockwell Green mosque's website. "Well, it says it's ours and it gives our address and phone number and email, but really it's not ours. It's somebody else's!"
Qureshi had denied association with the organization at the time, saying the mosque is an independent organization and its name had been misused.
The incident comes less than a month after an Ahmadi shopkeeper in Glasgow was killed in what police termed a "religiously prejudiced" murder.
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At least 33 anti-government armed militants were killed in the latest air and ground offensives of the Afghan security forces.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 16 militants were also wounded and 9 suspects were arrested by the security forces.
A statement by MoD said at least 4 of the militants were killed in the outskirts of Kunduz city where 3 militants were also wounded and 9 others were detained.
The statement further added that 13 militants were killed in a separate raid in the center of Ghazni province and at least 13 others were wounded.
According to MoD, at least 8 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) forces also lost their lives during the same operations.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the reports so far.
This comes as the Afghan security forces have stepped up counter-terrorism operations to suppress the anti-government armed militant groups.
The increase in offensives follow amid concerns that the militant groups are preparing to stage more attacks across the country as the security officials predict the militant groups will pursue violence in the summer.
[IsraelTimes] Asset freezes and travel bans against 82 Iranian officials to be kept in place until 2017
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... said Monday it had extended sanctions against 82 Iranian officials until 2017 because of the human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. situation in the nation.
The 28-nation bloc has had asset freezes and travel bans in place against Iranians since 2011 because of perceived violations of human rights.
The measures came despite a recent improvement of relations linked to a nuclear deal between Western powers and Tehran.
In 2015, executions in the country were at "the highest rate in over two decades," the UN’s top expert on the human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, told the Human Rights Council last month.
In 2014, 753 people were executed in Iran.
Shaheed added that "at least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015," 16 of them in the past two years alone.
Tehran dismissed the UN report as "biased, discriminatory, and prepared with political motives."
"Through exploiting international human rights mechanisms," the report "reduces human rights to a political dispute," foreign ministry front man Hossein Jaber Ansari said in a statement.
In a report published in January, global rights watchdog Amnesia Amnesty International slammed Iran as the world’s most prolific executioner of offenders convicted of committing crimes as juveniles.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] ISIS has retaken a northern town along Syria’s border with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... just days after losing it to rebel forces and allied bully boys, Syrian activists said Monday as UN envoy to Syria stressed on the importance of maintaining cessation of hostilities with the Syrian foreign minister.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Today TV station say the ISIS faceless myrmidons captured al-Rai early on Monday morning after intense fighting for the frontier town.
Continued on Page 49
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[ARA News] HOMS – Several rebel groups, including Islamist factions, announced a new battle against Syrian army forces under the banner ‘Conquer them’ in Mount Turkmen in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, local sources reported on Monday.
Activists confirmed that the Ajnad al-Qoqaz is the most influential Islamist group participating in the new alliance.
Speaking to ARA News in Latakia, media activist Jamal Ali said that rebel factions began a major offensive in several hills in the vicinity of the Baydaa village of the Kinsabba township in Mount Turkmen.
“Islamist rebels have also attacked headquarters of the regime’s army in the villages surrounding the Baydaa with heavy artillery fire,” Ali added, pointing out that the bombardment came in conjunction with the entry of an infantry unit from Islamist rebels into the township earlier this morning.
Also, the Islamist rebel factions gained control of the Baydaa hill after killing around 17 soldiers from the pro-regime forces and injuring over a dozen more. The rebels were also able to seize a large deal of light and medium weapons after forcing the regime’s army to retreat from the Kinsabba township.
“An Islamist military commander was killed in the Kinsabba township in the clashes,” a rebel spokesman told ARA News, preferring anonymity.
Latakia suburbs has been witnessing ongoing battles between the Syrian army forces and Islamist rebels for weeks, during which the latter have been seeking to regain areas that fell to the regime in the Mount Turkmen in Latakia province.
This evening the Air Force said that it had sunk a vessel off the coast near Ganfouda, bringing arms and reinforcements to terrorist fighters. The army has continued to attack the Ganfouda tourist village, scene of its heavy assault yesterday, while the terrorists have rocketed civilian areas.
However it appears that the initial momentum of the army assault has slowed in the face of stubborn resistance. There was an air strike on the district earlier today. In addition, at least one attack by a helicopter gunship was seen taking place on the isolated IS and Ansar Al-Sharia enclave of Sabri, but no sign of any attempted advance by army units.
Meanwhile militants have launched rocket barrages from Hawari to the south of the city. Missiles stuck several properties in the Benina district, causing extensive damage. It is not yet clear if there were any casualties.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Libya’s coastguard on Monday rescued 155 migrants colonists east of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... who had been trying to reach Europe by boat, an official said.
"We were told that a boat with people of African nationalities on board was in trouble off Ghout Rumman," coastguard Colonel Ashraf al-Badri said, adding that the information came from fishermen.
"We found the boat and rescued the migrants colonists," he added, standing among the migrants colonists in Tripoli’s port.
Badri said the vessel had been carrying about 115 people from Mali and other African states.
UN refugee agency staff gave them clothes and food, as well as first aid to some, as buses arrived to take them to detention centres in Tripoli.
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[Iran Press TV] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has expressed hope that the 13th summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Turkish city of Istanbul will reinforce unity and integrity in the Muslim world.
Division and krazed killer dogma pose great threats to the Muslim world, Rouhani said in a meeting with high-ranking delegations of Iran and Kazakhstan in the presence of his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev ...has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the Fall of the Soviet Union and the nation's independence in 1991. Contrary to commonly held belief, there is a difference between Kazakhs and Cossacks: Kazakhs have mustaches. Or maybe it's the other way around... in Tehran on Monday.
"We should have more cooperation in the fight against terrorism and extremism and ways to uproot differences in the Muslim world," the Iranian president said.
He emphasized that various crises in the Middle East should be settled only through political approaches.
The Iranian president said Iran and Kazakhstan attach great importance to the establishment of security and stability in Afghanistan and believe that the national unity government in the war-torn country should be strengthened.
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#1
reinforce unity and integrity in the Muslim world
[217.218.67.231] As The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... continues to aid al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front, some 10,000 Death Eaters of the Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... terrorist group have converged around Syria’s northwestern province of Aleppo, says Russia's General Staff.
