Oregon. A good place to be from.
A "transmasculine" teacher at an Oregon elementary school has been awarded $60,000 by her school district as compensation for harassment she claims to have suffered on the job, including being referred to by the wrong pronoun.
According to The Oregonian, Leo Soell was born a woman, but now prefers to identify as "transmasculine" and "genderqueer," meaning she does not consider herself to be male or female. After getting breast cancer in late 2014, she had her breasts amputated to create a more masculine appearance and changed her name to Leo. Once she returned from medical school in May, 2015, Soell was fully public with her gender-neutral identity.
Once she returned to work, Soell claims she fell victim to relentless harassment from her co-workers. She says employees persisted in calling her hurtful terms like "Miss Soell," "lady," and "she." If a student asked Soell's sex, she says she was ordered to reply it was a private matter not suitable for discussion at school.
At an elementary school? That makes sense unless you're insane...
Some teachers were even worse, Soell said. She claimed one teacher screamed at her in the hallway that her gender choice was offensive to God, and she said teachers conspired to use the school's only gender-neutral bathroom so Soell would have to wait a half-hour or more to use it.
The school conducted an internal investigation after Soell complained, but found no proof of harassment.
Eventually, Soell was able to cut a deal with the school to have her referred to by her preferred pronoun, "they," but Soell said the harassment didn't stop, so she finally hired an attorney and prepared to file an official complaint.
Oregon is a very friendly state for individuals who claim they have suffered discrimination based on gender identity. The state's labor commissioner, Brad Avakian, forced a bakery to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple they wouldn't bake a cake for, and he has also compelled a bar owner to pay a whopping $400,000 to a group of transgender customers he tried to ban from his bar. Private establishments?!
I think I see the problem here...
Eager to avoid meeting a similar fate, district officials agreed to pay Soell $60,000 in compensation for her emotional distress, and they also agreed to adopt a whole battery of new policies to make the district more transgender-friendly. Among other things, the new policy will require all teachers to refer to their co-workers by their preferred names and pronouns, and it will also ensure transgender employees and students have their bathroom needs met. Teachers who refuse to comply with the pronoun command may be fired, the school district warns.
So free speech for, um, 'her', but not the rest of us...
#7
Agreed, but when it comes to hiring you can silently find better candidates (or you are hosed). I suspect a lot of folks will do that now that things are getting so lawyerly.
#11
OregonGuy - The Pizza guy shouldn't have said a thing - just dusted their pizza with - (if he's feeling nice) a laxative or mean other unpleasant herbs.
[BBC] New satellite imagery appears to reveal extensive damage to a strategically significant airbase in central Syria used by Russian forces after an attack by so-called Islamic State (IS).
Four helicopters and 20 lorries were destroyed in a series of fires inside the T4 base last week, the images from intelligence company Stratfor suggest. The cause of the fires is unconfirmed.
A pro-Kremlin website said the helicopters had been used by "used by both Russian and Syrian air forces".
Russia has not officially commented on the incident.
A Russian opposition website quoted "Syrian sources" as saying "a large fire in the Syrian part of the T4 airbase spread to the fleet of vehicles, and after a fuel tank exploded four Russian helicopters nearby went up in flames".
"The cause of the fire is being established," it added.
Inshallah maintenance?
Posted by: Besoeker ||
05/24/2016
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[Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan] Although male dominance is well institutionalised, men too are enslaved. The system is in fact reproducing itself in the individual male and female and their relationship. Therefore, if we want to defeat the system, we need a radical, new approach towards woman, man and their relationship.
History, in a sense, is the history of the dominant male who gained power with the rise of classed society. The ruling class character is formed concurrent with the dominant male character. Again, rule is validated through mythological lies and divine punishment. Beneath these masks lies the reality of bare force and coarse exploitation. In the name of honour, man seized the position and rights of woman in the most insidious, traitorous and despotic manner. The fact that, throughout history, woman was left bereft of her identity and character - the eternal captive - at the hands of man, has caused considerably more damage than class division has. The captivity of woman is a measure of society's general enslavement and decline; it is also a measure of its lies, theft and tyranny. The dominant male character of society has to date not even allowed for scientific analysis of the phenomenon of woman.
The fundamental question is why man is so jealous, dominant and villainous where woman is concerned; why he continues to play the rapist. Undoubtedly, rape and domination are phenomena related to social exploitation; they reflect society's rape by hierarchy, patriarchy and power. If we look a little deeper, we will see that these acts also express a betrayal of life.
Woman's multi-faceted devotion to life may clarify man's societal sexist stand. Societal sexism means the loss of wealth of life under the blinding and exhausting influence of sexism and the consequent rise of anger, rape and a dominating stance.
This is why it is important to place on the agenda the problem of man, which is far more serious than the issue of woman. It is probably more difficult to analyse the concepts of domination and power, concepts related to man. It is not woman but man that is unwilling to transform. He fears that abandoning the role of the dominant male figure would leave him in the position of the monarch who has lost his state. He should be made aware that this most hollow form of domination leaves him bereft of freedom as well and, even worse, it forecloses reform.
#1
My eyes crossed as I read that, they were rolling so hard. President Erdogan and his neo-Ottomans would be out for PKK blood on the basis of that alone, even if the PKK weren't fighting back.
