[ABC] Just two days after EgyptAir flight 804 disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea, TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger suggested the agency could possibly make "changes" in its security posture in response to the crash.
"I think we need to increase the staff size of TSA to meet the demands of the growing travel population -- as well as the potential changes that we might see as we learn more and more about what might have happened to EgyptAir," he said at an event in Chicago today.
Of course he needs more staff. And more administrators to administrate that staff. And more secretaries. And administrators for them. And computers, cell phones, and expense accounts...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A uniformed Secret Service officer shot an armed person on a street outside the White House, a U.S. law enforcement official said Friday.
The White House was placed on a security alert after the shooting, which occurred Friday afternoon. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to release the information, said the person approached the Secret Service officer and drew a weapon, and then the officer opened fire.
U.S. Park Police said on Twitter that the shooting happened on West Executive Drive.
A spokesman for D.C. Fire and EMS, Doug Buchanan, said one patient was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition shortly after 3 p.m.
President Barack Obama was not there -- he was playing golf -- but Vice President Joe Biden was in the White House complex at the time and was secured during the lockdown, his office said.
The White House grounds were shut down to pedestrian traffic, locking staff members and reporters indoors.
Secret Service officials did not immediately return messages.
"God created the idiot for practice - then he created the school board." - Mark Twain
In a move spearheaded by environmentalists, the Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution aimed at eliminating doubt of climate change and its causes in schools.
"It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis," said Lincoln High School evangelist student Gaby Lemieux in board testimony. "Climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world." The science is settled! You deniers must not be allowed to speak!
The resolution passed Tuesday evening calls for the school district to get rid of textbooks or other materials that cast doubt on whether climate change is occurring and that the activity of human beings is responsible. The resolution also directs the superintendent and staff to develop an implementation plan for "curriculum and educational opportunities that address climate change and climate justice in all Portland Public Schools."
Bill Bigelow, a former PPS high priest teacher and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, a magazine devoted to education issues, worked with 350PDX and other environmental groups to present the resolution.
"A lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise," Bigelow says, accusing the publishing industry to bowing to pressure from fossil fuels companies. "We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry." Instead we want them learning material courtesy of the 'Environmental' movement.
Bigelow is also the co-author of a textbook on environmental education, A People's Curriculum for the Earth. Asked if this resolution will cause the district to buy new textbooks, such as his book, Bigelow said Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit, not a money-maker. Yeah - so how much salary is this nonprofit paying him? And how about the royalties on the book...
"What we're asking for is not: Buy new stuff," he said. "What we're looking for is a whole different model of curriculum development and distribution." Something we control! Your pay later of course. Oh, you can pay now, too...
Bigelow said the district already has climate-change literacy curriculum, such as at Sunnyside Environmental School, and he demands wants that faith knowledge to spread. I'm already making big money from this!
School board member Mike Rosen introduced the resolution. He also leads NW Ecoliteracy Collaborative, a project focused on environmental curriculum standards. However, he says that work has been on hold. yeah... right....
"I have become concerned about its ability to teach the one true faith make progress and not have a conflict with being a school board member," Rosen said, noting that he is now instead working part-time for the Audubon Society of Portland. "I don't want there to be a conflict between my school board work and this nonprofit." In that case the standard, ethical, and honorable stance would be to excuse yourself from the decision making process. But then there's about as much ethics and honor as there is concern for the actual environment in the 'environmental' movement these days.
[WAPO] MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday proposed conducting joint airstrikes with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria against an al-Qaeda-linked group and other factions, marking a potential new strategy by Moscow toward more coordination with the West and allies in the Syrian conflict.
There was no immediate official response from Washington, whose airstrikes with partners have concentrated on Islamic State strongholds in Syria. Reportedly the Pentagon sez, no can do.
But such a proposal could face a tough road over Russia’s alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces were greatly aided last year by the intervention of Russian warplanes and other military assistance.
Several Pentagon officials said they were not immediately aware of any plans to change the current arrangement for separate U.S. and Russian air operations in Syria.
[Herald Net] NEW YORK -- Two-thirds of Americans would have difficulty coming up with the money to cover a $1,000 emergency, according to an exclusive poll released Thursday, a signal that despite years after the Great Recession, Americans' finances remain precarious as ever.
These difficulties span all incomes, according to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Three-quarters of people in households making less than $50,000 a year and two-thirds of those making between $50,000 and $100,000 would have difficulty coming up with $1,000 to cover an unexpected bill.
Even for the country's wealthiest 20 percent -- households making more than $100,000 a year -- 38 percent say they would have at least some difficulty coming up with $1,000.
"The more we learn about the balance sheets of Americans, it becomes quite alarming," said Caroline Ratcliffe, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute focusing on poverty and emergency savings issues.
#4
...My fathwr-in-law - a physician and businessman - told me when I married his daughter that he felt you should have at LEAST six months income in the bank. Ive got it - and that's after dealing with $2K of unexpected car repairs in March. The trouble is that it's rough getting PAST that number.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/20/2016 14:57
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[Times] Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam remained tight-lipped when questioned by a French anti-terror judge for the first time on Friday, one of his lawyers told media.
Authorities had hoped he would shed some light on the operational details of the November attacks that killed 130, as well as provide clues as to whether other members of the wider jihadist cell are still at large.
But his lawyer Frank Berton said: "He did not want to say anything today" according to AFP.
The 26-year-old was prepared to speak at "a later date", the lawyer added.
"We need to give him time."
Tell him he has about ten seconds...
Abdeslam is the last surviving member of the team of Islamic State (IS) gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people at bars and restaurants, in the Bataclan concert hall and outside the Stade de France national stadium last November.
For months, he was the most wanted fugitive in Europe until he was tracked down and arrested on March 18 in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek where he grew up. Transferred to France on April 27, he is being held at Fleury-Merogis prison, southeast of Paris.
Abdeslam was brought for questioning in central Paris in a large black 4x4 vehicle with tinted windows, escorted by heavily armed elite police and with a helicopter flying overhead.
But although he had spoken to investigators while in custody in Belgium, he refused to cooperate on Friday. The Paris prosecutor's office said: "From the start, he exercised his right to remain silent by refusing to reply to questions from an investigating magistrate.
TERRORISTS were last night feared to have overpowered crew in an EgyptAir jet cockpit, causing it to crash into the sea killing all 66 people on board.
Flight MS804 from Paris was about to start its descent into Cairo from 37,000ft when it made “sudden swerves”. A life-or-death struggle between hijackers and the crew as the plane plummeted from the sky was emerging as the most likely cause.
The Airbus A320’s black box flight recorder now holds the key to revealing what happened early yesterday. Technical faults have not been ruled out but an IS terrorist bomb smuggled on board is high on the list of theories.
Surely there would be no struggle if a bomb went off, unless the bomb involved were one of those finicky, hard to light shoe or pantibombs.
The doomed flight was the jet’s fifth of the day. It started in Eritrea — where airport security is a “joke”, according to UK intelligence sources. It also visited Tunisia, which has been rocked by recent terror attacks.
Remind me not to fly EgyptAir; I don't know where their planes have been...
The plane left Charles De Gaulle Airport at 22.09 on Wednesday and crashed into the Mediterranean sea off the Greek island of Warpaths.
Aviation officials in Greece said the pilot was in a “good mood” when air traffic controllers spoke to him as the jet entered their airspace. They tried to contact him again at 01.27, as the plane was set to enter Egyptian airspace, but got no response despite repeated calls. Two minutes later it vanished from radar.
Greek defence minister Panos Kammenos said: “The plane carried out a 90-degree turn to the left and a 360-degree turn to the right, falling from 37,000ft to 15,000ft and the signal was lost at around 10,000ft.”
Officials said no warning was given by the pilot but an automatic distress signal was transmitted at 03.26. This is likely to have been sent by an emergency beacon after impact and not by the plane’s crew, an Egyptian source added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/20/2016
11:20 ||
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If it was a terror attack it's interesting that they seem to have chosen to attack Cairo instead of Paris.
Download malware? The feds may use that as an excuse to infiltrate your computer as well.
The team-up that helped force the sunset of one of the domestic surveillance authorizations of the PATRIOT Act is back together for a new fight. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is joining Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to try to halt the implementation of a new federal rule that has the potential to launch a new form of far-reaching, high-tech surveillance.
What they're trying to stop is an update to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This update, approved by the Supreme Court in April, would authorize federal judges to issue warrants that would allow remote hacking into large numbers of computers in any jurisdiction. At the moment, the rules allow judges to authorize these warrants only in their own jurisdictions. But crimes involving computer and internet communications are hardly confined to a single jurisdiction. The example prosecutors use here is child pornography, their go-to when they can't use terrorism to justify an expansion of government power.
Wyden spoke out against the rule change early on, saying it would "have significant consequences of Americans' privacy and the scope of government's powers to conduct remote surveillance of searches of electronic devices." He has promised legislation to reverse the implementation of the rule. Paul has now joined him as a co-sponsor to make it a bipartisan push.
So what is the potential for harm here, given that prosecutors will still have to get a warrant? Rainey Reitman at the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes how innocent people could get swept up in all of this. All that needs to happen is for a computer user to inadvertently have some sort of malware installed that is being used by some hacker to participate in or conceal the roots of criminal online behavior:
It would grant authorization to a judge to issue a search warrant for hacking, seizing, or otherwise infiltrating computers that may be part of a botnet. This means victims of malware could find themselves doubly infiltrated: their computers infected with malware and used to contribute to a botnet, and then government agents given free rein to remotely access their computers as part of the investigation. Even with the best of intentions, a government agent could well cause as much or even more harm to a computer through remote access than the malware that originally infected the computer. Malicious actors may even be able to hijack the malware the government uses to infiltrate botnets, because the government often doesn't design its malware securely. Government access to the computers of botnet victims also raises serious privacy concerns, as a wide range of sensitive, unrelated personal data could well be accessed during the investigation. This is a dangerous expansion of powers, and not something to be granted without any public debate on the topic.
Make no mistake: the Rule 41 proposal implicates people well beyond U.S. borders. This update expands the jurisdiction of judges to cover any computer user in the world who is using technology to protect their location privacy or is unwittingly part of a botnet. People both inside and outside of the United States should be equally concerned about this proposal.
The change to Rule 41 isn't merely a procedural update. It significantly expands the hacking capabilities of the United States government without any discussion or public debate by elected officials. If members of the intelligence community believe these tools are necessary to advancing their investigations, then this is not the path forward. Only elected members of Congress should be writing laws, and they should be doing so in a matter that considers the privacy, security, and civil liberties of people impacted.
A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union worried about the broadness of the rule in a story at the Los Angeles Times. Why couldn't the rule have been more specific?
"The department has been less than forthcoming about the extent of its hacking, which raises concerns about the proposal ," said Neema Guliani, a lawyer for the ACLU. "They are saying they have a problem in cases where they don't know where the computer is, or think someone is trying to hide it. But the rule change is a lot broader than that. If they wanted to just address that issue, they could have narrowed the rule by saying they could conduct the search only to locate the computer."
Charles Wade, a prominent Black Lives Matter organizer and co-founder of Operation Help or Hush, was arrested last month and charged with human trafficking and prostitution. Black Lives Matter - and according to Mr. Wade, cost $200 an hour
Mr. Wade was arrested at a Howard Johnson Inn in College Park, Maryland, on April 25. Police said he was residing in a motel room where he allegedly pimped a 17-year-old girl, The Daily Caller reported Thursday. under-age pimping
Mr. Wade was held on seven counts relating to felony human trafficking and prostitution. He was bailed out shortly after his arrest, according to a statement he released on Twitter Wednesday.
He was arrested as part of a sting operation in which an undercover officer responded to an ad Mr. Wade allegedly placed for a 23-year-old woman on backpage.com, a website frequently used by sex traffickers and prostitutes, The Daily Caller reported. Investigators said the woman, who turned out to be a 17-year-old girl, called Mr. Wade her manager. She said he knew she was a minor but wasn't worried because of her upcoming birthday. She also told investigators that she provided all the money she earned to Mr. Wade, The Daily Caller reported.
Mr. Wade told The Daily Caller that he was unfairly arrested because he was "too trusting" of a female tenant whom he was temporarily housing as part of his Operation Help or Hush charity. "Bitch set me up"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016
08:58 ||
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Operation Help or Hush
Is that as in:
Help = "Hide me from the po-lice."
Hush = "Don't snitch?"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/20/2016 9:07
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#7
It really is past time to put an end to human trafficking. It's really simple. Anyone caught doing it should be executed by impalement. Since the women/children generally aren't volunteers, they get help. The johns patronizing them should also be die by impalement for the world to see. No excuses or plea bargains.