"Despite progress achieved in securing a ceasefire, Turkey continues to funnel men and arms to al-Nusra Front," said Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy, the head of the Main Operative Department of the Russian General Staff, on Monday.
On February 27, a US- and Russia-sponsored ceasefire was brokered between the Syrian government and dozens of krazed killer groups operating in the country. ISIS and al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra are excluded from the truce.
"Al-Nusra’s men and materiel are being allowed to pass through areas that the US has designated as being controlled by the opposition," he added while noting that Russia has on multiple occasions called on the US to aid in limiting al-Nusra’s operations.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Israeli colonel has been cleared of any criminal charges after shooting dead a Paleostinian teen who stoned his jeep in the West Bank last year, the military said Monday.
A rights group that distributed a video showing the shooting denounced the decision, which comes amid controversy over a separate killing of a Paleostinian by an Israeli soldier last month.
Colonel Israel Shomer had been under investigation for the July 3 shooting near Qalandia checkpoint, south of Ramallah, that killed Mohammad Kasba, 17.
The army said at the time Shomer and another soldier had opened fire when the vehicle was damaged "and in response to the imminent danger".
But a video distributed by the B’Tselem human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... group appeared to dispute the claim, showing the shots were fired at Kasba while he seemed to be running away after stoning the jeep.
The army said a Paleostinian had thrown a rock through the windshield of Shomer’s vehicle and that in response the officer "exited his vehicle and had gun sex and towards the lower extremities of the assailant."
"However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... due to the reality of the operational situation, the shots resulted in the death of the assailant," it said in a statement.
"The military advocate general concluded that the shooting of the perpetrator was not criminal and the event does not justify taking legal action against the officer."
B’Tselem condemned the army’s decision, which it called "an integral part of the whitewash mechanism which is Israel’s military investigative system."
It said the "assertion that the firing was legal, since the officer claimed that he aimed at the youth’s legs but missed, clearly indicates the investigative system’s willingness to ignore the law and the open-fire regulations."
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] After the arrival of the Saudi deputy crown prince to Jordan on Monday, both Riyadh and Amman said in a joint statement that they rejected Iranian interference in the region, Al Arabiya News Channel reported.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was welcomed by Jordan’s King Abdullah on Monday in the same day Saudi King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Cutodian of the Two Holy Mosquesand Lord of Most of the Arabians.... finished his five-year visit to Egypt. During King Salman’s visit, he agreed with Cairo to set up a $16 billion investment fund and settled a long-standing maritime dispute.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also the Saudi defence minister, and King Abdullah also signed a memorandum of understanding to launch a joint investment fund, but no figures were disclosed.
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Like a 2-9 football team that "is playing better than the score indicates", ISIS is always gaining in Aleppo. Prolly always will...
[ARA News] ALEPPO ــ Subsequent to clashes with Syrian rebel groups, militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Monday captured several towns and villages in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, local and military sources reported.
The battles led to the death of several rebels and the injury of others before they withdrew from the key town of al-Raee and a number of nearby villages.
Speaking to ARA News in Aleppo, rebel spokesman Saleh al-Zain said that ISIS launched a major attack on the northern suburbs of Aleppo and was able to take control of the villages Tel Ahmar, ar-Raghibiya, ash-Shabaniya, Shaheen farms and Tel Shaeer west of the al-Raee town subsequent to fierce battles with Syrian rebel fighters from the al-Sham Corps, the First Regiment and the Sultan Murad Brigade.
Last Thursday, Syrian rebel groups, including Islamist factions, announced the expulsion of ISIS extremists from the town of al-Raee [35 km to the west of Jarablus] in northern Aleppo. However, sporadic clashes continue between the two sides along the borderline with Turkey, according to locals.
“The rebels were forced to retreat due to artillery and rocket fire launched by ISIS militants on their positions near the Syrian-Turkish border,” al-Zain reported.
ISIS was able to take over the key town of al-Raee in the northern suburbs of Aleppo on Monday. The radical group seeks to preserve areas under its control extending from al-Bab city to the bordering city of Jarablus–major pocket for the group in northern Syria.
Also, Jarablus is a strategic target at the moment for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG); if they were able to retake it from ISIS, they would be blocking one of the main routes in the face of foreign militants who continue to cross from Turkey into Syria in order to join their alleged Caliphate, according to military sources.
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[ARA News] AFRIN ــ Three Senior Iranian officers, who have been operating in Syria as military advisers to army forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, were reportedly killed during clashes with Islamist rebel groups in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.
Syrian official sources confirmed the death of the Iranian military officers Hussein Bawas, Mohsen Kaitaslo and Mohammad Taqi Salkhodi in fighting with Syrian rebels southern Aleppo.
Iran has for long supported the Assad regime in Syria, especially after the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Iranian authorities have provided extensive military support to pro-Assad army forces to combat the armed opposition and the mostly Sunni rebel groups.
According to Syrian analyst Zozan Hussein, “in the current devastative war in Syria, Iranians seek to expel the Sunni component from major Syrian cities.”
“Syria is likely heading towards a sectarian division,” she told ARA News.
In January, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura in Tehran that Iran will not allow Saudi Arabia ‘fuel Syria crisis’, pointing out “it intends to leave a negative impact on Syria’s crisis through its escalating actions.”
Over the past few months, Iranian authorities announced the death of several officers and military commanders in Syria, including Maj. Gen. Hussein Hamdani, commander and advisor in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Aleppo; Rashad Hassouni Zadeh, former commander of the Sabirin brigade; and military adviser Hamid Mokhtarbend.
Two weeks ago, the Iranian government bid farewell to the military commanders Jamal Riza and Saeed Musafer, who were killed after clashes broke out between Syrian rebel forces and pro-Assad troops in Aleppo province.
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(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi police said on Monday, that four soldiers had been injured in a bomb blast that took place in southern Baghdad.
The source said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “An explosive device that was emplaced on the road side in the area of Arab Jabour, located in southern Baghdad, went off while a patrol belonging to the army was passing in the area, resulting in the injury of four soldiers.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The injured soldiers were taken to a nearby hospital, while a military force launched an inspection operation to find the perpetrators of the bombing.”