And neither the author nor President Erdogan would approve of me at all, so there's that.
[NYT] On the morning of Oct. 29, 2014, a long convoy of armored vehicles and trucks rolled northward in the shadow of Iraq’s Zagros Mountains and crossed a bridge over the Khabur River, which marks the border with Turkey. As the convoy rumbled past the border gate, the road for miles ahead was lined with thousands of ecstatic Kurds, who clapped, cheered and waved the Kurdish flag. Many had tears in their eyes. Some even kissed the tanks and trucks as they passed. The soldiers, Iraqi Kurds, were on their way through Turkey to help defend Kobani, a Syrian border city, against ISIS. Their route that day traced an arc from northern Iraq through southeastern Turkey and onward into northern Syria: the historical heartland of the Kurdish people. For the bystanders who cheered them on under a hazy autumn sky, the date was deliciously symbolic. It was Turkey’s Republic Day. What had long been a grim annual reminder of Turkish rule over the Kurds was transformed into rapture, as they watched Kurdish soldiers parade through three countries where they have long dreamed of founding their own republic.
[India Times] JAISALMER: Left in the heat with its legs tied all day, a camel attacked its owner and severed his head in anger in Rajasthan's Barmer district on Saturday. About 25 villagers struggled for 6 hours to calm the animal down.
Urjaram of Mangta village was entertaining guests at his house on Saturday night when he suddenly realised that his camel had been out in the heat all day with its legs tied. He was attacked when he tried to untie the annoyed animal.
"The animal lifted him by the neck and threw him on to the ground, chewed the body and severed the head," villager Thakara Ram said. Villagers revealed that the camel had attacked Urjaram in the past as well.
Areas in Rajasthan are witnessing some of the highest mercury levels in the country. Jawans patrolling the border with Pakistan, too, are facing a tough time dealing with camels in this heat. Recently, a camel attempted to get a jawan off its back while rushing to the shade.
Google’s robots are reading SO much cheap erotica.
"This was the only way/it was the only way.
"it was her turn to blink.
"it was hard to tell.
"it was time to move on.
"he had to do it again."
No, this isn’t dopey teenage poetry. A robot wrote it.
In their quest to make artificial intelligence more and more human-like, Google is letting the bots try their hand at free verse romantic poetry.
The bots were asked to fill in the blanks between two lines. The AI isn’t just meant to link sentences together, the aim is to link those sentences together in a way that mimics natural speech.
In order to give the bots a wide vocabulary and a sense of natural rhythm, Google needed them to read books ‐ and a shit tonne of them. What’s the biggest genre of crappy, easy-to-emulate books? Romance.
Google force-fed the AI 2865 romance books, and about 1500 fantasy books. Pity these robots. They’re learning from cheap, bodice-ripping romance books.
Then there are oil prices, what I see as some serious mistakes by Maduro, the role of the grassroots and workers (which of course the media is utterly oblivious to), and more. And the likes of Nick Casey working for the New York Times, going around finding dislocated sad stories, without noticing anything else, and without being aware of the politics behind the drama: for instance, that the hospital he wrote about as falling apart is actually run by the right wing. Doesn't matter who you are when socialist policies cause shortages and you can't get medical supplies.
And socialist policies always cause shortages eventually. Ignoring economics will do that.
Posted by: Hupoper Spawn of the Hemps4540 ||
05/24/2016
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#1
There's also the minor detail that things were consistently improving in Venezuela, right up until the time when Chavez got sick
The minor detail that things were going great until the credit cards maxed out and the bills started to come due.
#5
The articles blame it all on Chavismo, socialism and Maduro, without bothering to reference any context or to recognise that the rightwing have some power and therefore a level of responsibility in Venezuela now. Nor do they care to admit that like all countries, Venezuela's economic situation has structural, economic and historical causes. There's also the minor detail that things were consistently improving in Venezuela, right up until the time when Chavez got sick and the right wing went on the offensive.
Then why not try it again? Surely this time it'll be different.
#7
Then why not try it again? Surely this time it'll be different.
They've been saying that ever since Joe Stalin.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 17:55
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Captain Cashflow looketh over his flock, and says unto them,
"You blewith through your pouch of shekels with wild abandon. I am not thy sugar-father, and thou art not my prodigal son, so thou art excrementally out of good fortune."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/24/2016 20:38
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Oscar-winning actress and activist Angelina Jolie has been appointed a visiting professor at one of Britain's most prestigious universities.
The London School of Economics announced Monday that Jolie will be working with students studying for a master's degree in Women, Peace and Security. Among others appointed to teach the course is former British Foreign Secretary William Hague. File under decline of the West
#4
Very unusual person she is. I would not underestimate her. I am certain she will provide a drama for these students that will be long remembered. She will push their minds.
#6
Upon reflection I think she is a self driven person. She has ambitions far beyond the puff and fluff of a celebrity life. The next few years will be interesting. With aging acting parts will become few. In politics her acting will be many years longer and real.
#7
Hey guys, she went to Iraq. Saw what was really going on and said we shouldn't abandon them. When Obama did abandoned them, she was out spoken in her criticism. She did not climb into an AA gun seat.