CAIRO (AP) -- Egyptian air and naval forces have found some of the passengers' "personal belongings" and debris of EgyptAir flight 804, which crashed while carrying 66 passengers and crew from Paris to Cairo, the army said Friday.
The debris was found around 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the port city of Alexandria, Egyptian army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. Egyptian jets and naval vessels continued to search for further debris from the downed Airbus 320, he said.
A team of Egyptian investigators led by Ayman el-Mokadam -- along with French and British investigators and an expert from Airbus -- will inspect what the army has found, Egyptian officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
The plane fell off the radar at 2.45 a.m. local time on Thursday morning while it was crossing the Mediterranean sea. The office of Egypt's president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, issued a statement expressing its condolences to the relatives of the 66 killed. It said the presidency "expressed its deep regret and sadness for the victims" of EgyptAir flight 804. "God give great mercy and host them in his heaven," it added.
The statement marked the first official recognition by Egypt's government that the missing plane has crashed. France, Greece, Italy, Cyprus and the UK had all joined the Egyptian search effort, Egypt's defense ministry said. Authorities had been scouring a wide area south of the Greek island of Crete.
It is not yet known what caused the crash. Not yet listed as War on Terror. Changing to WoT: pretty obvious what happened. AoS 1010 CT.
BLUF: [PJ] If the the Osprey still has a major challenge it's that the need for ground attack aircraft is increasing, while our ground-pounder force is shrinking (all combat wings), aging (everything prior to the F-22), or of unproven air-to-ground capability (the F-35).
#1
The platform hadn't undergone it's first engine change and the Marines were asking for 30mm cannon to somehow be mounted. Please, let us examine the real problem which is the lack of ground attack aircraft.
#2
A bit more on the aircraft. Note the operational readiness (OR) rate in this article. Be advised, the OR rate was very carefully monitored in theater. Here I will add, measured for success, not pushed for endurance.
#3
The Osprey is supposed to carry stuff. To add weapons means more weight. The more capable the weapons, the less stuff--Marines--it can carry. Other than a couple of machine guns, an increase in weaponry will require modifications; strengthening of some members against recoil, balance issues, ammo storage, fire control, gunnery training for the crew and maintenance training for the ground guys.
Better haul out some helicopter gunships. More maneuverable, smaller targets, purpose-built, won't detract from the Osprey's mission.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/20/2016 7:12
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#4
Pigeons, or course, are already armed to the beak - just ask any statue.
#10
If the Marines need close in air support, the answer is simple: A-29 Super Tucano armed with a 30mm cannon. That sucker probably could fly off the deck of the Wasp.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/20/2016 15:25
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BLUF: [PJ Media] At NATO today, Secretary of State John Kerry brushed off questions about Egypt Air because "nothing does more harm to people or countries than to start speculating ahead of time."
Woosley offers 'blinding flash of the obvious.' Current Klingon boss sez nothing. White House sez too soon to tell. TSA lay abouts continue grab arse.
#1
On Fox and Friends this AM the noted new threat is laptops. So, prepare to store your laptop in checked baggage where the TSA can steal or damage it
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016 8:43
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Solution: Airport issues hospital scrubs or bring your own (everyone scans, no undies - freeball, lift up, pull down, no excuses - no exceptions). Baggage if any, laptops, makeup, arrives via USPS. See the USPS counter over there. Please have correct change, no large bills.
No baggage, no problem. Walmart now has 'Duty Free' store. You bitc* & moan, you're off. Find an uber. Have a fok'n nice flight.
#3
...I've been saying this for almost fifteen years and I will keep saying it: WHEN it happens again...
*We will have clear video footage of the perps going through security with no more than a wave and a smile while grandparents and toddlers will have been patted down, and
*Every last one of said perps will have been on some kind of watch list, but all of this will have happened 'unexpectedly'.
Book it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/20/2016 9:38
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#4
I keep getting stuck on the feeling that given the human capacity for destroying perceived enemies there's no way to prevent mass casualty terrorism in the modern world.
#5
TSA was created over the objections of many advisors to the DHS originators as a mistake that would create everything bad about government bureaucracy. Unionized, low skill, low motivation employees with entitlement attitudes and marginal effect. Now at 7 billion a year cost you have 35000 democrat party dues paying folks you can't fire or really discipline. Ever read about any firings after massive failures to find hidden test contraband ? Want to bet the slowdown was to get more money and staff? Wait until they argue for 1811 status.
[Daily Caller] Federal workers at the departments of State, Treasury, Justice and Health and Human Services have given at least 10 times more in campaign contributions to Democrats than Republicans so far in the 2016 election cycle.
Department of Treasury workers made the most lopsided contributions from among agencies employing the 2.2 million strong federal workforce, giving $170,897 to Democrats, versus just $1,925 to Republicans in 2015 and 2016, according to Center for Responsive Politics data compiled by FedSmith.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received $26,587, while Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont got $7,727 in their respective campaigns for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
They vote for Democrats and give them campaign dollars. The Democrats defend their government checks at all costs to the rest of Americans.
It's really not that complicated.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/20/2016 5:28
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"My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consigliore of mine, I think it's time you told your Don what everyone seems to know."
#6
#4 works for Fed employee because then they don't have to pay two thugs. union and party, for the same representation as they do elsewhere. Thinks of the savings.
Repeal the Civil Service Act. Put accountability back upon your elected representatives. Lousy service? Fire the boss.
[Daily Caller] Adult men are almost as common a sight in housing projects as women, even though data show that virtually every subsidized apartment is occupied by low-income women whose "poverty" status is based on being single mothers with no man.
They can be seen exiting apartments in the morning, parking their cars there overnight, and hanging out with other men mid-day. Some are likely coming to see new girlfriends or relatives but their sheer numbers make it unlikely that all of them, or even most, are temporary visitors.
But multiple authorities admit that they do nothing to ensure that the subsidized housing is only used by people named on leases. The authorities also said there is no risk of consequences for people who gain admittance by claiming to be the only adult occupant of a subsidized housing unit.
According to Department of Housing and Urban Development data, 89 percent of families in housing projects have only a mom present, with the number even higher in major cities.
[IsraelTimes] Head of the Federal Security Service ... the successor to the KGB... says members were preparing to go to Syria after attacks in Russian cities
Russia’s security chief says his agency has tracked down a group working to prepare "Gay Paree-style" attacks in major Russian cities.
Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service, the top KGB successor agency, said it cracked the group in February in cooperation with Kazakhstan’s security service.
He said Thursday that the group’s members were planning to go to Syria to join 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 after conducting the terror attacks "under the Gay Paree scenario." Bortnikov didn’t say how many suspects have been locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! or give any further details.
The Nov. 13 attacks in Gay Paree left 130 people dead and hundreds maimed. Most of those killed were hostages in the Bataclan concert hall.
Russia has conducted an air campaign in Syria with the declared goal of fighting Islamic State. The terror group grabbed credit in October for bringing down a Russian passenger plane carrying 224 people as it left the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and headed for St. Petersburg.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/20/2016
01:41 ||
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#1
It would appear RU intelligence cracked the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing ring as well, but no one would listen.
[IsraelTimes] Officials arrest 3 Israelis allegedly planning to smuggle the weaponry to the Strip
Israeli police on Wednesday captured a shipment of 60,000 hand-grenade springs on their way to the Gazoo Strip.
The springs were found hidden in a warehouse in the community of Ami’oz on the Gazoo periphery. Officials tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... a man in his twenties at the scene as he was loading the springs onto his vehicle.
The man, a resident of the Bedouin town of Rahat, was believed to be on his way to smuggle the equipment into Gazoo. He is suspected of procuring the springs illegally from an Israeli factory that produces such springs for the Israeli military. Two other people were arrested as well.
Officials said the man planned to transfer the springs over to forces of Evil in Gazoo, and suspect that he eventually planned to smuggle 500,000 such springs into the Paleostinian enclave.
Authorities claimed Wednesday’s catch was indicative of a wider problem in which the transfer of merchandise, aid and equipment into Gazoo through Israeli crossings is used to smuggle in weaponry and material used by terrorists.
#1
So that's 500,000 grenades? My arm is getting tired just thinking about it. More to the story? At current rate of usage, it might take, oh, say, a couple of thousand years to use them up.
Not getting this.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/20/2016 7:04
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#2
where are the 60,000 pineapples and handles that go with the springs?
#7
"He is suspected of procuring the springs illegally from an Israeli factory that produces such springs for the Israeli military." This ought to scare the Hell out of the government. Who else can be bought?
[Ynet] The United States and its allies staged 17 strikes against Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday in their latest daily attacks against the myrmidon group, the coalition leading the operations said.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Combined Joint Task Force said 14 strikes in Iraq hit targets near nine cities, including djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Kisik and Falluja, among others.
The strikes hit seven of the myrmidon's tactical units as well as two fighting positions, several fighting positions and weapons caches, the US-led task force said. One strike also damaged an oil tanker used by the group near Tal Afar, it added.
In Syria, three strikes near Manbij hit an Islamic State tactical unit, two fighting positions and a mortar system, according to the statement said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/20/2016
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(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Thursday, that seven people had been either killed or wounded in a bomb blast in northern Baghdad.
The source said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “This morning, a bomb exploded near the Industrial District in Taji in northern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding five others,” pointing out that, “A security force rushed to the area and evacuated the wounded to a nearby hospital for treatment and the dead bodies to the forensic medicine department.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The security forces cordoned off the area of the incident and barred approaching it.”
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Thursday, a source in the Ministry of Interior announced, that ten people had been either killed or wounded in a bomb blast in southern Baghdad.
The source said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “This evening, a bomb exploded near shops in Mahmudiya area in southern Baghdad, killing two people and wounding eight others.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “A security force rushed to the area and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital to receive treatment and the dead bodies to the forensic medicine department, while opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of the incident.”
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source within the police force in Baghdad Province said on Thursday, that three soldiers had been injured in the explosion of a booby-trapped house south of Baghdad.
The source said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “This evening, a booby-trapped house went off on a force belonging to the Iraqi army in the village of al-Refai in the area of Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, resulting in the injury of three soldiers,” adding that, “A force belonging to the army’s Seventeenth Division was carrying out an inspection operation in the village,” pointing out that, “The injured were transferred to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Nineveh Province announced on Wednesday, that four ISIS members were killed in an air strike conducted by the international coalition aviation in northern Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad).
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan spokesman in Mosul Ghyath Alsurja said in a brief statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aircraft bombarded a vehicle carrying four ISIS members in Bashiqah vicinity in northern Mosul.”
Alsurja added,” The air strikes resulted in the killing of the four ISIS fighters, as well as destroying their vehicle.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Nineveh Province announced on Thursday killing 18 ISIS elements in an air strike by the international coalition northwest of Mosul.
The spokesperson for the union, Ghyath al-Surji, said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aviation bombed an ISIS convoy that was on its way from the village of Batnaya to the district of Tilkaif northwest of Nineveh,” adding that, “The bombardment resulted in killing 18 ISIS elements, in addition to destroying six vehicles belonging to them.”
Posted by: badanov ||
05/20/2016
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QUETTA: An improvised explosive device (IED) killed one policeman and wounded seven others in a roadside attack in the eastern Bypass area of Quetta Thursday morning, police said.
The injured have been taken to Civil Hospital Quetta, where a state of emergency has been imposed.
The blast also damaged a police mobile van.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack yet. Police and Frontier Corps are investigating the attack.
The attack comes a day after two remote-controlled roadside blasts killed one constable and injured at least 17 others in Peshawar.
The Libya National Army says that it believes that IS may be seeking to regroup in Sabratha from which it was apparently ousted by local militias following the US airstrikes on the town in February. Until that time, the local IS presence had frequently been denied.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said today in Benghazi that the Western Operations Room had acquired intelligence that IS terrorists were moving back into Sabratha.
It was thought they might be planning to target army units in the west, which are commanded by colonel Idris Madi. Mismari provided no further details.
He also said that the army had yet to make contact with IS forces to the east of Sirte. He added however that it was believed that IS vehicles had been pulling back toward the town.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/20/2016
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[RFE/RL] Authorities in Tajikistan have arrested five imams for promoting extremism and recruiting young people to join militant groups abroad.
Hasan Boboshukurov, the head of the religious affairs department in Konibodom, said that four of the men led prayers and sermons in village mosques in the northern Tajik district until they were arrested last week.
A local law enforcement official said the five imams' activities came to light after a tip from three other imams arrested in the same district last month. Fifteen Muslim clerics have been arrested on extremism charges in the northern Sughd Province between January and April.
Tajik officials say more than 1,000 Tajik nationals have gone to Syria and Iraq in recent years to join the jihad there.