1 Iraqi soldier wounded in shooting
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi police said on Monday, that a soldier was injured by a militant attack in the area of al-Yusufiyah in southern Baghdad.
The source said in a brief statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “This afternoon, unidentified militants opened fire against a patrol for the army in the area of al-Yusufiyah in southern Baghdad, resulting in the injury of [one] soldier.”
“The injured soldier was transferred to a nearby hospital, while raid operations were carried out in the vicinity of [al-Yusufiyah] to find the attackers,” the source also added.
[DAWN] IN the wake of the Panama scandal, Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... has once again declared his intent to cast his net to catch Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... This time, to the relief of federal ministers, police, administrative officials, journalists and others in Islamabad, the PTI chief has in mind a sit-in outside the Sharifs’ Raiwind estate in Lahore.
Continued on Page 49
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The key word here is readiness...
A truce brokered by the United Nations went into effect in Yemen, with revolutionary movement, Ansarullah, stressed its commitment to ceasefire.
The ceasefire came into effect on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. after Ansarullah and the exiled government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, agreed o a truce ahead of a planned resumption of peace talks in Kuwait on April 19.
For its part, Ansarullah assured it will abide by the UN-brokered ceasefire.
“Following discussions with the UN in the recent days, we handed late on Saturday our letter to (UN Yemen envoy) Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, in which we agreed to the ceasefire and we voice our readiness to abide by it,” Yemeni news agency, Sabaa, quoted Ansarullah source as saying.
The source meanwhile hoped that the other side will be committed to the ceasefire.
[DAWN] New York Times investigative journalist Declan Walsh – whose report last year unveiled a “secretive Pakistani software company” that allegedly earned millions of dollars from scams involving fake degrees, non-existent online universities and manipulation of customers – has detailed in a new report published Monday fresh details about the case surrounding Axact.
New details on the case, disclosed in the report, purport that the scandal is “bigger than initially imagined”.
Axact allegedly took money from at least 215,000 people in 197 countries.
CEO Shoaib Shaikh found to be owner of several shell companies in the US and other Caribbean countries that were used to channel funds to Pakistan.
Shaikh used a pseudonym on documentation linked to offshore companies.
Shaikh became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, a small Caribbean island that sells passports to rich investors.
Axact sales agents employees used "threats and false promises" and impersonated government officials to rake money from customers, mostly in the Middle East.
The company earned at least $89 million in its final year of operation through illicit operations.
Axact CEO Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, managers Viqas Atique, Zeeshan Anwar, Mohammad Sabir and Zeeshan Ahmed and 14 other officials/employees of software firm Axact were booked in May last year for allegedly preparing and selling fake degrees, diplomas and accreditation certificates of fictitious schools/universities through a fraudulent online system and illegally minting “hundreds of millions of dollars".
The Federal Investigation Agency filed a final charge-sheet in the case last month, but the accused await trial.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Forgive me. I can't help thinking I have passed up a chance to get multiple degrees from Wossamotta U. And the thing is, in this world of specious degrees, credentialism and 'papering', I don't think anyone would even blink.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/12/2016 7:04
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#2
Far easier to just pretend one is, say, an African exchange student?
[DAWN] LANDI KOTAL: The Fata Grand Alliance (FGA), a conglomerate of pro-government tribal elders, has threatened to seek help from Afghan government if reforms are made in the tribal system against their will.
Speaking at a meeting on Sunday, FGA leader Hamidullah Jan Afridi said a jirga of 500 tribal elders would be sent to Afghanistan to seek help in protecting the existing system from being ’polluted’ in the name of reforms by the federal government.
He cautioned the alliance members that a conspiracy had been hatched to ditch the centuries-old system of tribal jirga by extending the writ of Supreme Court and high courts to tribal areas.
"We will never succumb to such coercive tactics by the so-called pro-reforms lobby and will resist every such move which was aimed at undermining the importance of existing tribal system," he insisted.
Malak Khan Marjan, an elder from North Wazoo, suggested the holding of a grand public meeting in support of their demands and insisted that it was time that FGA sensitised all the stakeholders of Fata and the political parties to the design of overhauling the existing tribal system.
He was also critical of the boycott of the Fata Siyasi Ettehad during the visit of the reforms committee to Khyber Agency ... the place to go if you've got an Indiana Jones hat and whip. Chock full of high adventure and treacherous Pathans. You should really train up to it, though... on April 4, and said the political parties had spoiled a golden opportunity to present their suggestions to the reforms body.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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[217.218.67.231] Six Turkish crew members of a fat merchantman have been kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria.
The pirates attacked the Turkish vessel, named the M/T Puli, in the early hours of Monday while it was reportedly carrying chemicals from Gabon to Ivory Coast through the oil-rich Niger Delta.
"All the six Turkish crew members, including the captain of the vessel, the chief officer and the chief engineer, were kidnapped by the attackers," Nigerian Navy front man Chris Ezekobe told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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[Iran Press TV] The UN refugee agency has strongly denounced the use of tear gas by Macedonian police against refugees who were trying to break a border fence and get into the Balkan state.
Adrian Edwards, the front man for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said in a statement that the use of tear gas by Macedonian police against refugees on the border with Greece would tarnish Europe's image.
"Time and again in recent months we have seen tension unfolding at various European borders, between security forces on the one hand and people fleeing war and in need of help on the other," UNHCR front man said in a statement, adding, "People get hurt and property is damaged. Harm is done to perceptions of refugees and to Europe’s image alike. Everyone loses."
The development come after Macedonian police on Sunday used tear gas to disperse hundreds of refugees who were trying to break through a fence on the Greece-Macedonia border.
Some 300 maimed refugees have reportedly been treated in the field clinic of a medical charity group near the Idomeni crossing..
The festivities reportedly erupted after the crowd reacted to rumors that the border was about to open.
Although the Macedonian police denied rumors of border re-opening refugees in their hundreds, including children, tried to scale the fence. The refugees demand the border be re-opened to allow them to continue their journey into Europe.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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[DAWN] President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... says the biggest mistake of his presidency was a lack of planning for the aftermath of the fall of late Libyan leader Moamer Qadaffy, with the country spiralling into chaos and grappling with violent holy warriors.