BEIRUT, Lebanon : More than 120 people were killed Monday in a wave of bombings claimed by the Daesh group in northwestern Syria, the deadliest attacks yet in the regime’s coastal heartland.
Seven near-simultaneous explosions targeted bus stations, hospitals and other civilian sites in the seaside cities of Jableh and Tartus, which until now had been relatively insulated from Syria’s five-year civil war.
The unprecedented attacks on strongholds of President Bashar Assad’s regime came as IS faces increasing pressure in both Syria and Iraq, where Baghdad’s forces on Monday launched a major offensive to retake the jihadist-held city of Fallujah.
Seventy-three people were killed in Jableh and another 48 in Tartus to the south, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said they were “without a doubt the deadliest attacks” on the two cities since the start of the war.
Daesh claimed the blasts via its Amaq news agency, saying its fighters had attacked “Alawite gatherings” in Tartus and Jableh, referring to the minority sect from which the Assad clan hails.
Daesh is not known to have a presence in Syria’s coastal provinces, where its jihadist rival and Al-Qaeda’s local branch Al-Nusra Front is much more prominent.
But it is notorious for using deadly sleeper cells to attack its enemies.
“I’m shocked, this is the first time I hear sounds like this,” said Mohsen Zayyoud, a 22-year-old university student in Jableh.
“I thought the war was over and that I could walk safely. But I was surprised to see that we’re still in the heart of the battle,” he said.
Jableh lies in Latakia province, while Tartus is the regional capital of the adjacent governorate of the same name.
The seaside cities have remained relatively secure even as Syria’s war has raged in Latakia province’s rural northeast and throughout the country.
Syrian state media also reported the attacks but gave a total of 78 dead, including 45 in Jableh and 33 in Tartus.
The attacks began at 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) with three explosions at a busy bus station in Tartus, where regime ally Russia has long maintained a naval facility.
The Observatory said one car bomb detonated first, and as people began to flock to the site, two suicide bombers detonated explosive belts.
A police source in the city confirmed a car bomb had hit the entrance to the station and two suicide bombers attacked inside.
State television broadcast footage of the damaged station, where charred mini-buses lay on their sides while others were still ablaze.
Approximately fifteen minutes after the Tartus blasts, the explosions began in Jableh, 60 miles (40 kilometers) to the north along the coast.
Hospital not spared
The Observatory said a total of four blasts — one car bomb and three suicide attackers — targeted a bus station, a hospital, and a power station there.
A Facebook page sharing local news published footage from the bus station, where dozens of people gathered around fire trucks battling blazes in bombed-out and burning cars.
A police officer told AFP one suicide attacker detonated his explosives inside the emergency room of the state-run hospital there.
A car bomb also targeted the Asaad hospital in the city, he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov condemned the attacks, saying they “demonstrate yet again how fragile the situation is in Syria and the need to take energetic measures to relaunch peace talks.”
“The rising tensions and terrorist activity in Syria can only spark great worry,” he told journalists.
World powers have struggled to rekindle UN-brokered peace negotiations which fizzled in April when Syria’s opposition walked away in frustration at stalling progress on the country’s dire humanitarian situation.
Syria’s conflict has evolved from a popular uprising to a multi-faceted war that has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes.
IS seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq in mid-2014, declaring an Islamic “caliphate” and spreading its influence.
The group has claimed deadly attacks in the West and throughout the Middle East, including twin bombings on military forces in Yemen’s second city of Aden on Monday that killed at least 41 people.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/24/2016
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#1
Rooshuns confined to base?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 12:04
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[Iran Press TV] Iran has denied reports that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour had returned to Pakistain from the Islamic republic before being killed in a US liquidation drone strike.
Speaking at his weekly presser in Tehran on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry front man Hossein Jaberi Ansari said Mansour was not in the Islamic Theocratic Republic before the attack.
"The relevant officials at the Islamic Theocratic Republic deny that this person on this date crossed into Pakistain from Iran's border," Jaberi Ansari said.
He added that Iran welcomes any measures aimed at restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan, without providing further details.
Some media outlets had reported that Pak authorities claimed earlier that identity documents found on the body of the man now known to be Mansour showed he had left for Iran on March 28 and returned the day he was killed.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#1
Tehran denies presence of Bin Laden family in Iran... Tehran denies presence of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Iran... Tehran denies training of Hizbollah in Iran... Tehran denies allowing Haqqani safe haven in Iran... Tehran denies... Tehran...
[AlAhram] Egypt's army announced on Monday that it carried out "successful pre-emptive strikes against terrorist elements," killing 13 Lions of Islam in northern and central Sinai following a shootout.
The army front man said in an official statement that third field army units were able to neutralise or destroy 30 improvised bombs (IEDs) that were planted to target moving units northwest of Mount Halal.
He also said that 50 anti-tank mines were found in the same area, adding that a storage area for explosives was discovered in a canyon in Mount Halal.
According to the front man, 100 plastic barrels full of kaboom used in manufacturing IEDs were found, as well as five bags of ammonium nitrate.
The army also destroyed three cars and two cycle of violences which it says belonged to the Death Eaters.