The authorities in southern Kandahar province have banned women’s songs in the local media, a move which has sparked outrage among the media supporters in the country.
NAI organization which supports open media in Afghanistan reacted towards the move, saying no governmental or non-governmental organizations have the right to ban women’s songs in the media.
According to NAI, the provincial information and culture directorate has asked the local media to prevent airing songs of women.
NAI said the instruction by the directorate is against the article 34 of the constitution of Afghanistan and the public media law.
Citing the public media law, NAI said such bans could only be enforced in consideration with the laws and no governmental or non-governmental organization has the right to restrict the open media in the country.
It also added that the local customs could not enforce restrictions as such moves have no legal basis, urging the local authorities to intervene and prevent enforcement of restrictions by the provincial information and culture directorate.
The Ministry of Information and Culture has also voiced concerns regarding the censorship of women’s songs by the local authorities in Kandahar saying such moves are against the enforced laws of the country.
LNA forces have now secured some 14 oilfields in the Sirte basin that were previously secured by the PFG but then attacked and claimed by IS. These are said to include Waha Oil’s Bahi, Beida, Samah, Dahra and Waha fields, Harouge’s Ghani and Tibesti fields, Zueitina’s Sabah and Zilla fields, Total’s Mabrouk and Sirte Oils’s Zeltan field.
It had been widely suggested that the LNA would not launch its planned assault on Sirte until it had secured the oil fields.
Mahdi Barghathi, the minister of defence in Faiez Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA), arrived in Tripoli today to start work there. He flew into Mitiga from Ras Lanuf where yesterday he had further talks with Ibrahim Jadhran, the commander of the Petroleum Facilities’ Guards (PFG) in the central region. The meeting coincided with reports that the Libyan National Army, under the control of Khalifa Hafter, has now taken control of more than a dozen oil fields in the Sirte basin that before the so-called Islamic State started raiding them had been secured by the PFG.
Jadhran, who supports the GNA, is firmly opposed to Hafter who in turn is opposed both to it and to Barghathi being its defence minister.
Arriving at Mitiga he had talks there with UN Special Envoy Martin Kobler as well as with a number of senior army officers there to welcome him.
On Tuesday, it was announced that the Presidency Council had ordered the GNA to start working from Tripoli, although the ministers were informed of this some days earlier.
On the same day, Barghathi left Bengahzi, apparently to Hafter’s annoyance: LNA sources spoke of Barghathi leaving without Hafter’s “permission”. Arriving at Sidra where he inspected PFG forces, he was welcomed by Jadhran who with his forces pledged loyalty to him. For his part, Barghathi warned that the battle to defeat IS could turn into a civil war – referring to the race between the LNA and Presidency Council’s Operations Room to be the first to liberate Sirte.
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ERBIL – Extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Thursday executed three civilians in Syria’s northeastern Raqqa province on charges of ‘apostasy’, activists and eyewitnesses reported.
The radical group arrested three young men in the town of Tabqa in Raqqa countryside under the pretext that they’ve cooperated with hostile parties. The ISIS-led Sharia Court then ordered their immediate execution on charges of apostasy.
“The three men were brutally executed in a public square in central Tabqa on Thursday,” a local media activist told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The victims, identified as Ahmed Ibrahim, Hussar al-Hamoud and Muhammad al-Daher, were dressed in orange when they were shot dead by three masked ISIS jihadis.
ISIS released a footage showing the execution of the three men in Tabqa. A Sharia official read a statement before the execution was carried out, accusing the victims of apostasy for trying to fight against the ISIS self-declared Caliphate.
Raqqa province is considered a de facto capital for the ISIS Caliphate, led by its alleged Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
This comes just three days after ISIS jihadis executed a young Syrian man in the city of Manbij in the northern Aleppo province on charges of communicating with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)–that are in conflict with ISIS in northern Syria.
Faisal Abdulrahim al-Dahir, 23, was shot dead then crucified in a main square in central Manbij. “Al-Dahir was accused by ISIS of cooperating with hostile parties,” local media activist Nasir Taljbini told ARA News in Manbij.
“An ISIS Sharia official claimed that al-Dahir has leaked security information about ISIS military movements in Manbij city,” an eyewitness told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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[Dhaka Tribune] A Shibir leader, an accused in the Rajshahi University Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddique killing case, has died at a hospital in Rajshahi.
Hafizur Rahman, 21, died around 4:30am on Thursday at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital, its Deputy Director Dr Gazi Saiful Alam Chowdhury said.
"He had been battling anaemia," the doctor said. "This led to respiratory problems and cardiac arrest." In the end it's always cardiac arrest, isn't it?
The Shibir leader, who studied public administration at RU, was admitted to the hospital on May 17 after he had fallen sick in prison.
RMCH authorities said they would hand over the body to his family after a post-mortem examination.
Hafizur, a local Shibir leader, was tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... in Bongram on April 23. He had been in prison since his four-day police interrogation last month.
Prof Rezaul was hacked to death near his home in Rajshahi on April 23. His son filed a case without naming anyone. The case was handed over to the detective branch.
Police said members of banned Lion of Islam outfit Jamaa'tul Mujahideen Bangladesh were directly involved in the murder.
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New evidence shows that a University of Virginia student who alleged that she was gang raped at a campus fraternity created the fake persona of the alleged ringleader of the attack, according to lawyers representing a U-Va. official who is suing Rolling Stone magazine for defamation.
The legal team representing U-Va. assistant dean Nicole Eramo filed the new evidence Monday in federal court in a case involving the magazine’s retracted portrayal of the incident and the university’s handling of sexual assaults on the Charlottesville campus. The magazine published the 9,000 word account in 2014, and it centered on claims by a U-Va. student, named Jackie, That is, Ms. Jackie Coakley...
that she’d been gang-raped as a freshman in a fraternity house in September 2012.
In the filing, Eramo’s lawyers submitted new data from Yahoo concerning an e-mail account linked to “Haven Monahan,” the man Jackie identified to friends as the perpetrator of her assault. An investigation by the Charlottesville Police revealed that no person by that name has ever been a student at U-Va., and Eramo’s lawyers have presented evidence in court documents indicating that he is a figment of Jackie’s imagination.
Ryan Duffin, a student who knew Jackie at U-Va., told The Washington Post that he believed that the character was created by Jackie in an effort to attract Duffin’s romantic interest, a tactic known as “catfishing.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Israel’s government is filing legal action against a local human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... group after it refused to reveal the identities of Israeli soldiers who alleged wrongdoing among the ranks during the 2014 Gazoo War.
The government will demand next week in court that the group, Breaking the Silence, identifies the military personnel who gave anonymous testimonies of alleged crimes committed during the conflict, UK daily The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
The conflict, waged between Israeli forces and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, fighters, led to the deaths of over 2,000 people, many of them civilians.
The case comes after months of fierce debate on the human rights group by leading politicians and a public accusation of "treason" by the country’s defense minister.
The rights group’s legal team said that the move poses a threat to freedom of speech and human rights activism in Israel.
The group, which was founded 11 years ago, is made of partly of former Israeli army members, and has collected and published testimonies from soldiers that expose alleged human rights abuses.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] After months when the story of the 2016 presidential campaign focused on divided Republicans, Democrats are now showcasing divisions in their ranks.
Simmering tensions between Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... backers and other Democrats, including party leaders, burst into the open following an ugly fracas at the Nevada Democratic Party convention over the weekend instigated by Sanders’ supporters. When top Democratic Party leaders pressured Sanders to denounce the night of chair throwing and alleged death threats he responded with defiance, terming some complaints "nonsense" and reminding the party: "Millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics."
Continued on Page 49
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#1
The Donks to gain an electorate majority for so long, sold their liberal souls to the hard Left. Now they're reaping the consequences. Pass the popcorn.
"That ain't us!"
ERBIL – The U.S. Department of State spokesman denied Kurdish news reports that U.S. Special Envoy Ambassador McGurk had visited the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria [Rojava] this week to discuss future military operations against the Islamic State (ISIS).
“Those reports are wrong,” US State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday in Washington. “No he [McGurk] didn’t visit there. Totally false reporting,” he added.
The official also denied the report on Twitter. “No truth to K24English reports about Brett McGurk travel to Kobani [Kobane],” he said. "Lies! All lies!"
Moreover, the official said no meetings took place in Kobane to discuss future military operations against the Islamic State.
“I’m not aware of any visit,” Kirby said.
Local Kurdish media reported that the U.S. Special Envoy visited the Kurds to discuss future operations.
While the US wants the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to carry out an operation to take the Islamic State capital of Raqqa, the Kurds rather want to capture Jarabulus and Manbij, and open a corridor to the besieged canton of Afrin.
According to news reports, ISIS has intensified security measures in Raqqa and deployed hundreds of militants in the surroundings of the city after the SDF announced they have a plan to storm Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State.
Thirty-two members of Misratan-led “Al-Bunyan Al-Marous” operation set up by the Presidency Council against the so-called Islamic State were killed in a series of clashes during Wednesday and 50 injured, according to the operation room’s media office. Five were killed in a fresh suicide bomb attack.
In a statement, the media office said that its forces had linked up with those coming from Jufra in the south, meeting them along the Waddan road that joins the coastal highway at Abu Grain. On the Waddan road near the junction, there was fighting with IS forces during which they managed to destroy a suicide vehicle but none of the operation room forces was injured.
All the casualties were on the coastal road to Sirte, at the new front line near Al-Wishka (25 kilometres east of Abu Grain), the statement said. There was fierce fighting during which five members of Al-Bunyan Al-Marous were killed in suicide car attack.
According to the operations room, its forces were attacked by three IS vehicles, of which one was destroyed and two escaped. That was followed by clashes with IS fighters, said to be on foot. These were forced to retreat, the statement claimed, but the bodies of five of them – four black Africans and an Arab – were later discovered. It was after these clashes that the five Al-Bunyan Al-Marous fighters were killed in the suicide attack.
Because of the fierce fighting with IS, the operations room said that the international community had “to deliver on its promises to support the legitimate forces belonging to the presidential council of the government of national reconciliation [sic]” by allowing to acquire arms “to stand in the face of invincible expansion of militants”.
On Monday in Vienna, 21 nations, including all five UN Security Council permanent members, backed a limited lifting of the UN Libyan weapons ban to Libya to enable it to fight IS.
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[Into the future... By Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin] During this presidential primary voters are most interested in jobs and the economy. Candidates are discussing "plans" to "bring jobs back to America." However, we are moving in an economic direction no one ever anticipated. None of the candidates is discussing the amazing changes that are occurring. The future won’t look anything like the past.
Let’s look at a few examples. Which company is the largest taxi company in the world? The answer is Uber. They do not own a single taxi cab! Which company is the largest hotelier in the word? The answer is Airbnb. They do not own a single hotel room! While Amazon.com isn’t the world’s largest retailer, it is bigger than Home Depot and Target and is far and away the fastest growing retailer. They do not own a single store!
#1
Lots of good stuff in the article, but lots of stuff that won't work, either, Besoeker. For example, the bit about automated cars will only work in cities and close-in suburbs, due both to economics and logistics. And disruption is something everyone likes until the disruption includes their own income stream. That doesn't mean some things don't need to be disrupted, but we all need to be honest about it.
One of the biggest mistakes we've made is letting the business school types tell us that every industry fits into a "bigger is better" model. Not only is this untrue form a math standpoint, trying to make it work has destroyed communities and resulted in industries trying to provide something that is not what consumers want.
The guy's basic premise is accurate, though. The Blue State model has been dead for decades, and its stinking zombie corpse has been kept alive by irresponsible politicians and citizens motivated by completely unenlightened self-interest, the mechanism being 1)borrowing and 2)thuggish inflating of pay rates for most lines of work above what can be sustained. Not just here in the U.S. but throughout the developed world.
When those jobs come back, if ever, they will be done by robots. All unnecessary, if politicians hadn't told workers that the economic times of the postwar era could last forever in the real world, and workers hadn't been so foolish to believe them. If the work force hadn't told themselves that they deserved so damned much more money than the invisible hand would allow, most if not all of those jobs would never have left and automation wouldn't have made economic sense.
We are living at the end of a three-generation fantasy that voting for what feels good and enhances our status is better than voting for what actually works. Certain groups within society have been the worst actors in all this but every group to one extent or another has contributed to this lunacy.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/20/2016 5:48
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Lots of good stuff in the article, but lots of stuff that won't work, either... nmu.
I absolutely agree. In the marketplace of ideas however, it is not vital that all ideas pan out. It is only vital that the marketplace continues to thrive.