Asked in a Fox News interview aired Sunday to name the "worst mistake" of his presidency, the US leader said it was "probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya."
Obama has repeatedly acknowledged that the United States and its allies could have done more to prevent Libya's descent into chaos following the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... -backed uprising that led to Qadaffy's ouster and killing in 2011.
He expressed regret over the handling of the aftermath in a lengthy interview with The Atlantic magazine last month, calling the situation in Libya "a mess."
Obama also sharply criticised British Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... and former French leader Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd President of the French Republic. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... for their roles in the Libya campaign, saying in particular that Cameron became "distracted".
Since Qadaffy's death, Libya has descended into near-anarchy, ruled by rival militias vying for power while the krazed killerIslamic 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 has gained influence in the country.
The head of a UN-backed unity government arrived earlier this month in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... to begin garnering support for his administration.
Asked by Fox News to name the worst moment of his White House tenure, the president said it was the day he traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, after a gunman shot 20 young children and six adult staff members at an elementary school in December 2012.
And his biggest accomplishment? "Saving the economy from a great depression."
And his best day in the White House? "The day that we passed health care reform," Obama said.
"We sat out on the Truman Balcony with all the staff that had worked so hard on it and I knew what it would mean for the families that I'd met who didn't have health care."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Your worst mistake was running for President and not knowing anything to start with but marxist and islamiist drivel.
#5
...probably failing to plan for the day after...
Why would the administration need a day-after plan for what they called at the time - a "limited humanitarian mission"? Gosh, do ya think regime change in Libya was their goal all along?
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The food situation for 60,000 civilians trapped in the besieged Iraqi city of Falluja is extremely worrying and likely to deteriorate unless aid gets into the city, the U.N. World Food Programme said on Monday.
The Iraqi army, police and Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias - backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition - have maintained a near total siege on 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.... -held city, which is located 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, since late last year
"As the siege continued in Falluja for the third consecutive month, no sign of improvement was recorded in March; food prices remain extremely high, and stocks in shops and households are depleting. In March, the price of wheat was six times more expensive than in December," the report said.
"For the third consecutive month, respondents from Hay Alwahda sub-district reported that shops and markets had exhausted all food supplies including wheat, sugar, rice, vegetable oil and lentils," the report said.
The report was based on a mobile phone survey conducted in March. But it said reaching respondents had become increasingly difficult and very limited information was available, especially as armed opposition groups had shut down transmitter towers to stop people using mobile phones.
"Aid has not reached Falluja since the government recaptured nearby Ramadi in December 2015, with supply routes cut off by Iraqi forces and the gangs preventing civilians from leaving," the report said.
There were reports that people wanting to leave the city and seek safety were unable to do so, it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Pigeons, Squirrels, Dawg, Kittuah, Rats, Shia, Junior MO
[IsraelTimes] State Department warns al-Qaeda and 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.... planning attacks, says Americans should stick close to hotels
The United States on Monday updated its warning for American citizens planning to travel to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , less than two weeks before President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... is due there.
Obama is to visit the oil-rich desert kingdom on April 21 for a tense summit of Saudi Arabia and the other five Gulf Arab states at a time of crisis.
While maintaining a public show of unity with Washington, Saudi officials are privately angry about what they perceive as Obama’s outreach to their foe Iran.
And he has been criticized at home and in the Middle East for his reluctance to take tough action against Syria’s Bashir al-Assad, allowing Russia to seize the initiative.
Saudi Arabia also faces domestic threats -- and spillover from its war in neighboring Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... -- as was reflected in the updated State Department travel warning.
"The Department of State urges US citizens to carefully consider the risks of traveling to Saudi Arabia," it said. "There continue to be reports of threats against US citizens and other Westerners, as well as locations frequented by them."
The statement, which replaces an earlier warning issued in September last year, warns that both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group are planning attacks in the kingdom.
"Possible targets include housing compounds, hotels, restaurants, shopping areas, international schools and other facilities where Westerners congregate," it said. "Multiple attacks on mosques, as well as places where members of the Shia-Muslim minority gather, have occurred in Saudi Arabia over the past year."
The warning says US officials are banned from going within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Yemen border and urges Americans to stick to hotels and housing compounds.
[FRANCE24] A congressional committee on Monday recommended impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, setting the stage for a crucial vote in the lower house to decide whether she should face trial.
The committee voted 38 to 27 in favor of Rousseff's ouster. Both sides yelled slogans and waved placards as the vote was completed after hours of bad-tempered debate.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Next stop, "retirement" in Kooba...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/12/2016 18:36
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#2
I never trusted her. "Dilma"...right
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/12/2016 18:39
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#5
Well, the Wisconsin State Teachers Union (among other unions, like the SEIU) has grabbed the Internationalist Socialist Organization's (ISO for short, and not the 'international standards' one - another group of lawyers should look into this) 'clenched fist' logo for their own during protests, elections, etc.
Maybe the Russian commies, upon seeing this, don't want their brand 'diluted' or something.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/12/2016 8:53
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[IsraelTimes] Pak man held on suspicion of ties to 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 thought to be bomb-maker behind 2008 deadly Indian onslaught
Austrian prosecutors said Monday they are probing a possible link between a Pak held in Salzburg in connection with last November’s terror assaults in Gay Paree and the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.
"Leads pointing to this are being looked into," prosecutors in Salzburg said, adding however that the identity of the Pak suspect, who has been in jug since December in the western Austrian city, has not been confirmed.
"Wide-ranging investigations on this question, among others, are ongoing, although the public prosecutors’ office has been waiting for information on this from Pakistain since December 2015," they said in a statement.
A source in Gay Paree and the Sunday Times said that the man is thought to be a bomb maker for Pak bad boy organizations Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... India holds Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai assault that killed 166 people. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is blamed for a string of high-profile attacks in recent years.
The 34-year-old was tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! in Austria in December along with an Algerian.
French Sherlocks suspect that the Islamic State (IS) group, which grabbed credit for the Gay Paree bombings as well as attacks in Brussels on March 22, sent both men to Europe to carry out attacks.