The operation is part of a larger security effort dubbed 'Martyr's Right,' which was launched in September 2015 with the aim of fighting Islamist Lions of Islam in Sinai.
The Martyr's Right operation was put into action following coordinated Death Eater attacks on several army checkpoints that killed 21 soldiers in July 2015.
Egypt has been fighting an Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai for decades.
[Ynet] A man accused of aiding a foiled plot to bomb a Kansas military post on behalf of ISIS pleaded guilty to conspiracy on Monday, admitting that he loaned a friend money to store the explosives that he intended to use in the attack.
Alexander E. Blair, 29, could get up to five years in prison when he's sentenced Aug. 22. He will remain free until then.
According to prosecutors, Blair lent John T. Booker
...aka Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, who got mad when the Army would not accept him on the grounds that he was entirely too interested in jihad...
$100 to pay for storage of a bomb that Booker planned to detonate in April 2015 outside of the Fort Riley military post, which is about 60 miles west of Topeka. Booker planned the ISIS-inspired attack with two contacts who were actually confidential FBI informants, and when he tried arming the bomb, which was fake, FBI agents incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! him.
[Iran Press TV] Islamabad has summoned the US ambassador to voice its concerns over a recent US drone strike on Pak soil that reportedly killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
According to a statement released by Pakistain’s Foreign Office on Monday, David Hale was called in by the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi.
During the meeting, Fatemi reiterated Islamabad’s stance that the strike was carried out in violation of Pakistain’s illusory sovereignty and that it also breached a UN charter that was developed to guarantee the inviolability of the territorial integrity of states.
Fatemi also stressed that such measures would hinder the ongoing efforts by the Quadrilateral Coordination Group that is trying to broker peace talks between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan.
On Saturday, the US Department of Defense announced that it had mounted the strike against Mansour "in a remote area of the Afghanistan-Pakistain border region."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[IsraelTimes] Assailant killed by troops at checkpoint north of Jerusalem after pulling out knife and ignoring warning shots
A Paleostinian woman was shot and apparently killed by Border Police guards as she attempted to stab officers at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem early Monday afternoon, police said.
A police spokesperson said troops manning the Ras Bidu checkpoint opened fire after the woman pulled out a knife and advanced toward a border guard. There were no injuries to security forces, police said in a statement.
The woman was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene. She had no identifying documents on her, the police said. Police said they initially shot in the air, but after the woman refused to stop, shot at her body.
The Ras Bidu checkpoint lies along the security barrier between the West Bank villages of Bidu and Beit Iksa.
The identity of the woman was not immediately clear.
The attempted attack came amid an extended dip in the number of security incidents after months of near-daily stabbings, car-rammings, and shootings by Paleostinians that claimed the lives of 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals. Some 200 Paleostinians have also been killed over the same period, the majority of them while carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers, and the rest during festivities with troops, according to the Israeli army.
Last Saturday evening a gunman opened fire on an Israeli bus traveling in the West Bank. No injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred near the settlement of Tekoa, southeast of Jerusalem, but the bus sustained some damage. According to witnesses, the gunman opened fire from a passing vehicle.
The Paleostinian Health Ministry names the girl rubbed out by Border Police troops during an attempted stabbing attack earlier today as 17-year-old Sawsan Ali Dawud Mansur, Paleostinian news agency Ma’an reports. The teen was killed as she tried to stab troops at a West Bank checkpoint.
[IsraelTimes] A woman is lightly to moderately hurt in a drive-by shooting in northern Israel, Walla reports.
The woman in her 30s, who was hit by gunfire in the Arab town of Jadeidi-Makr, and is taken to hospital in the area. Police from the nearby city of Acre are investigating the circumstances of the shooting and searching for the car from which the shots were fired.
Sure you will.
[RedState] This afternoon, . . . CNN reported that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-Cash) has spent the past year under federal investigation for campaign finance shenanigans. Best comment: "Explains why McAwful restored voting rights to felons in Virginia -- so he will be able to vote for Hillary from behind bars in November." :-D
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/24/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan (MoI) said Monday that Taliban’s Quetta Council members will not remain safe in the region, insisting that the group is on the verge of a major defeat with the death of the group’s supreme leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
MoI front man Sediq Sediq told news hounds that the international allies of Afghanistan will target the terrorists, pointing towards the US drone strike that targeted the Taliban Chief Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
He said Mullah Mansoor was in coordination with the other terrorist groups and networks since he assumed the charge of the Taliban group to commit atrocities against the Afghan people.
Sediqi further added that the death of Mullah Mansoor will have a negative impact on the morale of the Talibs and insisted that the Afghan government will further increase pressure on the group.
According to Sediqi, the Taliban Chief was insisting on continued insurgency and war in the country and was not in favor of peace talks.
Calling Mullah Mansoor’s death a major achievement for Afghanistan, Sediqi the Talibs have an opportunity to join grinding of the peace processor.
Mullah Mansoor was targeted in a drone strike carried out by the US forces in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province of Pakistain late on Saturday afternoon.
His death has been confirmed by the Afghan government and security institutions as well as the US President Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[CNN] Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.
The investigation dates to at least last year and has focused, at least in part, on whether donations to his gubernatorial campaign violated the law, the officials said.