#6
What we do know is that humans’ utter dominance on this Earth suggests a clear rule: with intelligence comes power. Which means an ASI, when we create it, will be the most powerful being in the history of life on Earth, and all living things, including humans, will be entirely at its whim—and this might happen in the next few decades.
So you wanna be the one who controls it. You want to be the system administrator who controls access to this machine. You want this machine to be on your side. You better study computer science and study hard.
(IraqiNews.com) Diyala – A local source in Diyala Province announced on Thursday, that a soldier was killed and another one was wounded in a bomb blast targeted their patrol northeast of Baqubah.
The source reported for IraqiNews.com, “This morning, a bomb emplaced on the roadside near al-Aali village (45 km northeast of Baqubah) exploded targeting an army patrol, killing a soldier and wounding another with serious injuries.”
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added, “The security services opened an investigation into the incident.”
[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
Muhammad Jibril Abdul Rahman, known as the Prince of Jihad,
Presumably because of his raspberry beret.
is designated as a terrorist on US, EU, and UN sanctions lists and is subject to an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. He is a prominent member of Jemaah Islamiyah.
But his jihadi propaganda website, Arrahmah.com, has been making thousands of dollars by hosting advertisements from global companies. The ads were delivered to the website, which includes images of beheadings and hangings, by intermediaries including Google's AdSense, the biggest online ad network, which take a portion of the revenues.
There is no suggestion that the advertisers or Google knowingly funded a designated terrorist, a criminal offence in the US that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison or a $1m fine.
After being contacted by the Financial Times, Google cancelled Arrahmah.com's account and advertisers asked to be removed from the site. However, ads for major western brands continue to appear on the site through other intermediaries.
Arrahmah.com illustrates the increasing sophistication of Islamist propaganda networks and the expanding range of funding sources they have been able to tap into. Large technology groups including Google, Twitter and Facebook have come in for criticism by security services in recent years for not doing enough to keep extremists off their platforms.
The website, which promotes its views in sections such as "Jihad Zone", attracts about 600,000 visits a month. Arrahmah.com discloses prominently that Abdul Rahman is its chief executive.
In 2010, Rahman was sentenced to five years in an Indonesian prison for concealing information related to the terrorist attacks at two prominent hotels in Jakarta, which killed seven people and wounded around 50.
[Al Ahram] Syrian troops backed by fighters from the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah retook a key town outside Damascus from rebels on Thursday, a monitor said.
Pro-regime fighters used festivities between rival rebel factions Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... and Faylaq al-Rahman as an opportunity to retake Deir al-Assafir, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
As rebels summoned their fighters from Deir al-Assafir to the frontline, regime forces launched "a violent attack and heavy air campaign resulting in them controlling the town," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Salafist tough guys had controlled Deir al-Assafir, located in the opposition bastion of Eastern Ghouta, since 2012.
In April fighting erupted opposing Jaish al-Islam against Faylaq al-Rahman and another rebel group, Jaish al-Fustat -- both allied to Al-Nusra Front, Syria's Al-Qaeda affiliate.
The regime had been trying to retake Deir al-Assafir since February, Abdel Rahman said, despite the Eastern Ghouta region being included in a fragile nationwide ceasefire between the army and non-jihadist rebels.
The latest advance with Hezbollah's support comes just days after the Iran-backed movement said its top military commander was killed in Syria in an attack it blamed on Islamist holy warriors.
The movement has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria where Mustafa Badreddine had led its intervention in support of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... More than 270,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011.
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[An Nahar] Families of the Aley district town of Ain Dara held a sit-in on Wednesday protesting an attack waged by armed gunnies against the municipality's building, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Armed men stormed the offices of the municipality and tried to forcibly obtain a signature on a license for a cement plant, NNA said.
Pierre Fattoush, the brother of MP Nicolas Fattoush, threatened to kill the female employee at the municipality, Therese Bader, after she refused to sign one of the submitted documents to establish a cement plant in outskirts of the town.
It is not a first for Fattoush. In 2014, gunnies loyal to the MP and his brother assaulted a TV crew during the filming of a report on the construction of a controversial cement factory.
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[Al Ahram] La Belle France was disrupted by a third straight day of strikes and demonstrations on Thursday as the prime minister called for protesters who torched a police car to face "harsh" punishment.
Rail staff and air traffic controllers downed tools in the latest mass protests against the government's labour market reforms, causing dozens of flights and trains to be cancelled.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls threatened to use force to break up protests which interfered with the operation of ports, refineries and airports.
But he reserved his strongest words for those who attacked a police car in Gay Paree on Wednesday on the sidelines of a rare rally by coppers protesting against "anti-cop hatred".
With a policeman and a policewoman still inside the car, a small group of masked protesters hammered the car with iron bars before hurling in an bomb, causing it to burst into flames.
The two officers managed to escape unharmed.
Valls said: "The punishment must be harsh. The inquiry has just started, arrests have been made."
Four suspects were tossed in the calaboose Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on Wednesday and a fifth was picked up Thursday, sources close to the investigation said.
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DUHOK – Top jihadi leader and head of intelligence in the Islamic State (ISIS) Ali al-Aswad was killed along with two other ISIS members in an airstrike by the US-led coalition northern Iraq, officials reported on Thursday.
Was he a number three?
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the Kurdish security that reportedly provided information about the location of the ISIS top official to the US air force.
“Within the framework of our war against the ISIS terror group, the Kurdish counter-terrorism department has pursued al-Aswad’s movements and provided accurate information to the coalition, enabling the US air force to bomb the confidential location of this high ranking terrorist, killing him along with two other ISIS terrorists,” the Kurdish counter-terrorism office in Erbil said in an official statement on Thursday.
The airstrike hit a building in the village of Tel Azba where al-Aswad was hiding.
Al-Aswad was reportedly in charge of maintaining personal security of the ISIS supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“The death of al-Aswad comes as a shock to the ISIS leadership. The man was one of the closest ISIS members to al-Baghdadi, which means the alleged caliph himself is within the reach and could be targeted at any moment,” chief of Nineveh media centre Raafat al-Zarari told ARA News.
In Mosul, a coalition airstrike killed Abu Othman al-Afari, a military commander in ISIS ranks.
“Al-Afari’s convoy was hit by an airstrike in western Mosul on Wednesday midnight, killing him and three of his escorts,” media activist Abdullah al-Malla told ARA News in Mosul. “This was another blow to ISIS in Nineveh province.”
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#1
When the intel guy can't save himself, it really is a bad day.
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago. Meanwhile, President Obama is so noble he never considers getting anything in return for releasing 'ailing' militants from prison. In fairness, the man doesn't know how...
Luis Jalandoni, the insurgents' exiled chief peace negotiator said, "We applaud the plans and programs announced by president-elect Duterte. We believe these would be key factors to achieving peace."
Jalandoni said the rebels were expected to shortly exchange delegation visits with Duterte's people "as part of the process for preparing the resumption of peace talks" as well as to work out terms of cooperation.
Duterte on Monday welcomed plans by Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison to end nearly 30 years of exile in the Netherlands to participate in the peace talks. Sison and Jalandoni both said no guerrillas would actually serve in Duterte's cabinet before reaching a political settlement, when the insurgents hoped to cease fighting and join a coalition government. Jalandoni also said the insurgents would consider a ceasefire and would ask the Duterte government to release 543 "political prisoners."
Incumbent leader Benigno Aquino ended talks with the communists in 2013 over the militant demand for the unconditional release of their detained comrades that his government would not grant.
[FOX] Jerry Boykin is the kind of man you’d want teaching your sons ‐ a good and decent man, an honorable man - a Christian man.
For the past nine years the retired lieutenant general has taught leadership and ethics at Hampden-Sydney College, a highly regarded, all-male school based in Virginia. By many accounts ‐ he is beloved and deeply respected by students.
But Gen. Boykin will not be returning to the classroom this fall. That’s because he tells me he's been fired.
The man who was one of the original members of Delta Force and once commanded all of the U.S. Army’s Green Berets ‐ the man who served his nation with honor and distinction for more than 36 years ‐ was ousted because of political correctness.
Thank you for your exemplary service to freedom. Thank you for your devotion to exercising freedom. Consider the spite by the commies another earned strip of honor for you have wounded the enemies of freedom again. You da man!
Unknown gunmen torched and blew up buildings at three schools in Kunar province, local officials said Thursday.
According to them, the incident occurred during the night on Wednesday in the Dara-i-Pech district of Kunar province.
The Kunar education director has confirmed the incident and said investigations are underway.
Officials said the gunmen torched a girl's school and two boy's schools.
"They [unknown gunmen] targeted three schools in Dare-i-Pech. and they blew up one school and two classrooms of the school were destroyed and two other classrooms damaged and a primary school was completely destroyed after being torched and one other classroom affected," said Sayed Jamaluddin Hussaini Kunar, an education director.
The incident has meanwhile angered tribal elders and religious scholars.
The elders and scholars said that the enemies of Afghanistan want to keep people in the dark by using Islam.
"People do not want their school doors closed and their children to remain illiterate. Those who did this we want them to be questioned," said Haqyar a religious scholar.
Meanwhile Education Minister Asadullah Hanif Balkhi said during his recent visit to Nangarhar province that soon wide reforms will be brought to the education sector in the eastern zone.
"Our delegation has arrived and they will visit cities, districts and village schools one by one and will bring us the figures then it will be clear how many are ghost schools and teachers and after that we will solve the problem," said Balkhi.
Abu Dhabi- “The campaign launched by the coalition and government forces in Yemen to clear al-Mukalla Governorate has revealed the presence of large amounts of heavy arms and high explosive ammunitions hidden at government headquarters or other places and were used by al-Qaeda militants before they were expelled from the city,” informed sources from the Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen said.
Various types of heavy arms were found at al-Qaeda’s hideouts, the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. These arms include “T-55” tanks, “Mortar” cannons, “Tochka” and “Katyusha” missiles, explosives, anti-tank mines.
Despite finding this large amount of weapons, Yemeni government and coalition forces have also found two local plants that have been constructed by the terrorist organization; the first is specialized in manufacturing improvised explosive devices, and the second is specialized in booby-trapping cars.
The sources explained that the large amount of arms and equipment manufactured by al-Qaeda terrorist organization before being expelled from the city recently, reveals clearly their expansion schemes and their willingness to establish an emirate in the Arabian Peninsula in order to threaten regional security and peace.
What al-Qaeda did in Yemen, the sources added, is similar to ISIS’s experience in Syria as the latter benefited from the civil war between the Syrian regime and the opposition forces, and it consolidated its presence in the country in order to set up an entire submissive entity.
In addition to the arms, leaflets calling for fighting against coalition and U.S. forces, and warning from working for these forces were found at al-Qaeda’s hideouts.
Notably, al-Mukalla is a main sea port and the capital city of the Hadramaut coastal region in Yemen in the southern part of Arabia on the Gulf of Aden close to the Arabian Sea.
Al Mukalla is the fifth largest city in Yemen with a population of approximately 300,000. The city is served by the nearby Riyan Airport.
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Three civilians were killed and nine wounded, three of them critically, when a rocket or mortar smashed into a busy road junction close to the Benghazi Medical Centre at 1 pm today.
One of the injured was a child. Among the dead was a shopkeeper who had been standing outside his store.
The security forces are saying that it unclear from where the shell was fired. Despite being virtually surrounded for months by the Libyan National Army, terrorists are still holding out in Sabri and Suq Al-Hout. The main body of terrorists has been pushed back to Gwarsha and Ganfouda.
At the beginning of the month, five people, including a woman and a child were killed and 40 injured when four mortars landed on a small pro-Hafter demonstration in the city’s Kish Square.
Though one security force member described today’s firing as a random attack, as with the Kish Square salvo, it would seem that there was deliberate ranging involved. The junction is always busy around midday and the BMC nearby also presented an obvious terrorist target.
At least three Taliban militants assigned by the group to kill local government officials and tribal elders as well as religious clerics were arrested from southern Helmand province.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the three militants were arrested were assigned by Taliban group leader Mullah Nemat to carry out the assassination of the officials, elders and religious clerics.
A statement by NDS said the militants were planning to carry out the assassinations in Nad-e-Ali district before they were arrested by the security forces.
The intelligence operatives confiscated a pistol with a silencer and 10 hand grenades from the detained militants, NDS said.
NDS said numerous assassination attempts against the local officials, elders and religious clerics were foiled with the arrest of the three militants assigned for the task.
The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.
Helmand is among the volatile provinces in southern Afghanistan where anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating and frequently carry out insurgency activities.
A top Afghan army general Abdul Basir Sharwan was martyred in an explosion southern Kandahar province, the third senior Afghan general martyred in a span of almost 4 months.