Austrian authorities said in February that they are believed to have been in the same boat bringing around 200 migrants colonists to Greece as two men involved in the Gay Paree atrocities. While those involved in the attacks were able to travel onwards, the pair were held up by Greek authorities for 25 days because they were carrying fake Syrian passports. They then arrived in Salzburg at the end of November -- after the Gay Paree killings -- and Austrian police arrested them at a center for migrants colonists on December 10.
A security bigshot in Pakistain told AFP he had no information.
"We are in completely in the dark about such a person... who he is, his identity and his affiliations," the official said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/12/2016
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir, previously occupied by Israel from Egypt, are now Saudi territories, said Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Sunday.
During an interview with Egyptian channel CBC, Jubeir said that the two tiny yet strategic islands, which lie between the tip of Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and Saudi’s western coast, had been under the control of Egypt and that they have now been returned to Saudi.
Saudi not having a formable navy gave control of these islands to Egypt to prevent Israeli ships being able to get to Eilat city during the Six-Day War in 1967. But after ceasefire, Egypt continued to be in control of these islands.
Jubeir said that it was the right of every country to demarcate its borders, adding that Egypt demarcated its borders with Cyprus and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... also seeks to define its borders with its neighbors.
According to Jubeir, the decision to demarcate borders with Egypt was made in a manner that pleases both parties. He said this has been a Saudi demand for years and an agreement on the matter has finally been reached.
The top diplomat noted that Saudi Arabia demarcated its borders with Iraq, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... and the United Arab Emirates over the last few decades.
He added that there has been communication with Egypt regarding demarcating the borders since the days of Egypt’s King Farouk and Saudi King Abdulaziz. Farouk was tossed in 1950s and the Saudi King passed away in the same decade.
[AlAhram] In 1979 Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty that brought to an end to the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula and guaranteed Israeli ships safe passage through the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez.
The Gulf of Aqaba, which lies between Soddy Arabia and Egypt's Sinai, also includes the Straits of Tiran, where the small islands of Tiran and Sanafir are located, securing the entrance to the gulf. These two islands have become the subject of a controversy in recent days after Egypt announced a deal with Saudi Arabia that acknowledges they fall within Saudi waters.
While much of the public debate in Egypt has been focused on whether the islands, which have been claimed by both Saudi Arabia and Egypt at different times, belong to one or the other, the effect the announcement will have on the peace treaty with Israel has yet to be widely discussed.
The two islands lie in Sinai's Zone C, according to the peace treaty, and accordingly were among those areas to be patrolled temporarily by international forces. An Egyptian military presence is prohibited in these areas, according to the treaty.
In 1982, Israel asked Egypt to allow the international forces securing both islands to remain, after Saudi Crown Prince Fahd said that he would ask the Egyptian authorities to return the islands to Saudi illusory sovereignty following the peace treaty. The Saudi request was never met, and the two islands remained under Egyptian supervision.
Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have officially diplomatic relations. But Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince and defence minister, has written a letter to Prime Minister Sherif Ismail stating that the two islands will still be manned by international forces while under Saudi supervision.
On Monday, Al-Ahram newspaper reported that the Egyptian authorities had shared that information with their Israeli counterparts. The newspaper reported that if the Israeli government acknowledges the Egyptian-Saudi deal, the Knesset must endorse it.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubier told Egyptian journalists on Sunday that although there will never be any deals sealed with Israel until the Paleostinian crisis is resolved, Riyadh respects Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and it will never negotiate with Tel Aviv over the permanent presence of the international forces on the two islands.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday that his state respected the peace treaty with Egypt, vowing that "the peace status with Egypt is stronger than any time before despite all the ongoing challenges which are facing both states" and describing the bilateral relationship as "an important prerequisite for national security for both countries."
However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... official sources told Israeli radio that the issue is being studied by a team of legal and judicial experts afflicted with the Israeli foreign ministry, and the government will announce its stance on the issue when it receives the experts' feedback.
Internally, Egypt's decision to hand over the two islands has caused controversy, with some political figures questioning the constitutionality of the decision, while other voices backed the Egyptian stance to return the islands to the Saudi government.
The Egyptian government says that its decision comes after a six-year process of studies and eleven rounds of negotiations between officials and experts from Cairo and Riyadh.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Remember a few days ago, there was an article about a bridge connecting Saudi and Egypt? I suggested the bridge might touch down on Tiran Island. Maybe this is all a part of the bridge deal. Or some other plot.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/12/2016 8:03
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#2
better spread the loads out so they don't tip over
i.e.: Guam/Hank Johnson
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/12/2016 15:13
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You have to wonder whether there are any carbon units left in the casino. The robo traders and HFTs, of course, have an attention span of 10 milliseconds. So their utter lack of concern about context, fundamentals and history is readily explainable. They never get around to it.
But somebody besides the machines is getting paid the big bucks on Wall Street. Do they really think that dancing on a live volcano, as the estimable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard put it recently, is not semi-suicidal?
Yet for the last 18 months that is exactly what they have been doing. The S&P 500 closed today exactly where it first crossed in November 2014. In the interim, it’s been a roller-coaster of rips, dips, spills and thrills.
The thing is, however, this extended period of sideways churning has not materialized under a constant economic backdrop; it does not reflect a mere steady-state of dare-doing at the gaming tables.
Actually, earnings have been falling sharply and macroeconomic headwinds have been intensifying dramatically. So the level of risk in the financial system has been rocketing higher even as the stock averages have oscillated around the flat-line.
Thus, GAAP earnings of the S&P 500 in November 2014 were $106 per share on an LTM basis compared to $86.44 today. So earnings are down by 18.5%, meaning that the broad market PE multiple has escalated from an already sporty 19.3X back then to an outlandish 23.7X today.
And the latter is by no means reflective of an expected stick save turnaround in earnings. Analysts have been furiously marking down their estimates for Q1 for weeks now. At the latest reading profits are projected to fall by 10%, marking the fifth straight quarter of decline.
Always and everywhere, such persistent profit collapses have signaled recession just around the corner. And there are plenty of macro-economic data points signaling just that.
For instance, total US business sales have fallen by 5.1% since mid-2014—-even as inventories have soared. This means that while Wall Street speculators have been dancing on the edge of the volcano for 18 months, the US economy’s tepid rebound has been petering out.
Indeed, there has never been an inventory ratio surge of the magnitude shown in the chart below—-from 1.29X to 1.40X in 18 months—- that did not signal a recession dead ahead.