McAuliffe wasn't notified by Sherlocks that he is a target of the probe, according to the officials.
"The Governor will certainly cooperate with the government if he is contacted about it," said Marc Elias, attorney for McAuliffe campaign, in a statement to CNN.
As part of the probe, the officials said, Sherlocks have scrutinized McAuliffe's time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of is...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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No Can Prove - I'm Wang Wending and I approve this message.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
05/24/2016 0:13
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#2
This smells like trouble for ole Terry. It appears that arrogance led to over reach. A former official in the Chinese Commie government with a green card is interesting...same guy appearing to funnel millions to the Clintons and six figures to ole Terry won't pass the smell test green card exemption or no. Our laws were specifically designed to prevent foreign governments and officials from influencing our elections...and through intentional circumventing of our laws - this is exactly what happened. I hope it is true the prosecutors are involved and get to do what they do so well...prosecute.
[DailyMail]
o Thousands of schoolchildren evacuated after a series of anonymous calls
o One warned of a bomb on school grounds that would 'children's heads off'
o Many students were pulled from school grounds in middle of their exams
Bomb threats forced the closure of 26 schools across the UK today as students prepared to sit their GCSE exams.
Thousands of pupils were evacuated after a series of anonymous phone calls warning of hidden explosives were received by school offices up and down the country this morning.
Many students were pulled from school grounds in the middle of their exams as emergency services swooped on scene to carry out searches, in what appears to have been an elaborate hoax.
A similar incident occurred in January when a Russian Twitter group was believed to have been responsible for a series of bomb threats which saw 14 schools evacuated in Britain. The group had invited pupils to get in touch if they wanted to 'get out of school' - raising speculation that students may have devised a similar hoax to avoid today's exams.
But because there are real jihadis with real bombs and guns roaming the land, the authorities must assume a real threat until proved otherwise.
A Turkish Airlines aircraft at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport was searched after a note threatening a bomb attack was found on board on May 23.
The plane, which was set to fly to the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, was evacuated and postponed after a note with “bomb” written on it was found in the bathroom at around 3:50 p.m. The note was found by the cabin crew as they were checking the bathrooms before taking off.
The bomb alert turned out to be false this time and all 134 people, including the crew, were due to fly to Kayseri with another plane.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/24/2016
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A top U.S. commander who secretly visited northern Syria on May 21 in order to witness efforts to build up local forces in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has arrived in Turkey in a surprise visit, daily Hürriyet reported on its website.
Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), made a surprise visit to Kobane and met U.S. military advisers working with Syrian Arab fighters and the leaders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Good for him. Top commanders should get out to the front edge and see what things look like for themselves.
Votel arrived in Ankara late on May 22 and is expected to hold talks with the Turkish General Staff and Foreign Ministry. An operation against ISIL’s capital of Raqqa is on Votel’s agenda, but Ankara is not planning to contribute to the operation, Hürriyet said.
Votel’s visit comes at a time when Ankara has been calling on the U.S. and its Western allies to stop supporting the PYD, which is linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but Washington has provided air power and small arms ammunition to the militant group, saying the PYD and the YPG are “reliable” partners in the fight against ISIL.
More reliable than the Turks, in fact...
The PKK, with which Turkey has been in armed clashes since the mid-1980s, is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. Turkey also considers the PYD and its YPG military branch to be terror groups, but the West has refused to designate them as such.
It would help if the PYD and YPG would explicitly swear off any links with terrorist groups within Turkey, but that's asking a lot right now...
The PYD combined the self-declared Kobane canton in central northern Syria with the Jazeera canton in the northeast after it captured Tal Abyad and the villages around al-Hasakah province from ISIL early last year.
U.S. special operations forces are helping train fighters in Syria to combat ISIL as Washington leads a coalition of countries in an air war against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. The United States has roughly 200 advisers on the ground in Syria, but no combat units. Votel’s visit comes as the first of 250 more U.S. special operations forces are beginning to arrive.
Kurds play a dominant role in the U.S.-backed SDF, providing the core of the forces that have pushed back ISIL in the country’s northeast. The SDF has a total of about 25,000 Kurdish fighters and about 5,000 Arab fighters. Washington is pushing to bring more Arab forces into the group.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/24/2016
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It would help if the PYD and YPG would explicitly swear off any links with terrorist groups within Turkey, but that's asking a lot right now...
[ALLAFRICA] Displaced Nigerians are hungry, scared of further violence and haunted by bloodshed they witnessed
When Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... attacked Falmaya Baba Gama's village last year in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... , executing a dozen men and burning down the market, thousands of people fled across the border into Niger, with some forced to leave behind their children amid the chaos.
The 30-year-old and her seven children arrived safely in the region of Diffa, but almost one year on, they are hungry, scared of further violence and haunted by the bloodshed they witnessed.
"Even now, the children dream about Boko Haram and cry," she said outside a thatched hut, held together with sticks and plastic sheets, in Assaga - a ramshackle site for the displaced located just a few miles from Niger's border with Nigeria.
Gama is one of some 240,000 uprooted people living in Diffa, a sweeping tract of desert in southeast Niger sparsely populated with isolated villages and dotted with shrubs and trees.