According to the provincial government media office, Gen. Sharwand, the commander of the 1st Brigade of 205th Atal Corps of Afghan National Army, was martyred while he was on his way following a visit of the Afghan army check posts in Shahwali Kot district.
Gen. Sharwan was one of the prominent army generals in the south and was actively involved in training and leadership of the Afghan armed forces.
The Taliban militants group claimed responsibility behind the attack on Gen. Sharwand.
Earlier, a senior Afghan army general lost his life in an attack by the anti-government armed militants in Dand district of Kandahar.
General Khan Aga was the deputy commander of the 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army and was killed in attack late in the month of March.
Meanwhile, another top Afghan army general lost his life in an improvised explosive device attack in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan.
General Ata Mir was serving with the 215th Maiwand Corps of the Afghan National Army and was killed in an attack in Greshk district earlier in February this year.
At least 27 militants were killed and 11 others were wounded as a bloody clash erupted among the Taliban fighters and loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
According to the local government officials in Nangarhar, the clash took place in Achin and Khogyani district of Nangarhar.
The officials further added that 15 ISIS loyalists and 3 Taliban militants were killed in Achin district and the remaining were killed in Khogyani.
At least 4 commanders of the Taliban group were also among those killed during the clashes, the officials added.
The latest deadly clash among the two militant groups followed days after the loyalists of ISIS executed three Taliban militants in Achin district.
This comes despite the loyalists of ISIS terror group were hardly suppressed in Afghan and US forces raids.
The raids against the loyalists of the terror group intensified in parts of Nangarhar province amid concerns that they are attempting to expand foothold in the country.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan earlier said the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group has the potential to be an ‘enormous’ threat in Afghanistan.
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (PYD) militia banned fuel shipments from crossing to opposition-held areas in Idlib province and Aleppo countryside which led to a rocket increase in fuel prices. A barrel of diesel reached 91000 SP while gasoline barrel 155000 SP.
A field leader in Free Syrian Army (FSA) said the PYD ban of entrance of shipments came in conjunction with PYD snipers targeting of civilians on Kastilou road in Aleppo, the only passage between Aleppo city and Aleppo western countryside and Idlib province.
Official of civil administration in western Aleppo countryside Ibrahim Shihab al-Deen told Zaman al-Wasl, the civil administration has alternatives for fuel cut in opposition-held areas including solar energy and other available options.
Shihab al-Deen stressed that cutting the road is not in the interest of both PYD and opposition since the road secures both parties’ needs.
Head of Local Council in Dar Izzeh Marwan al-Hilou told Zaman al-Wasl that Kurdish fighters have retained more than 400 fuel shipments and they are using it to negotiate, oil in exchange of food. This caused a crisis in fuel prices in rebels-held areas.
Al-Hilou pointed out that Kurds demanded from parties in Dar Izzeh formation of a committee to contact decision makers. However, the PYD death parade exhibition of rebel fighters’ corpses in Efrin made them refrain from communications with the Kurds.
In this context, sources revealed to Zaman al-Wasl, a number of civil actors in opposition-held in Dar Izzeh and Atma, near Efrin, with a number of prominent local actors in Efrin are to form a committee of civilians to find solutions for problems facing the locals; however, military actors at both sides are preventing the formation of such a body.
Kurdish militias refuse to deliver 40 FSA and Islamist factions fighters bodies who died during battles in Ayn Danqh near Azaz in northern countryside of Aleppo. Protests came out to demand the fighters’ bodies in addition to a wide resentment by locals in Kurdish opposition-held areas.
A Kurdish official from Efrin who spoke on condition of anonymity attributed the ban of fuel shipment to the blockade implemented by what he described as “extremist factions” on the city. These factions banned entrance of food shipments as well as repeatedly bombed Jandarees town adjacent to Atma on the borders.
Tension between Kurdish PYD and rebel factions increased due to the PYD death parade exhibition of FSA and Islamist faction fighters’ bodies on a truck in Efrin.
This led rebel factions to impose a blockade on Kurdish cities north of Syria and ban food shipments from entering. Also, rebel factions bombed PYD strongholds in Jandarees and Efrin in response to Kurdish militia targeting the civilians in Kastilou road in Aleppo.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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[An Nahar] A Syrian man has been locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! on charges of providing terrorist groups with arms, ammunition and surveillance devices, the General Security announced on Thursday.
"As part of its monitoring of the activities of terrorist groups and their sleeper cells, the General Directorate of General Security has arrested the Syrian A. M. for his communication with terrorist groups, following an authorization from the relevant prosecution authorities," the security agency said in a statement.
"During interrogation, he confessed to trading in arms and ammunition on behalf of terrorist groups and that he has obtained and stored surveillance devices with the aim of delivering them to a terrorist group," the statement added.
"The aforementioned electronic devices were seized during a raid on the suspect's residence," General Security said.
The man was referred to the relevant judicial authorities following interrogation and efforts are underway to arrest the rest of those involved, the agency added.
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05/20/2016
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[An Nahar] The council of ministers announced Thursday that it unanimously rejects any attempt to naturalize Syrian refugees in Leb, after remarks attributed to U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon stirred a storm of criticism in the country.
"The cabinet reaffirmed the Lebanese consensus on rejecting naturalization and any policies that encourage the refugees to stay where they are, seeing as the only solution to the refugee crisis is the Syrians' speedy return to their country, which contradicts with the principles of voluntary return, integration and naturalization," said the cabinet in a statement issued after its weekly session at the Grand Serail.
The cabinet also agreed to "conduct the necessary contacts" and "demand clarifications regarding Ban Ki-moon's remarks on the naturalization of refugees."
Media reports meanwhile quoted the U.N. chief's official spokesperson as saying that the naturalization of Syrian refugees in Leb is not on the table and that efforts to resettle some of them outside Leb are still underway.
According to An Nahar newspaper, Ban Ki-moon had said in a report he submitted to the Vienna conference on Syria that refugees have the right to obtain the nationalities of the countries they live in.
Ban Ki-moon's reported remarks had prompted an urgent meeting for the Lebanese government's Syrian refugee cell which comprises Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas and Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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[Al Ahram] The United States has added the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's branches in Libya, 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... 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... to its global terrorism blacklist, the State Department announced Thursday.
The three IS branches were declared "specially designated global terrorists," which imposes sanctions and penalties on foreign persons who pose a serious risk of committing acts of terrorism that threaten US nationals or national security.
The State Department said the three groups emerged as IS branches in November 2014 when IS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... announced he had accepted oaths of allegiance from fighters in Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
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05/20/2016
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[Al Ahram] The White House said on Thursday it was too soon to determine what caused the crash of an EgyptAir plane over the Mediterranean, it is still being investigated. It's another random catastrophe.
"It's too early to definitively say what may have caused this disaster," White House front man Josh Earnest said at a briefing. "The investigation is under way. And Sherlocks will consider all of the potential factors that could have contributed to the crash."
The United States offered condolences to families of the victims and aid to authorities investigating the crash, it said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said earlier that he had no special information about why an EgyptAir plane disappeared on Thursday, adding that he would not speculate on the cause.
"Relevant authorities are doing everything they can to try and find out what the facts are of what happened today. I have no more knowledge than others at this point with respect to those facts," Kerry told a news conference at NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... headquarters in Brussels.
The EgyptAir Airbus A320 jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Gay Paree to Cairo disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean south of Greece earlier on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
"It's too early to definitively say what may have caused this disaster,"
Interesting. It's true, but usually, the official position is "we have no indication that this was an act of terrorism". Giving up on trying to sell that story?
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US presidential hopeful Donald Trump called Thursday’s deadly EgyptAir plane crash "another terrorist attack," on his Twitter account.
His comments came after the flight from Gay Paree to Cairo carrying 66 people on board crashed in the Mediterranean sea early on Thursday morning.
Egyptian and Greek Sherlocks are scrambling to locate debris and find out the causes of the crash.
The de-facto Republican nominee, referring to the plane crash, wrote: "Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Gay Paree. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!"
Egypt’s minister of civil aviation said Cairo would not rule out the possibility of a terrorist attack behind the missing plane. Around the same time, Russia’s domestic intelligence chief said that "apparently, it is a terrorist attack."
It is not the first time the Republican frontrunner has linked a tragedy to terrorism. After the mass shooting in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, in December, which killed 14 people, Trump blamed "radical Islamic terrorism" and called for temporary ban on Muslims entering the US.
In a press statement at the time, the tycoon-turned-politician called "for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."
Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican who served in Democratic President Barack Obama teachable moment... ’s administration, said Trump’s tweet came too soon before officials had a chance to discover what happened.
"It prejudges the outcome," Gates told MSNBC. "It’s always better to wait until you act - know what the facts are before you open up. I realize that’s a very unusual thing in American politics, but it ought to be tried occasionally."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
"Looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Gay Paree. When will we get tough, smart and vigilant?
"Looks like".... indeed it does. Fault him if you will, but "Looks like" is hardly an out-of-the-box preliminary deduction.
#2
Trump states the obvious and the PC, "Religion of Peace", crowd gets the vapors. One of the reasons to like him
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016 8:41
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The swerves the plane took before crashing point to a struggle in the cockpit.
This could be terrorist interference, but the Germanwings disaster proves that other reasons may apply.
We can speculate all we like, but presidents and candidates should show more restraint until facts are known.
You don't want a president who reacts without knowing any facts. That's a recipe for disaster.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 11:16
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#4
You don't want a president who reacts without knowing any facts. That's a recipe for disaster.
No, but you want a candidate who knows how to get elected. He has learned that he can use Twitter to get free publicity from the media. They don't have to like him, all they have to do is spell his name right.
#8
Need more time to rule out obscure YouTube video release for the early arrival of the jet at a non scheduled landing strip 180 ft under the Mediterranean Sea.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:23
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#13
@tw
I'm surprised that Hillary doesn't blame a movie...
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:24
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#14
What Besoeker posted:
On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:
00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT
no further ACARS messages were received
That would indeed point to an electrical failure, not a terrorist act.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
05/20/2016 20:28
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EC,
Sensors triggered over a 3 minute period while a crisis is rolling out needs forensics... jets falling out of the sky without Maydays is pretty rare...but it was an Airbus, so perhaps Brussels standards need to be considered . :-)
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) has claimed at least 102 militants were killed during the clearance operations in central Maidan Wardak and southeastern Ghazni provinces during the past 10 days.
According to a statement by MoD, the operations were conducted in Zankhan district of Ghazni and Maidan Wardak provinces as part of ‘Sultan Wrath’ operations.
The statement further added that 64 militants were also wounded and 2 others were arrested during the operations.
The Afghan security forces confiscated various types of weapons, ammunition and explosives, including 20 rifles, 2 rocket launchers, the statement said, adding that various types of vehicles and bikes were also confiscated.
According to MoD, the Afghan forces recovered several containers belonging to the traders which were seized by the militants from the highway in Ghazni.
MoD said at least 52 Improvised Explosive Device were also discovered and defused during the operations besides dismantling a communication establishment of the militants.
The Afghan security forces did not suffer any casualties during the operations, the defense ministry added.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the report so far.
[RFA] A Uighur teen faces a 20-year jail sentence after he was convicted of plotting to join a militant separatist group and conspiring to help some of his friends escape from China.
17-year-old Abduraxman Rozi was sentenced by a court in Akesu prefecture over what officials say was a plan he masterminded to join an East Turkestan separatist group and to help four other people illegally leave China. Four other boys were also detained for attempting to leave the country. A 17-year-old and an 18-year-old were sentenced to nine-year terms, and two others were freed.
While authorities say Abduraxman Rozi was attempting to become an insurgent, his family says he was just looking for work. His father said, "My son may have planned to go abroad when he saw that some Uighurs went abroad, but I don't believe he had any political or religious intent in his plan. He went to Kunming just looking for a job, and that is why he may have been interested in going to another country, just seeking a better life."
LONDON: Houthi militias have carried out a wave of arrests of their opponents in Yemen, seizing them at gunpoint and torturing some, rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
An examination of 60 cases in the report showed a pattern of “arbitrary arrests” and “enforced disappearances” by the Houthis. The rights group says the Houthi clampdown is part of the militias’ campaign to defeat opposition in areas of Yemen under its control.
Incidents that took place in Sanaa, Taiz, Ibb and Hodeidah between December 2014 and March 2016 show that detainees included opposition figures, kommies, journalists and academics.
[Dhaka Tribune] War crimes accused Md Yusuf has died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Beat the hangman, did he? Too bad.
Dhaka Central Jail prison guard Md Zakaria told the Dhaka Tribune that Yusuf died around 9:15am on Thursday.
He was admitted to the DMCH on April 20 this year. Yusuf, son of late Kurban Ali, hailed from Ramharitaluk under Sudharam upazila of Noakhali.