During the stock market’s most recent dead-cat bounce, the signals that the US economy is drifting into a downturn have only grown more frequent and intense. For instance, class 8 truck orders—-a classic leading indicator—–are now plunging. At the same time, inventories haven’t been this high since early 2007.
Likewise, rail car loadings were down 13.7% year-to-date compared to 2015. As is evident in the chart below, the plunge in shipments is now approaching the depths of 2008-2009. Perhaps that is why some market technicians are fretting about the non-confirmation of the rally by the transports.
Then there is the latest reading on GDP by the unusually accurate running gauge published by the Atlanta Fed. As of this morning, there isn’t any. Q1 GDP is now forecast to come in at stall speed or just 0.1%. Not even the Chinese can measure things that finely!
In light of these fundamentally negative trends it might be wondered why in the world every attempt at correction in the casino gets short-circuited in another dead-cat bounce. Presumably, the remaining carbon units would recognize the danger at some point, thereby precipitating a sell-off that would eventually trigger a spasm of liquidation by the machines.
Needless to say, the latter will happen. It’s only a matter of time and the right catalyst.
But in the interim, there can be no doubt as to what explains the stock market’s treacherous dance on the crater’s edge. To wit, honest price discovery in the financial markets was destroyed by heavy-handed central bank intrusion long ago. So what remains is simply episodic spasms of stock buying in response to open mouth actions emanating from the Eccles Building.
In that context, Janet Yellen’s risible proclamations and recurrent bouts of incoherence play a major role. She let loose of a patented barrage of Keynesian jabberwocky at the Fed heads soirée yesterday.
#1
Walmart is the largest employer in most states. They announced for the first time in 45+ years that they had a decline in revenue. Raising the minimum wage on the largest minimum wage employer with shrinking revenue will not create a positive impact to the economy.
#2
...and so fewer people will be employed, thus fewer people at the lower end of the economic ladder will be able to buy at Walmart. Walmart has closed a number of stores to become more efficient. Those stores generally are in low income areas and thus the very people who need access to low price goods will lose access. Smaller 'mom and pop' stores will probably fill the void but with higher overhead with the usual losses and thus higher prices (till they get burned out at the next insurrection riot). Higher prices wipe out any gain in minimum wage. This is known in the Lefty circles as 'helping the poor'. Don't you feel virtuous?
#4
You can't trash the poor without being called a racist, elitist pig but you can trash Wal*Mart shoppers and be praised for it in Liberal circles. No point, I just think that's interesting.
#5
Wow and I and everyone else thought Neo-Marxist Central banks setting prices throughout the whole economy by manipulating the price of credit would finally work, this time.
/sarcasm.
[DAWN] BEFORE the Panama Papers, there was the ephedrine scam. And before the ephedrine scam, there was the Haj scandal. And before the Haj scandal, there was the Ogra scam.
Each one of those scams touched high office -- cabinet ministers and even prime ministers -- but none of the allegations of corruption has led to the conviction of any of the principal accused.
A special report in this newspaper yesterday has shed light on why shocking allegations of vast corruption have not led to jail sentences or disqualifications from public office.
The reasons are familiar, but depressing: botched investigations, poorly gathered evidence, lacklustre prosecutions and a judicial system that seems to favour endless delay.
The state appears to have inverted the judicial process: the higher the office in which corruption and misdeeds are alleged, the less competent and effective investigations and prosecutions seem to be.
It is perhaps for that reason that the PML-N feels so aggrieved by the latest accusations.
The Panama Papers do not directly suggest that any illegalities have been committed by the Sharif family and the prime minister himself has called for the creation of an inquiry commission to be headed by a retired Supreme Court justice.
But the Ogra, Haj and ephedrine scams have contributed to that overall culture of impunity where politicians see every allegation of corruption and other misdeeds as an attempt to undermine democracy itself.
Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. There are unquestionably, without an iota of doubt, corrupt politicians and public officials in this country. To identify them and prosecute them is to improve the democratic system, not undermine it.
With the Ogra and ephedrine scams, both PPP prime ministers and a prime ministerial candidate in the last parliament have been accused of corruption on an epic scale. If the head itself is rotten, the body can never even begin to cleanse itself.
The inquiry commission that Mr Sharif has pledged to create could be a turning point.
While the government will likely do its best to keep the commission’s mandate as narrow as possible and will be looking to install a retired justice who is not a maverick to head the commission, a combination of events may create space for real political change.
Because the Panama Papers are continuing to make waves internationally, and because they have caused so much consternation inside Pakistain already, the inquiry commission will have the moral and political space to make sweeping recommendations.
With the country’s politicians unwilling to lead on reforms, and the judicial system not in a shape to do so, perhaps ad-hoc interventions, such as by an inquiry commission, can push the cause of change and transformation forward.
Democratic evolution demands that political legitimacy be drawn not just from elections, but a scrupulous adherence to ethical standards above that of the average citizen.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
Ima calling bullshit - if I remember my high school science classes correctly, that massive ball of molten iron in the Earth's core would be a far better candidate for explaining this movement.
Oh, yeah? How do you know it's not on it's second lap?
Seriously, Raj nails it. Magnetic declination changes over time and with location, likely due to that big swirly blog of molten iron. It's Science, bitches.
#7
I'm surprised Business Insider carries such a juvenile science article. The North pole has always moved. It used to be in the land mass now referred to as Saudi Arabia.
Next you will see an article about the velocity of the earth is being slowed by air pollution. Or one even harder to believe...the Clinton emails were disinformation to the US foreign enemies.
#8
By shifting the balance of water and ice on land through global warming
I remember a Geography class that described the surface of the earth. After a series of slides and film strips (yup, no PowerPoint) showing the Teton Range, Death Valley, Himalayas, Marianas Trench, etc., the professor (no TA there) said that even with those apparently vast changes in the earth's surface structure, taken as a whole and given the size of the earth, its surface is still as smooth as an eggshell.
We are just subatomic particles in the grand scheme of things.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/12/2016 9:08
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#9
We are just subatomic particles in the grand scheme of things. Posted by Mullah Richard
...and the older one gets, the more 'subatomic' you realize that you actually are. The good news; just like the Haplotaxida we have an earthly purpose as well.