Many of the displaced live in makeshift huts alongside the country's main highway, having been driven from their homes in northeast Nigeria and southeast Niger by Boko Haram violence.
The murderous Moslem group has killed more than 15,000 people and displaced some 2 million in the West African states of Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... , Chad, Niger and Nigeria during a seven-year campaign to carve out an Islamist caliphate.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[DAWN] Thousands of layoffs at state-linked companies in Abu Dhabi are a fresh sign the Gulf’s wealthy oil states are hunkering down for a long period of austerity as low crude prices pressure their economies.
Since mid-2015, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 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... , Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... and other countries in the region have curbed spending on some construction projects and reduced energy subsidies to limit budget deficits caused by cheap oil.
Now some governments are also starting to reduce staff at the companies they control, many of them in the energy industry, in order to ensure the firms are not a drain on state finances if oil prices stay low for several years.
Abu Dhabi’s National Oil Co (ADNOC), with around 55,000 staff, has cut hundreds of jobs in the last few months and will have reduced its workforce by at least 5,000 by the end of 2016, sources familiar with the matter told Rooters.
The reduction will occur across most of its 17 subsidiaries as part of a restructuring following a reshuffle of the firm’s leadership this month, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#1
less funding available for terrorism is a good thing
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 13:35
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#2
They're not gonna keep on spending like Chavez and Maduro did? Too bad. That would have been fun to watch.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 18:06
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[DAWN] Experts on Afghan affairs and Afghan Taliban sources suggest Mullah Yaqoob, son of late Taliban capoMullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... , is likely to lead the Lion of Islam group following the reported death of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike -- but the process will take time.
Mansour was reportedly killed in a drone strike in Balochistan Continued on Page 49
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05/24/2016
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Twin bombings claimed by the ISIL Takfiri group targeted the Yemeni army in second city Aden Monday killing at least 41 people, most of them would-be recruits, a military official said.
A suicide bomber killed 34 people queuing to enlist at a recruitment centre near the Badr base in the Khormaksar district, said Brigadier General Nasser al-Sarei, commander of special security forces.
A second explosion inside the base afterwards killed seven soldiers, he said.
In a statement posted online, ISIL said one of its militants detonated an explosives belt among "apostate soldiers" at a recruitment centre, followed by a bomb that exploded at the gate of the Badr base.
The port city has seen a spate of attacks in recent months claimed by Al-Qaeda or its Takfiri rival ISIL.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/24/2016
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Security forces conducted operations targeting outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants on May 23 across Turkey and over the border in northern Iraq.
Turkish jets conducted an air operation in the Metina region between 16.28 p.m. and 17.34 p.m. after evaluating intelligence, according to security sources. Five targets, including weapon positions and sanctuaries belonging to the PKK were destroyed in the operation.
In addition, counter-terrorism police detained 12 suspects in the Ceylan district of the southern province of Adana for alleged links to PKK. Four cell phones, one shotgun, one blank cartridge pistol and organizational documents were also seized in the operation.
The Mardin Governor’s Office also announced that a total of 403 PKK militants have been killed in operations in the Nusaybin district that have been ongoing since March 14. Another 414 PKK militants have so far been killed in Şırnak, the Turkish General Staff announced.
In addition, 17 suspects, including the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) district co-chair Yusuf Makal, were detained on May 23 during anti-PKK operations in the Pertek district of the eastern province of Tunceli.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/24/2016
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[AnNahar] Suspected Lions of Islam on Monday bumped off three Indian coppers in separate attacks in Srinagar, the main city in the restive state of Kashmire.
Deadly attacks on security forces are relatively common in the disputed Indian-controlled Himalayan region, but Srinagar has been largely free from such incidents in recent years.
Police said two officers were rubbed out while patrolling in the old part of the city. A third was rubbed out in a business district less than an hour later.
"Three cops were killed in two different Lion of Islam attacks," senior officer Ghulam Hassan Bhat told Agence La Belle France Presse in Srinagar.
The Lion of Islam group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen claimed the attacks, but there was no official confirmation it was responsible.
Authorities said they were tightening security in already heavily militarised Srinagar in the wake of the attacks.
The last major assault on security forces in Srinagar was in June 2013, when suspected Lions of Islam attacked an army convoy and killed eight soldiers the day before a visit by then prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Last year the city saw a series of grenade attacks on telecom company offices and paramilitary troop installations.
Kashmire has been divided between India and Pakistain since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in its entirety.
Several Lion of Islam groups have since 1989 been fighting police or troops deployed in the Indian sector, calling for its independence or merger with Pakistain.
[ARA News] DEIR EZZOR – Extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS) stoned to death a teenage boy in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province on charges of being gay, activists and eyewitnesses reported on Monday.
Jamal Nassir al-Oujan, 15, was arrested by the ISIS-led Islamic Police in the Mayadin city of Deir ez-Zor province earlier on Sunday. The Sharia Court accused him of sodomy and decided to stone the boy to death.
“Al-Oujan was brutally stoned to death by ISIS militants in Jaradiq square in the Mayadin city on Monday afternoon,” an eyewitness told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Also, some civilians were forced to participate in stoning the victim,” the source said. “The brutal scene has shocked all residents of Mayadin.”