On October 5, 2015, police incarcerated Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! Yusuf and two others hours after the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) 1 had issued arrest warrants against five Noakhali war crimes suspects for their alleged involvement in crimes in Sudharam upazila during the 1971 Liberation War.
The tribunal sent three war crimes accused to Dhaka Central Jail the following day.
According to the prosecution, Yusuf along with two others ‐ Amir and Abul - were involved in the abduction, torture and killing of at least nine people of Ramharitaluk, Debipur and Uttar Chakla villages in the upazila on September 13, 1971.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
they should hang his corpse...just because
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016 10:30
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[FRANCE24] Police in riot gear clashed with thousands of protesters trying to reach the headquarters of Venezuela's electoral body Wednesday to demand a referendum to recall unpopular President Nicolas Maduro.
The anti-government protest was the third in a week, and came days after the socialist president declared a state of emergency in the economically struggling country. He gave himself decree powers for 60 days.
Thousands of people turned out for the march in downtown Caracas, but police blocked the route. A small group tried to break through and was turned back by tear gas.
On Tuesday, opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on the country to reject the extra powers granted Maduro.
"If Maduro wants to apply this decree, he needs to start preparing tanks and warplanes, because he'll have to apply it by force," Capriles said.
Venezuela has seen constant small-scale protests in recent weeks against widespread water and electricity cuts.
The opposition roiled the country with bloody nationwide protests in 2014, but protests have tended to be small and peaceful since then.
A majority of the country wants Maduro out, according to opinion polls. Venezuelans overwhelmingly voted for the opposition in congressional elections in December, but state institutions have blocked the opposition-controlled congress from passing any legislation.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
Its only a matter of time before starving people get shot and then the gloves come off generally.
And, word to the wise, IF there is any food available today, feed the police first. And if I were Maduro I would have a plane ready on the runway with the motors turned on. Oh, and some real value commodity in a carry on, ( just in case.)
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – Kirkuk Police chief, Brigadier General Sarhad Qadir, said on Thursday, that four wanted men had been arrested on charges of “terrorism” south of the province.
Qadir said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Today, a force belonging to Kirkuk Provincial Police conducted a security operation in a village located south of Kirkuk Province, resulting in the arrest of four wanted [individuals] on charges of terrorism,” adding also that, “30 mortar shells were found in an agricultural land for use by the most wanted in carrying out terrorist attacks.”
ALEPPO – Dozens of Kurdish female fighters have joined the battlefront in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, especially in the Sheikh Maqsoud district that has been exposed to fierce attacks by Islamist groups led by Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate of Nusra Front.
The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) are the main Kurdish forces in Syria. Both the YPJ and YPG have joined the ranks of the western -backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to combat radical Islamist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Erin Judi, 27, is a Kurdish female fighter and member of the YPJ in Aleppo. Along with dozens of her peers they try to secure the Sheikh Maqsoud district against Islamists’ offensives.
“Attacks by those radical groups, led by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, have claimed lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. We believe it’s a duty to prevent further bloodshed among innocent people, that’s why I decided to join the battlefront in Sheikh Maqsoud,” she told ARA News.
There are around 30,000 civilians living in Sheikh Maqsoud which is a predominately Kurdish part of Aleppo city.
Eyewitnesses told ARA News that the Islamist rebel groups killed civilians in their houses. According to the YPG, the neighbourhood has been continually bombed since November 2015, killing hundreds of civilians.
“Those radical groups are literally conducting an ethnic cleansing against the Kurds in Aleppo. They have been bombing the Sheikh Maqsoud area for months, putting lives of over 30,000 civilians at risk,” the YPJ member Judi said.
“We are still in a defensive position in Sheikh Maqsoud, but if the attacks continue we’ll attack headquarters of those terrorists and we’ll kill them wherever they are,” she added.
Speaking to ARA News, Simav Khallo, 24, another Kurdish female fighter in Aleppo, said: “Despite the risks, carrying a weapon and defending my people is an honour.”
“When you see that your enemy is actually an enemy to all humanity, you feel proud by fighting them,” she said.
“The Kurdish society in its nature believes in the equality between men and women, so as we participate in politics and social activists we also take part in the military activities with a belief in the objective of this struggle,” Khallo said.
“We won’t allow those terrorists and barbarians to take over our land and deprive our people from their basic rights,” she told ARA News. “Today I fight here in Sheikh Maqsoud district, and once we make victory against those terrorists here I’ll join other battlefronts alongside with my comrades.”
The Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud suffer from the absence of many services as a result of the blockade imposed by Islamist rebel groups on their district, mainly by the Nusra Front (al-Qaeda branch in Syria). “These groups are apparently punishing the people of Sheikh Maqsoud for their support to the YPG and YPJ, who are engaged in fighting with Islamist rebels around the city of Aleppo as well,” Kurdish activist Luqman Ismail told ARA News.
Jinan Osman, 21, is another member of the YPJ. She has been fighting in the ranks of the Kurdish female forces in Afrin before joining the Sheikh Maqsoud battlefront.
“The Kurdish women have proven their bravery by participating in the fight against the most radical groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda,” she told ARA News. “We will protect our people and we will eliminate those terrorists since we’re fighting on the right side of history. They try to impose their sick ideologies on the people, while we’re fighting for freedom and coexistence.”
[Al Ahram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's incoming prime minister Binali Yildirim is a longstanding and faithful ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... who has shown the president unstinting loyalty even before he won the highest office.
The appointment of Yildirim to lead the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and thus lead the government signals a move to a more pliant premiership for Erdogan than was the case under the outgoing Ahmet Davutoglu, who feuded with the Turkish strongman on one too many issues and earlier this month threw in the towel.
Yildirim has worked side-by-side with Erdogan since his widely admired stint as mayor of Istanbul from 1994-1998, moving to federal office after the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) won power in 2002.
As prime minister, Yildirim's main task may not be to devise policy of his own, but rather to implement Erdogan's dream of creating a presidential system in Turkey to enshrine his status as the undisputed number one.
"And now it's time for the presidential system," Yildirim said earlier in May just after Davutoglu resigned.
As a ferry company chief and then as transport minister, Yildirim has for the last two decades worked in the transport sector, an absolutely key area in Turkey which is trying to catch up its lag in infrastructure with vast new projects.
As such, he has been a key lieutenant of Erdogan in implementing what the president likes to call his "crazy" projects to create a "New Turkey", almost always pictured in the press wearing a hard hat and flourescent jacket.
Projects completed so far include new roads, high speed rail lines and most spectacularly of all, the first tunnel under the Bosphorus opened in 2013 which now carries tens of thousands of passengers a day on an undersea rail line.
To be opened in August this year is the third bridge over the Bosphorus, named after the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim and which will likely prove a lasting monument to Erdogan's rule.
Under construction is a brand new international airport for Istanbul while on paper is possibly the most ambitious project of all -- a shipping canal that will run parallel with the Bosphorus and take some of the pressure off the clogged waterway.
But in contrast with the sweeping ambition of the projects he has criminal masterminded, Yildirim is softly spoken and almost mumbles his way through speeches.
This will set him apart from Davutoglu who sought to steal some of the limelight from the charismatic president, with populist and sometimes deafening speeches of his own.
The extent of Yildirim's loyalty was shown in 2014 when he agreed to a near mission impossible to stand for mayor in Turkey's third city of Izmir, a bastion of the secular opposition.
With the AKP desperate to show one of its heavyweights could garner support in the Aegean city, Yildirim performed creditably, receiving 36 percent of the vote but still finishing a clear second.
Yildirim, 60, worked as head of the Istanbul ferry company while Erdogan was mayor of the city in the second half of the 1990s.
After the AKP won power, he served an almost unbroken stint from 2002 to 2013 and again from 2015 as transport minister.
According to the columnist for the Hurriyet daily Abdulkadir Selvi, the only serious difference between the two men is that Erdogan supports the Fenerbahce football side and Yildirim their arch Istanbul rivals Galatasaray.
Yildirim has held on to his post as transport minister despite the occasional controversy, notably in 2004 when a new high speed train derailed in the northwest of the country, resulting in the deaths of 41 people.
There was also anger in 2005 when a photo emerged of his wife dining alone while he sat at a table with fellow men, prompting allegations of sexism.
And he also remarked he did not attend the Western-orientated Bosphorus University in Istanbul, saying he was put off by male and female students mixing freely on the campus.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
That article was almost New York Times in its back-handedness.
[Dhaka Tribune] The law minister is right to describe last Friday’s mob attack on headmaster Shyamal Kanti Bhakta in Narayanganj as a punishable offence that must not be tolerated.
It is disgraceful that a mob beat up the senior teacher and sought to humiliate him by publicly forcing him to do squats holding his ears.
Although the education minister has apologised for the incident, later setting up an investigation, this is not enough. By their own accounts, the local MP -- in whose presence the attack was carried out -- and the local police did nothing to stop the mob or hold them to account after the incident.
Moreover, the school management committee that instigated the attack and has reportedly been harassing the victim for months in order to replace him with a relative of the committee’s president, is still in office and has officially suspended the victim.
Although those involved are making conflicting claims, there are clear indications that the headmaster is the victim of systematic harassment by a corrupt school committee that has turned on an individual for not giving in to their demands.
To make matters worse, the committee orchestrated the public beating by making completely baseless accusations that the victim, a Hindu, had made "offensive comments" about Islam. It is doubly dangerous and deplorable that they cynically misused religion to incite communal hatred.
The government must stand by the headteacher and uphold the law minister’s promise that those involved will be punished because no one can take the law into their own hands.
There is no place for mob violence in Bangladesh.
The Supreme Court has long since ruled on the illegality of arbitrary "village courts." All those responsible for mistreating the headteacher must be held to account.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016
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#1
Actually, it might be kind of fun to see that Schmo character from the story about GEN Boykin forced, er, strongly encouraged to do such a thing publicly for the amusement of the undergraduates.
#2
No. The reason to have strong rule of law is to prevent exactly this kind of mob lynching based on lies to benefit crony insiders. In this case, the Hindu school principal was abused for months to drive him out in favour of the school board president's relative. When that didn't work the Muslim mob was galvanized by a deliberate lie (and even if it were true, that's no excuse) about the Hindu insulting Islam, whatever that means.
About as funny as making Jews scrub Nazi gutters with a toothbrush, and equally bad for the character of the watchers.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraq’s military said on Thursday it had retaken the remote western town of Rutba from ISIS in an operation launched this week to cut off the bad boys’ supply route to neighboring Syria.
The military’s joint operations command said in a statement the district, 360 km (225 miles) west of Baghdad, had been "completely liberated" without clarifying what that meant. It said Iraqi forces had raised flags above some buildings, without specifying that they controlled the main government complex.
The military has pushed the jihadists out of much of the northern and western territories they seized in 2014, but the group still controls large areas and key cities including djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , which Iraqi authorities have pledged to retake this year as part of a US-backed strategy to defeat the group.
In addition to its linkage to Syria, Rutba was considered an important "support zone" which ISIS was using to stage operations into battle areas further north and east.
Counter-terrorism forces, backed by US-led coalition air strikes, had entered the town from the south on Tuesday and taken control of al-Intisar district.
Major General Hadi Razij, head of Anbar police, said elite commandos had attacked from the south while police, tribal fighters and the Iraqi army pushed from the north.
"We managed to liberate Rutba district, eliminating many jacket wallahs and boom-mobiles," he told state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Razij said troops had also reached Camp Korean Village, a former US military base about 40 km further west towards the border, and continued to clear the international highway.
Coalition front man US Army Col. Steve Warren has said ISIS was believed to maintain up to "several hundred" fighters in Rutba at any given time.
On Thursday, he described resistance there as "moderate to light" but said the Iraqis were still clearing enemy forces. Many of the gunnies likely fled before the offensive began, Warren added, as the advancing forces would have been easy to detect.
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(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Thursday, Khalidiya Council in Anbar Province announced, that 13 ISIS members were killed and a laboratory for manufacturing improvised explosive devices was destructed by an air strike in central Fallujah (62 km west of Baghdad).
The Head of Khalidiya Council Ali Dawood said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “This morning the international coalition aircraft bombed an improvised explosive devices laboratory belonging to ISIS in the industrial neighborhood area in central Fallujah, killing 13 ISIS fighters and destructing the entire laboratory and a number of vehicles.”
Dawood added, “The smoke was rising dramatically in the skies of Fallujah because of the large number of improvised explosive devices that were exploded inside the laboratory,” indicating that, “The movements of ISIS members in the city of Fallujah lessened due to the fear of being targeted by the international coalition aircraft.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Thursday, official journalists with the Ministry of Defense announced, that Rutba liberation troops managed to control Akashat area west of Anbar, while cut off ISIS supply lines towards Qaim.