#11
It's a "filler" article. The editors had a gap in their paper and couldn't fill it with actual/factual news or ads, so they found a "shiny" article to placate the proles.
#16
The pole is not moving toward London, London is moving toward the pole.
So some imbecile actually thinks a minor change in the water/ice balance is going to shift the entire crust of the planet? That would be like an ant crawling on a soccer ball makes the whole ball spin.
#2
Many of the workers were minors whose families were falsely promised a good education and quality of life if they let their children leave Guatemala.
Castillo-Serrano took deeds to land in the victims' native country as collateral.
So the real problem is that he was running his own Student Loan program that promised nothing in the end but insured debt and servitude to the lender. Competing directly with the government is frowned upon and dealt with harshly.
“Syrian regime’s government forces, with support from Russia, are planning an operation to retake Aleppo and battle a terrorist rebel offensive in the region,” the Syrian regime’s Prime Minister, Wael al Halqi, said on Sunday after a week of clashes.
“We, together with our Russian partners, are readying ourselves for an operation to liberate Aleppo and blockade all illegal armed groups which have not signed up to or are violating a ceasefire,” said Wael al Halqi in a meeting with delegation of visiting Russian lawmakers.
Statements made by Bashar al-Assad’s regime regarding preparations to take over Aleppo coincided with confirmations from Syrians against and pro-regime that the Russian air force has been engaged in the military operations in south of Aleppo since last Saturday.
For his part, Director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdulrahman, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Syrian regime along with its Iranian allies are preparing for a military battle and confirmed that the region is facing the fiercest clashes coinciding with Russian violent bombardments targeting areas where opposition forces and allies are taking over.
Moreover, sources from the Syrian opposition also told Asharq Al-Awsat that armed factions have benefited from the truce to supply themselves with arms and ammunition. He revealed that opposition fighters possessed around 20 Chinese missiles, which they bought from the International Black Market, each costing around 25 thousand dollars.
A member of the main opposition council said the last 10 days had “witnessed a serious deterioration, to the point where the ceasefire is about to collapse.” Basmah Qadamani of the High Negotiations Committee also told “Journal du Dimanche” that a US-Russian ceasefire monitoring mission was “powerless”.
“The government has resumed using barrel bombs,” Basmah Qadamani added, referring to the crude and indiscriminate weapons that observers say have killed thousands of civilians in opposition-held areas.
Politically, the U.N. Envoy to Syria, Staffan Di Mistura arrived to Damascus on Sunday, coming from Amman, in the framework of preparing for Geneva talks that will resume on Wednesday.
De Mistura has said the next round of talks needs to “be quite concrete in the direction of a political process leading to a real beginning of a political transition”.
He is scheduled to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the regime, Walid Muallem and Russian Ambassador in Damascus.
On the other hand, the Syrian National Coalition’s envoy to Paris and the opposition’s spokesman, told Asharq Al-Awsat” we are not optimistic about the coming round of talks.”
He also said that there is one major request in the coalition’s agenda, which is the formation of a transitional ruling body with full powers.
In a common matter, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone on the need for greater cooperation to strengthen the truce,” Reuters quoted Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
They also discussed efforts to fight ISIS and other terrorist organizations, agreeing to take additional measures to halt the flow of militants and weapons from abroad, the ministry said.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/12/2016
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#1
we are now in the 4th year of a multi sided Aleppo battle
thousands of combatant have died, hundreds of thousand of civilians have been displaced
no end in sight
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/12/2016 6:57
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#2
"Launches" is different than "planning", "readying ourselves" and "preparations".
[DAWN] Fighting broke out in north of Yemen’s capital and in the centre of the country on Sunday, killing more than 20 people, hours before a planned halt to the fighting aimed at facilitating talks to end the year-long war.
Yemen’s government and its Iran-allied Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... rebels are supposed to implement the UN-backed "cessation of hostilities" from midnight (2100 GMT) before peace negotiations begin in Kuwait on April 18.
The United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... hopes this will lead to a more concrete, formal ceasefire with peace-building steps.
The war has killed more than 6,200 people, drawn in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and Iran and tipped one of the Arab world’s poorest countries into a humanitarian crisis.
But hours before the planned halt in fighting, heavy battles flared between forces loyal to Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Houthi fighters in al-Maton, a town north of the capital Sanaa, killing and wounding several fighters, local residents said, without giving precise figures.
In the central Bayda province, battles between the rival forces in al-Sawadiya and al-Zaher districts killed more than 20 people, local officials and residents said, and fighting continued in the southwestern city of Taiz.
Mr Hadi, whose forces are backed by a Saudi-led military coalition which has been carrying out Arclight airstrikes on Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... for the past year, met his advisers in Riyadh on Sunday to discuss the impending halt in fighting, Yemeni officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A fast-paced animated film called produced in the UAE, has been viewed more than 200,000 times on social media and captured the attention of American and European policymakers.
A co-production of the Abu Dhabi-based Future Center for Advanced Research and Studies and the Al-Mesbar Center for Studies and Research in Dubai, it is based on a landmark study of over 45,000 Arabic-language Tweets by individuals who have either perpetrated terror attacks or trained to do so, along with 789 YouTube videos and numerous blogs.
“The Study and its animated summation fill a voice in the public discussion,” said Alan Luxenberg, President of the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, in a mass communication Wednesday. “While so much research has been rightly focused on terrorists' means of recruiting followers in the West, the major source of fighters remains impressionable youth in the Arab world. The UAE-based scholars have the linguistic capacity and knowledge base to analyze the Arabic social media environment with greater intimacy than their Western peers, but a communications barrier between their learning environment and ours has made the pooling of insight more difficult. In an era of monograph overload, what better way to bridge that gap than a creative cartoon.”
The study’s findings appear to challenge conventional wisdom in the West about the functionality and strategies of “jihadist” propaganda. For example, it turned out that 59.7 percent of surveyed Tweets advocating for armed groups made purely political arguments, free of reference to religion per se; 18.6 percent conveyed a kind of "social criticism," also without a religious overlay; and only 21.4 percent of the total referred to religion as such. In other words, nearly four fifths of social media polemics used to persuade the audience of the legitimacy of armed "jihad" are essentially nonreligious. Among ideologies and entities for which jihadists voiced rejection, the Haruri branch of Kharijism topped the list, followed by secularism, while Zionism registered only a small proportion of the attention and the State of Israel escaped attention altogether.