Speaking to ARA News, Ahmed Ramadan, media activist and head of the campaign ‘Deir ez-Zor Is Being Slaughtered Silently’, said: “The radical group [ISIS] has violated all human rights by carrying out brutal atrocities against civilians, punishing people on baseless charges only to show off its power over unarmed, peaceful civilians.”
(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – On Monday, an informed source in the city of Fallujah said, that the so-called ISIS imposed a curfew in the city, while pointed out that the ISIS militants shut down all the bridges in the city using concrete blocks.
Majid al-Juraisi, a tribal leader in the city of Fallujah, said in a brief statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The ISIS announced the imposition of a curfew in the city,” noting that, “The city’s bridges have been shut down with concrete blocks.”
Juraisi added, “The bombing of the security forces is concentrated on the center of Fallujah, specifically, in the neighborhoods of al-Naziza, Ta’ash. Naomah and al-Julan,” calling those forces to “not bomb the areas that are being populated.”
Posted by: badanov ||
05/24/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The top Taliban leaders have reportedly met on Sunday in the framework of their leadership council to discuss successor Mullah Akhtar Mansoor who was killed in an Arclight airstrike on Saturday.
The leadership council discussed regarding various possible successors, including the notorious guerrilla commander Sirajuddin Haqqani ...son of Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, still titular head of the Haqqani Network.... , Taliban sources told Rooters.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is the leader of the notorious Haqqani terrorist network and he reportedly played a key role in resolving the Taliban leadership issues following the confirmation of Mullah Mohammad Omar’s death.
He has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head and would likely prove an even more implacable foe of Afghan government forces and their U.S. allies.
According to the sources, Taliban were also considering Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, a potential unifier because of his father’s name.
Former Guantanamo detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir and Mullah Sherin were also cited, the sources said.
Mullah Mansoor was killed in an Arclight airstrike carried out by the US forces in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province of Pakistain as he was travelling in a vehicle.
The Afghan government and security institutions as well as the US President Barack Obama I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money... confirmed Mullah Mansoor’s death on Sunday.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... the Taliban group has not officially confirmed Mullah Mansoor’s death so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[TODAY.NG] There are indications that the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... gunnies group have shown willingness to negotiate their surrender and release of the remaining kidnapped Chibok school girls in their custody with the federal government.
All of them, or a small, non-representative group that speaks only for itself? It was the latter, the last several times this kind of thing came up.
According to the Times of London, senior members of the terrorist group said it was prepared to negotiate a surrender and release the hostages on the condition they would not be not betrayed by the government or killed for giving up arms.
Over 200 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, were seized two years ago and have not been traced or found.
"We want to surrender because things are getting worse," said Amir Muhammad Abdullahi, who is reportedly Boko Haram’s second in command. He said no side was winning the battle and that only a third of the girls remained as "the rest have been martyred".
Actually, Boko Haram is clearly losing, which means the governments must be winning. And the government will accept receipt of all the kidnapped girls, and the boys, too, before this thing is over, O Amir.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least 1,167 murderous Moslems have been killed since the start of Shafaq military operations to suppress the insurgency activities of the anti-government armed bad boy groups, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said.
Sediq Sediqi, front man for the Ministry of Interior, told news hounds that the operations were launched two months and are still being conducted against the armed bad boys.
He said at least 465 murderous Moslems were also maimed and at least 154 others were jugged Please don't kill me! during the operations across the country.
Sediqi further added that the Afghan cops have increased pressures against the armed bully boyz which comes as the Taliban group lost their leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor that could have a negative impact on the morale of the group’s fighters.
According to Sediqi, at least 711 operations have been conducted across the country since the operations were launched late in the month of March.
He said the operations are mainly aimed at targeting the big shots of the anti-government armed murderous Moslems and the key regions under the focus of the opoerations are northern Baghlan, northeastern Badakhshan and eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
Sediqi also added that the Minister of Interior recently visited the sourthern provinces to coordinate the military operations in a bid to improve the situation of the southern provinces, specifically the southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province.
He said the Minister of Interior has instructed the Afghan police forces to use all force to suppress the insurgency activities of the Talibs.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 8 murderous Moslems were killed during an attack on the Taliban prison in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province of Afghanistan.
According to a statement by Ministry of Defense (MoD), the raid was conducted in the restive Marjah district.
The statement further added that 7 murderous Moslems were also enjugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) manufacturing factory was destroyed along with a vehicle and two cycle of violences belonging to the krazed killers.
MoD said at least 19 hostages were also released from the prison belonging to the Talibs during the raid.
This comes as the commander of the 1st Brigade of 215th Maiwand Corps of the Afghan National Army General Noor Alam said Sunday that 23 hostages were released during an operation conducted in Sistani area late on Saturday night.
He said the hostages were all ordinary civilians who were kept by the Talibs in the prison.