The journalists said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “Rutba liberation forces from Federal Police Command, in direct coordination with the Joint Operations Command, managed to control Akashat area on the highway toward Rutba.”
The statement added, “These troops also cut off ISIS supply lines toward Qaim.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Thursday, al-Jzeera and Badiya Operations Command in Anbar Province announced killing seven members of the so-called ISIS west of Anbar (110 km west of Baghdad).
The commander of al-Jzeera and al-Badiya Operations in Anbar, Major General Ali Ibrahim Dabon said in a brief statement received by IraqiNews.com, “This morning the security forces from the army, police and al-Jzeera operations’ 7th brigade bombed a gathering of ISIS members in Barwana area northwest of Baghdadi (70 km west of Anbar) with Cornet thermal missiles, killing seven ISIS members.”
Dabon added, “The rocket attacks also resulted in the destruction of a vehicle and a truck carrying weapons and missiles,” indicating that, “The cleansing battles achieved important military results over the past few days.”
"Dozens" of ISIS troops die in Iraqi airstrikes
(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – On Thursday, media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced the killing of tens of “terrorists” in an aerial bombing by the the army’s Air Force in Fallujah.
The officials said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The Air Force, based on intelligence information by the Joint Special Operations Command, conducted an accurate air strike by the F-16 warplanes on ISIS sites, resulting in the death of tens of terrorists in Fallujah.”
Iraq witnesses an extraordinary security situation as military operations continue to expel “ISIS,” while the international coalition aviation carry out air strikes targeting ISIS sites and causing casualties in their ranks.
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[Zamboanga Today] Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants lobbed a hand grenade at Philippine troops in Sulu province on Wednesday morning, injuring at least seven soldiers.
Military spokesman Filemon Tan Jr. said the soldiers were aboard a truck when a grenade lobbed at them. Tan said, "Initial investigation revealed the soldiers were about to go back to their camp from Jolo port after buying supplies and fetching their companions and upon reaching Plaza Marina, a grenade hurled at their truck and exploded."
The incident, which occurred in Jolo town, comes a few days after the Abu Sayyaf threatened to behead their lone surviving Canadian hostage if their ransom demand is not paid within four weeks.
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[Al Ahram] Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party will separate it religious activities from political ones, its chief said in statements published Thursday ahead of a weekend congress to formalise the change.
Rached Ghannouchi, an intellectual who once advocated a strict application of Islamic sharia law, told French daily Le Monde there was no room left in post-Arab Spring Tunisia for "political Islam".
"Tunisia is now a democracy. The 2014 constitution has imposed limits on extreme secularism and extreme religion," he was quoted as saying.
"We want religious activity to be completely independent from political activity.
"This is good for politicians because they would no longer be accused of manipulating religion for political means and good for religion because it would not be held hostage to politics," said Ghannouchi.
His comments come on the eve of a three-day congress for Ennahda, which is part of a coalition government.
Leaders say the congress will take the formal step of making the separation between political and Islamic activities.
Ghannouchi, who is expected to be re-elected as party head barring any last-minute surprise, said: "We are going towards a party which specialises in political activities.
"We are leaving political Islam and entering democratic Islam. We are Muslim democrats who are no longer claim to represent political Islam," he added.
He described Ennahda as a "political, democratic and civil party" but said its point of reference remain rooted in the values of ancient and modern Islam.
Ghannouchi and other intellectuals inspired by Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund in 1981 founded the Islamic Tendency Movement, which became Ennahda in 1989.
The party was persecuted under the regime of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his predecessor Habib Bourguiba.
Ghannouchi was sentenced to jail under Bourguiba and lived in exile for 20 years, returning home after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising ousted Ben Ali.
He received a triumphant welcome from supporters and won the post-revolution election in October 2011, but two years later Ghannouchi had to step aside amid a deep political crisis.
In 2014, the secularist Nidaa Tounes party of President Beji Caid Essebsi won parliamentary elections, beating Ennahda which came second.
But in January Ennahda became the single biggest party when some politicians quit Nidaa Tounes to form a new bloc in parliament.
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[DAWN] MULTAN: Tayyab Nawaz alias Hafiz Abdul Mateen, who was killed along with seven other suspected bandidosgunnies on Wednesday night was the head of Al Qaeda, Pakistain, Dawn learnt on Thursday. According to officials sources, three of the bandidosgunnies who were killed in Nawabpur area in an encounter with a joint team comprising Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and ISI personnel were from Al-Ahrar group of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and the remaining were Al-Qaeda members.
The sources said Tayyab was a resident of Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... while Muneeb Razaq alias Rehman and Zeeshan alias Abu Dajana were from Wazoo. They said two of the bandidosgunnies -- Ameer Mavia and Sultan -- were from Sargodha district, while Al-Ahrar group members were identified as Imran and Irfan of Rahim Yar Khan and the third was a resident of DG Khan.
They said after the postmortem examination at the Nishtar Hospital, the bad boys’ bodies were shifted to an unidentified location.
After the eight bandidosgunnies were killed, the special branch of Multan region issued a threat alter, saying the TTP could target educational institutes in three cities of Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... where security needed to be beefed up.
Sources said Muneeb Razaq and Zeeshan were proclaimed offenders in the liquidation case of Brig Fazal Qadri in Sargodha while Tayyab was the criminal mastermind of Rawalpindi Parade Lane bombing on December 4, 2009 in which 36 people, including 17 children, 10 civilian and 9 army personnel were killed. He was also wanted in a case pertaining to murder of an army officer, they added.
[DAWN] LAHORE: The Counter Terrorism Department claimed on Wednesday night to have killed eight members of the outlawed Al Qaeda in an ’encounter’ in Multan’s Nawabpur area.
A CTD front man said that a tip-off came that Al Qaeda commander Muneeb Javaid alias Qandhari and Tayab Nawaz alias Hafiz Abdul Mateen, along with Muneeb Razaq alias Abdul Rehman and Zeeshan alias Abu Dujana, were coming to Multan to hold a meeting with Al Qaeda commander Bilal Lateef alias Yasir Punjabi and other murderous Moslems, including two jacket wallahs.
He said that the suspected forces of Evil had gathered in the suburbs of Multan to plan an attack on a university in the city.
The front man said that on the basis of the tip-off, a joint team of ISI and Multan Counter Terrorism Department personnel carried out a raid on the meeting point near Nawabpur village.
He said after seeing the police team the Lions of Islam fired RPG rockets and lobbed hand-grenades.
The police team retaliated and when the firing stopped eight Al Qaeda Lions of Islam were found dead.
Some of the dead were identified as Tayyab alias Abdul Mateen, Muneeb Razaq alias Adbul Rehman, Zeeshan alias Abu Dujana. Muneeb Razaq and Zee-shan were proclaimed offenders in the liquidation of Brig Fazal Qadri in Sargodha.
Identity of other dead Lions of Islam was yet to be established.
Taking advantage of the darkness, Bilal Lateef and Muneeb Javaid, along with their five to six associates, escaped.
The front man said one suicide jacket, two AK47 rifles, two pistols and three hand-grenades were recovered from the scene.
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[Dhaka Tribune] Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid has said the management committee of Piyar Sattar Latif High School, which had suspended its headmaster Shyamal Kanti Bhakta, has been dissolved.
He made the statement at a programme held at Mother Language Institute in Segunbagicha of Dhaka on Thursday morning.
He said: "The management committee of Piyar Sattar Latif High School has been dissolved. Shyamal can now resume his work as the headmaster."
The management committee suspended Shyamal on Tuesday.
On Friday, Shyamal was beaten up and forced to do squats holding his ears with both hands in presence of local politician Salim Osman.
A video of the incident spread online, triggering outrage across Bangladesh. Many empathised with the teacher by uploading pictures of themselves holding their ears.
Later, a committee was formed to look into the incident.
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#1
I see no words referring to the arrest, fines, or other punishment of the management committee members, particularly the president, whose relative was slated to replace the now-reinstted headmaster.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A power struggle within Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority has intensified as attempts to form a new government flounder, threatening to turn violent and ruin US-led efforts to defeat ISIS.
For the first time since the US withdrawal at the end of 2011, Shiite factions came close to taking arms against each another last month, when followers of powerful holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... stormed the parliament in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Rival Shiite turbans took up positions nearby, raising the specter of intra-Shiite fighting similar to events in the southern city of Basra in 2008, in which hundreds of people were killed.
Trucks carrying those militiamen, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, patrolled the capital in clear view of the security forces, video published on the website of Iranian-backed group Saraya al-Khorasani showed.
The crisis presents the biggest political challenge yet to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a moderate Shiite Islamist who took office in 2014 promising to defeat ISIS, mend rifts with the minority Sunnis and Kurds, and root out corruption eating away at state income which has already been eroded by a slump in oil prices.
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The murders, sometime by beheading, of at least 49 individuals by IS terrorists in Sirte are set out in detail in a new report from Human Right’s Watch which UNSMIL chief Martin Kobler today described as “sickening”.
These are the known victims over the year to this February, who were selected because they were alleged to be spies or blasphemers or sorcerers or captured militia opponents. However HRW was told by a Sirte councillor who had fled the town, that dozens of other militia men had disappeared and were presumed to have been killed by the terrorists.
Continued on Page 49
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Islamic State fighters on Thursday have recaptured 4 villages from moderate rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, local reporter said.
In what seemed hit-and-run battles near the Turkish border, ISIS and rebels have exchanged control of the villages of al-Fairouziya, Jazer, Yahmoul, al-Sheikh Rih and al-Bil.
Dozens of rebel fighters were killed according to Aamaq, ISIS news agency, as well media activist Aymen al-Okda was killed by ISIS on Wednesday, activists said.
Meanwhile, Experts say ISIS gainon the Turkish border is rising Ankara's concerns.
President Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday Turkey will take it upon itself to deal with attacks on the border town of Kilis if it receives no outside help, in a sign Ankara may be willing to act against ISIS on its own.
"We will overcome the Islamic State. We will solve that issue ourselves if we don't receive help to prevent those rockets from hitting Kilis," Erdogan told an international meeting of ministers in Istanbul.
Kilis, which is just across the border from an ISIS-controlled area of Syria, has come under frequent rocket fire in recent weeks. Turkish officials say Ankara needs more help from the U.S.-led coalition in protecting its border.
On Handarat's battlefront, fierce clashes are underway between rebels and regime forces, rebel source said.
Seizing Handarat Camp has become regime's main target since it overlooks on strategic Castillo road, the only gateway for rebel-held Aleppo.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A Leb military judge Wednesday sentenced 106 men to death over festivities between the army and faceless myrmidons two years ago in the east of the country, a judicial source said.
Judge Najat Abou Chakra convicted 73 Syrians, 32 Lebanese and one Paleostinian of belonging to "terrorist organizations," attacking the town of Arsal near the Syrian border, and kidnapping and attempting to kill Lebanese soldiers and coppers, the source said.
Seventy-seven of those convicted are in jug but the other 29 remain on the lam.
They include Abu Malek al-Talli, the leader in the cross-border area of Qalamun of Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Nusra Front.
In August 2014, the Lebanese army clashed with ISIS murderous Moslem group and Al-Nusra in Arsal.
IS and Al-Nusra kidnapped 30 soldiers and coppers as they withdrew.
After lengthy negotiations, 16 of the captured men were released in early December in exchange for Islamist prisoners jugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in Leb.
Since the start of the five-year conflict in Syria, Leb has become home to more than one million Syrian refugees.
It has also been the scene of deadly bombings, including attacks targeting the Shiite group Hezbollah, a key ally of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... ’s regime.
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An ISIS militant was killed after detonating explosives strapped to their body on Thursday as Turkish police raided a militant cell in a house in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, the Dogan news agency reported.
It was not clear if the dead militant was male or female.
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#1
It was not clear if the dead militant was male or female.
[Dhaka Tribune] Dhaka city police have announced large bounties, Tk18 lakh in total, for the capture of six top Ansarullah operatives.
Dhaka Metro Police announced on their news portal that they have identified these turbans from investigations and confessions of a couple of Ansarullah Bangla Team operatives captured from one of their dens.
These six include operatives who provide military training, recruit and induct new operatives, and provide it training.
Totalling Tk 18 lakhs for the six individuals, the bounty will be given out to information leading to their capture.
The DMP website has further information and details on each individual including all their aliases.
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[Al Ahram] Tunisia's military has killed a Death Eater described as "one of the most dangerous terrorist leaders" in the country during a security operation, the defence ministry said Thursday.
Seifeddine Jameli, as known as Abou al-Qaaqaa, belonged to the Tunisian branch 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, Jund al-Khilafa (the soldiers of the caliphate), the ministry said in a statement.