The bilingual video was shared on Twitter and Facebook by a general audience of English- and Arabic-language posters. It was also distributed by specialists in jihadist social media from a variety of American and European think tanks and academic institutions, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, George Washington University’s “Program on Extremism,” the Gulf States Institute, and the United States Naval War College.
Asked why Al-Mesbar Center chose the novel medium of an animated cartoon to deliver the research findings, the Center's executive director, Mansour Alnogaidan, said, “"Terrorists have been better at communicating with the public than civilized peoples struggling against them. It's time to beat them at their own game."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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#1
...audience of the legitimacy of armed "jihad" are essentially nonreligious.
Bull shit.
Religion is a given and doesn't need to be stated explicitly.
When you're discussing how to a car you don't spend much time talking about gravity, it's a given
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A source in al-Hashd al-Turkmani announced on Sunday, that the commander of al-Abbas brigade was killed in a suicide bombing during the ongoing liberation operations of Kasabet al-Bashir area in southern Kirkuk.
The source said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The commander of al-Abbas brigade Abu Ahmed al-Badri was killed in a suicide bombing in the village of Albu Moufarej in western Kasabet al-Bashir, during the advance of al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces to liberate the area in southern Kirkuk.”
Noteworthy, al-Hashd al-Turkmani and the forces from al-Abbas brigade had carried out an operation to cleanse the areas of Tel Ahmed and al-Azba in southern Kirkuk, and raised the Iraqi flag over these areas.
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – A source in al-Hashd al-Turkmani announced on Sunday, that more than 134 members of ISIS and al-Hashd al-Shaabi were either killed or wounded during the cleansing battles of Kasabet al-Bashir area in southern Kirkuk.
The source said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The cleansing battles of Kasabet al-Bashir area resulted in the killing of 40 ISIS fighters and wounding of more than 25 others,” pointing out that, “The clashes between ISIS and al-Hashd al-Shaabi forces led to the killing of nine members of al-Hashd al-Shaabi and injury of 60 others.”
The source, who requested anonymity, added, “The forces from al-Hashd al-Shaabi managed to liberate the villages of Albu Moufarej and al-Mazraa west of Kasabet al-Bashir,” indicating that, “The Army Aviation managed to destroy three booby-trapped vehicles driven by suicide bombers.”
Posted by: badanov ||
04/12/2016
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(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The leadership of al-Hashd al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced on Monday, that the security forces need only 72 hours to cleanse Karma District, while pointed out to the readiness of al-Hashd al-Shaabi and security forces to destroy ISIS defense lines in some areas of the district.
The commander of the 1st regiment in Karmet Fallujah brigade, Col. Mahmoud Mardi Jumaili, said in a press statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The security forces are ready to liberate al-karma areas, and we only need 72 hours to completely liberate and cleanse al-Karma from ISIS gangs.”
Jumaili added, “The security forces from the army, police and al-Hashd al-Shaabi are ready to liberate the remaining parts of al-Karma, as well as destroying the defense lines of the terrorist organization.”
(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – A local source in al-Rutba District in Anbar province said on Monday, that violent clashes erupted between ISIS elements in the district of al-Rutba west of the city of Ramadi.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “Some ISIS elements tried to escape from the district of al-Rutba (310 km west of Ramadi), resulting in the outbreak of armed clashes between them and other elements belonging to the ISIS,” pointing out that, “A number of the ISIS elements were either killed or wounded due to these clashes.”
(IraqiNews.com) The commander of Anbar Operations Command, Maj. Gen. Ismail al-Mahalawi, announced on Monday the cleansing of 15 booby-trapped houses as well as the seizure of a cache of gear west and northwest of Ramadi.
Mahalawi said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “A force from the engineering force belonging to the army’s 16th Division had managed to seize a cache of gear belonging to the ISIS in the area of the modern village northwest of Ramadi,” noting that, “The cache contained 70 mortar shells and two explosive belts.”
He also added, “A force from the same division was able to cleanse three streets and 15 booby-trapped houses in the area of al-Aramel in the city of Heet west of Ramadi.”
Posted by: badanov ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Four Libyan oilfields have closed and employees in a fifth are striking over fears of attacks from ISIS, a military source and media said Monday.
"Four oilfields were evacuated in the oil basin in Merada", 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of the capital Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , the military source said.
The Bayda, Tibisti, Samah and Waha oilfields were evacuated on Saturday, according to the LANA news agency close to the internationally recognised parliament in the country’s east.
The evacuation came after "the collapse of security and low daily production rate due to difficult security conditions", said the source, who is part of a brigade protecting the oilfields that is loyal to the recognised parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Iran Press TV] At least 12 people have bit the dust and dozens sustained injuries in a bombing attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.
The attack took place when a bomber stormed a bus which was carrying Afghan army recruits in the quiet provincial capital of Jalalabad in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. Province on Monday.
"In the attack, 12 army recruits were killed and 38 others were maimed," said Attaullah Khogyani, the front man for Nangarhar province.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry front man General Dawlat Waziri confirmed the incident and the corpse count, saying the attacker struck the bus while riding a motorized tricycle.
"The recruits were being transferred from Jalalabad to Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... ," said Waziri, putting the number of injured at 26.
The head of a regional hospital in the province, however, put the corpse count at 13.
Taliban front man Zabiullah Mujahid grabbed credit for the attack on his Twitter page.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2016
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
North Korea blamed the South for the defection of 13 North Koreans from China, calling it an "unprecedented kidnapping incident."
A former journalist who joined the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab was executed in Somalia's capital for the killings of five Somali journalists.
[PJ Media] 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] ISIS has retaken a northern town along Syria’s border with 
[DAWN] New York Times investigative journalist Declan Walsh – whose report last year unveiled a “secretive Pakistani software company” that allegedly earned millions of dollars from scams involving fake degrees, non-existent online universities and manipulation of customers – has detailed in a new report published Monday fresh details about the case surrounding Axact.
Wazoo
[DAWN] President 
David Cameron
[IsraelTimes] State Department warns al-Qaeda and 