He was killed overnight by special forces in the central region of Mount Mghilla, it said, adding that weapons were seized during the operation.
Since its 2011 revolution, Tunisia has been hit by an upsurge in Death Eater violence in which dozens of police, soldiers and civilians have been killed.
Two attacks last year claimed by IS on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis and on a hotel near the Mediterranean resort of Sousse killed a total of 60 people, all but one of them foreign tourists.
The beheading of a teenage shepherd by holy warriors as his sheep grazed on Mount Mghilla last November also horrified the country.
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#1
And given that there are only eight months left to take advantage of this global void, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Islamic terrorists are beginning to believe that the U.S. will not do anything to stop their aggressions once they change global realities by force.
The fear we have all had here for quite some time.
#2
He's just greatly accelerated the process. Too much of the world has relied upon the 'evil' US to supply military welfare to provide stabilization where history has always been chaotic. At some point, the magic money tree dies and the legions return to Rome. Ironic that Central Europe has enjoy the longest period of peace since Rome. What too many wished, "The End of History", was simply a rare pause in the natural aspects of the human record.
#3
Remember the good old days in 406 AD when the Legions hadn't been paid in a while, and the Limes forts on the Rhine were falling to pieces?
And that year the Quadi and the Marcomanni were massed in the hundreds of thousands beyond the Rhine and that year was the coldest in 40 years and the entire Rhine River froze and the tribes came across in wagons with their families ?
A 70,000 man Barbarian Army swept the last Legion aside outside Mainz where it died in the snow in half a morning and the wagons and the army swept south taking Cologne and then the Huns decided to head for Chalons and Aetius had to call on Theodoric and Torismund and the Alans and the Burgun to hold the line at Petit Mons? The last of the Legions in Reserve.
How did that all end? Half a million dead in a couple of days ? and then the Vandals under Gaeseric headed south for Rome and Spain.
And the next Roman General was a transgender dwarf sent in to hold Ravenna. His name was Nepos, i seem to remember. Where we get the word Nepotism.
Or an approximation thereof. Anyway being naked and covered with hair was the fashion for the next few centuries/ Oh, and stacking mud was popular too/
A policeman has killed eight of his comrades in the latest insider attack in southern Zabul province of Afghanistan, local officials said Thursday.
The incident took place late on Wednesday night in a police check post located on Kabul-Kandahar highway.
A security official confirmed that the policeman carried out the attack with the help of two others who were apparently brought into the check post as guests.
The official further added that assailants including the policeman managed to flee the area and an investigation is underway regarding the attack.
No group including the Taliban militants has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
The latest insider attack follows nearly month after a policeman killed three of his comrades in eastern Laghman province of Afghanistan.
Earlier, at least seven policemen were killed in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan in a similar attack.
There has been a considerable rise in insider attacks mainly among the Afghan police forces during the recent months alarming the security officials to take steps in a bid to reduce such incidents.
Meanwhile, the Afghanistan National Security Council (NSC) approved in principle the strategy to fight the enemy moles, a step that could reduce insider attacks in the country by large extent.
A commander of the Taliban group Hafiz Saadullah was among ten militants killed after blown up by own explosives in southeastern Ghazni and western Herat provinces.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the militants were killed in three separate incidents in Ab Band and Khogyani districts of Gahzni and Shindand district of Herat.
MoD did not mention in which location exactly the Taliban commander was killed but the statement by MoD said another militant was also seriously wounded in the incident.
This comes as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) expert of the Taliban group was killed in an explosion in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the IED expert and three militants were busy in making an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) when the explosion took place.
Earlier, a group of 10 militants were blown up by their own explosives as they were busy making an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in southeastern Ghazni province.
According to the security officials, the militants were busy making the IED inside a mosque in Andar district when their explosives went off prematurely, leaving all 10 militants dead.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the report so far.
The Taliban insurgents and militants belonging to the other insurgent groups are frequently using Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces.
#1
" the militants were busy making the IED inside a mosque in Andar district when their explosives went off prematurely, leaving all 10 militants dead."
#2
I expect it was nothing more complex than a #19 as shown in the 197th Number of Popular Jihad corrections were made in Number 199 the First Number not printed at Cohen,Cohen and the Goy.
[FRANCE24] Congolese opposition leader Moise Katumbi has been indicted on charges of hiring mercenaries as part of a plot against long-standing President Joseph Kabila, and a warrant is out for his arrest, government front man Lambert Mende said on Thursday.
Katumbi, who is running for president in elections scheduled for November, has been accused of hiring mercenaries, including former US soldiers. He denies the allegations.
Mende told AFP that Katumbi "can either be put under house arrest or be jugged Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! "The prosecutors have handed their ruling. He is no longer free and he can no longer do what he wants," Mende said.
Prosecutors said Katumbi had been charged with undermining "the state's internal and external security".
Katumbi was not available for comment on Thursday.
Political tensions are high in Congo, where dozens were killed in January 2015 in protests over a proposed revision of the electoral law that critics said was a ploy to keep Kabila in power beyond the end of his mandate.
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Five people from the besieged al-Waer neighborhood in Homs city were wounded on Wednesday when regime snipers opened fire on a crowd queuing for bread, activists said.
The severe siege pushed tens of al-Waer residents to cross regime's checkpoints to buy bread and basic needs from government-held areas, such a risk has been faced by snipers' bullets, local activists said.
Despite the U.N.-brokered truce reached last December, the Syrian regime has never abide by the ceasefire deal. The last rebel stronghold in Homs city has been under severe siege for the last thee months, activists said.
A man and woman were killed on Monday as 10 more people were wounded in regime mortar fire on the besieged neighborhood of al-Waer in Homs city, residents said.
The regime officials told the neighborhood's negotiation committee to have al-Waer free of rebel presence otherwise siege and shelling ot be continued, sources said.
Regime has agree to free 300 detainees out of 7350. But the the negotiation committee demanded release of 1500 detainees, Such a demanded that was strongly refused.
The truce stated lift of the siege and prisoners release as 300 hundreds of rebels and families evacuated al-Waer heading the northern countryside of Homs.
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[Wash Examiner] A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being "intentionally deceptive" during litigation over President Obama's executive immigration orders.
"Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word 'Justice,'" U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a withering order released Thursday.
Ethics classes are fine. Contempt of court would send a better message, as would disbarment...
Justice Department attorneys misled the court about when the Department of Homeland Security would begin implementing President Obama's executive order granting "deferred action" to illegal immigrants whose children are citizens. In doing so, they tricked the 26 states who filed a lawsuit into "foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order," according to the judge.
The facts of the deception are not in doubt, Hanen emphasized. "[DOJ] has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts," he said in the May 19 opinion, first noted by the National Law Journal. "It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements ... This court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed."
#2
In a USG position of trust and responsibility requiring a polygraph examination, the term "intentionally deceptive" annotated in the exam adjudication, generally results in one NOT being hired.
#3
Hanen seemed to lament that he couldn't disbar the attorneys involved, but he barred the out-of-state attorneys from enjoying the right to practice law in Texas.
"The court does not have the power to disbar the counsel in this case, but it does have the power to revoke the pro hac vice status of out-of-state lawyers who act unethically in court," he wrote. "By a separate sealed order that it is simultaneously issuing, that is being done."
there's that, at least
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[The Australian] An Australian magistrate lashed out at supporters of five alleged terrorists for failing to respect her position when she entered the court, leading to a standoff in which a lawyer said the protesters were simply adhering to their faith.
Islamic cleric Robert "Musa" Cerantonio, Shayden Thorne, Antonio Granata, Paul Dacre, and Kadir Kaya were arrested in Cairns on Sunday and charged with preparing to enter a foreign country with the intent to engage in a hostile activity. It is alleged they planned to travel to the Middle East after sailing on a small boat to Indonesia.
A group of about ten men appeared in court yesterday to support the alleged terrorists and refused to stand when magistrate Luisa Bazzani entered the courtroom. Bazzani told the young men it was customary for people to stand and showed a lack of respect for them not to, and that this may be relevant at a later time.
She subsequently mentioned the matter to the five men's lawyer, Rob Stary, who told her the refusal to stand was in accord with the men's Muslim faith. Stary told Bazzani that former Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno had previously excused Muslim men from standing due to their religious convictions. He said, "They stand for no one other than Allah. Justice Bongiorno accommodated that."
Bazzani said she did not share Justice Bongiorno's position. She said, "I consider it absolutely disrespectful."
[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Intensive and strange aircraft movement has been ongoing for a month in Hemeimem military airport, the main Russian forces stronghold in Syria, a source said from the coastal city of Jableh.
The source told Zaman al-Wasl that different civil aircraft, military aircraft and drones including Israeli manufactured ones are flying and landing from the airport and do not carry any sign related to their identity. These aircrafts are not the Russian known ones.
Israeli manufactured drones from Searcher type flies and lands continuously in the airport. They were photographed in Jableh. It is likely that Russia has bought these from Israel during the last period, the source confirmed.
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#1
There are no signs to verify the identity of these aircrafts although it flies in conjunction with Sukhoi 35 jet fighters before and after Sukkoi flies, the source added.
Which would indicate there is likely no sharing of Intelligence, Surveillance, and Recce (ISR) data in the war on ISIS in Syria between the US and RU. Possibly a 'no kak under the rocking horse' moment, but yet another missed opportunity nonetheless.
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.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A uniformed Secret Service officer shot an armed person on a street outside the White House, a U.S. law enforcement official said Friday.
[Times] Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam remained tight-lipped when questioned by a French anti-terror judge for the first time on Friday, one of his lawyers told media.
Download malware? The feds may use that as an excuse to infiltrate your computer as well.
Charles Wade, a prominent Black Lives Matter organizer and co-founder of Operation Help or Hush, was arrested last month and charged with human trafficking and prostitution.
[Daily Caller] Federal workers at the departments of State, Treasury, Justice and Health and Human Services have given at least 10 times more in campaign contributions to Democrats than Republicans so far in the 2016 election cycle.
[Daily Caller] Adult men are almost as common a sight in housing projects as women, even though data show that virtually every subsidized apartment is occupied by low-income women whose "poverty" status is based on being single mothers with no man.
[RFE/RL] Authorities in Tajikistan have arrested five imams for promoting extremism and recruiting young people to join militant groups abroad.
[Dhaka Tribune] A Shibir leader, an accused in the Rajshahi University Professor AFM Rezaul Karim Siddique killing case, has died at a hospital in Rajshahi.
[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
[Al Ahram] Syrian troops backed by fighters from the Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah retook a key town outside Damascus from rebels on Thursday, a monitor said.
The latest advance with Hezbollah's support comes just days after the Iran-backed movement said its top military commander was killed in Syria in an attack it blamed on Islamist
[An Nahar] Families of the Aley district town of Ain Dara held a sit-in on Wednesday protesting an attack waged by armed 
[Al Ahram] 
DUHOK – Top jihadi leader and head of intelligence in the Islamic State (ISIS) Ali al-Aswad was killed along with two other ISIS members in an airstrike by the US-led coalition northern Iraq, officials reported on Thursday. 
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[Al Ahram] The United States has added the 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US presidential hopeful Donald Trump called Thursday’s deadly EgyptAir plane crash "another terrorist attack," on his Twitter account.
[RFA] A Uighur teen faces a 20-year jail sentence after he was convicted of plotting to join a militant separatist group and conspiring to help some of his friends escape from China.
[Dhaka Tribune] War crimes accused Md Yusuf has died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
[FRANCE24] Police in riot gear clashed with thousands of protesters trying to reach the headquarters of Venezuela's electoral body Wednesday to demand a referendum to recall unpopular President Nicolas Maduro.
ALEPPO – Dozens of Kurdish female fighters have joined the battlefront in Syria’s northern Aleppo province, especially in the Sheikh Maqsoud district that has been exposed to fierce attacks by Islamist groups led by Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate of Nusra Front.
[Al Ahram] 
[DAWN] MULTAN: Tayyab Nawaz alias Hafiz Abdul Mateen, who was killed along with seven other suspected 
Wazoo
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A power struggle within Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority has intensified as attempts to form a new government flounder, threatening to turn violent and ruin US-led efforts to defeat ISIS.
[Al Ahram] Tunisia's military has killed a
By Victor Davis Hanson
[FRANCE24] Congolese opposition leader Moise Katumbi has been indicted on charges of hiring mercenaries as part of a plot against long-standing President Joseph Kabila, and a warrant is out for his arrest, government 
[The Australian] An Australian magistrate lashed out at supporters of five alleged terrorists for failing to respect her position when she entered the court, leading to a standoff in which a lawyer said the protesters were simply adhering to their faith.