According to Gen. Alam, at least 20 murderous Moslems were killed and over 30 others were maimed during the operations in Helmand province.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[TBINEWS.WORDPRESS] A three-day operation by Special Agents with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and detectives with the Knoxville Police Department to combat human trafficking in Knoxville has resulted in the arrest of 32 men and women on prostitution and human trafficking-related charges. Two of the men, including a children’s minister, responded to ads for what they thought were girls under the age of 18. The Knoxville anti-trafficking operation, called "Operation Someone Like Me", is the fifth operation of its kind in the state between the TBI and partner agencies to help identify, investigate and prosecute trafficking, and rescue victims.
With the partnership including the Knoxville Police Department, Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking, End Slavery Tennessee, and Second Life Chattanooga, TBI Agents and intelligence analysts embarked on an undercover operation to identify potential victims of trafficking, arrest those seeking to purchase illicit sex from a juvenile, and learn more about the specific nuances of this type of crime.
"Finding these people who are trying to buy Tennessee children is a priority for us," says TBI Director Mark Gwyn. "We want anyone responding to these ads to think there may be a TBI Agent on the other end of it. We will do whatever we can to make a difference in reducing the human trafficking that takes place in Tennessee."
During the three-day operation, undercover Agents posted ads on Backpage.com. During that time, more than 300 contacts were made to those ads. In one ad the Agents posed as a juvenile girl. That ad received more than two dozen contacts.
"Human trafficking is a scourge on society," says Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch. "We will continue to commit all the necessary resources and work alongside our law enforcement partners to help protect our most precious resource, our children."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[Iran Press TV] A senior German official says nearly 1,000 offenses were perpetrated in the country against refugee shelters in 2015, a five-fold annual rise amid an influx of asylum seekers.
Speaking at a presser in the German capital of Berlin on Monday, the country's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said some 923 offenses against refugees and refugee facilities were recorded in 2015, against 175 the previous year.
He said the offenses included 177 acts of violence, three attempted killings and hundreds of non-violent acts such as painting graffiti, the use of Nazi symbols and incitements to hatred.
"A decline in the number of political crimes is not to be expected in 2016 unfortunately," the minister said, adding that in this year's first quarter there had been 347 crimes against refugee centers.
Maiziere noted that the refugee topic was the focus of politically motivated crime in Germany last year, when the country took in over one million refugees and asylum seekers.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#1
Because the authorities hid sexual assault and other crimes. Vigilantism is nasty, but all too often the result of incompetent or corrupt government (though it could just as well be both).
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Monday, that ten people had been either killed or wounded in a bomb blast in western Baghdad.
The source said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “This morning, an explosive device exploded in Haswa area in Abu Ghraib District (20 West km of Baghdad), killing three people and wounding seven others.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “Ambulances 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 the security force imposed a security cordon on the area of the incident and barred approaching it.”
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Monday, that nine people had been either killed or wounded in a bomb blast in western Baghdad.
The source said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “This morning, a bomb exploded in al-Iskan neighborhood in Mansour area in western Baghdad, killing one person and wounding eight others.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “Ambulances rushed to the area and transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital for treatment and the dead body to the forensic medicine department, while the security forces cordoned off the area of the incident and barred approaching it.”
[AlAhram] The United States and its allies conducted 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.... (IS) group in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, the coalition leading the operations said.
In a statement released on Monday, the Combined Joint Task Force said seven strikes near four cities in Syria hit two tactical units, a weapons storage facility and destroyed two vehicles, a rocket rail, an improvised explosives facility and an oil pump-jack.
In Iraq, 10 strikes near five cities hit a communications control center, suppressed a heavy machine gun position and destroyed multiple fighting positions, among other targets, the statement said.
Near Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... three bunkers, two tunnel entrances were destroyed and two weapons sites were hit, the statement added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2016
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PESHAWAR: Peace committee member Muhammad Khan and his police guard were shot dead by suspected militants in Swat's Bara Bandai area on Monday. Another guard and a passerby sustained injuries during the attack, police said.
Station House Officer (SHO) Kangu Rahim Khan said the peace committee member was targeted near his house, and his police guards Bakhtbedar and Bilal were also shot at.
The injured were taken to the hospital where Bakhtbedar succumbed to his injuries.
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muhammad Khorasani claimed responsibility for the attack in an email sent to journalists.
Police have started a search operation in the area, the SHO said.
[Ynet] The U.S. military is trying to turn an eclectic group of Kurdish women and Arab men into a coherent and competent force to defeat 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.... Advisers describe many of the fighters as civilians who see the battle as a personal moral imperative. Many of the fighters see the bully boy group as a scourge on their country and a threat to their families. One called the Islamic State "darkness," while another called it an "illness."
The U.S. advisers say the number of Arab volunteers surged this spring, following a series of battlefield gains against the Islamic State, including the retaking of al-Shaddadeh in Syria's Hassakeh province. That success triggered a recruiting boom, the officials say, with more local Arabs seeking to join than could be accommodated.
[THEHILL] Top 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... supporters Dr. Cornell West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be among those on the Democratic Party's important Platform Drafting Committee after the Vermont senator won a key concession as he looks to leave his mark on the party's platform.
The roster of the drafting committee, released by the Democratic National Committee on Monday, reflects the party's agreement that Sanders would have five supporters on the committee, compared to six for Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Charles Evans Hughes ... Sanders previously panned DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ...Congresswoman from Florida, the abrasive chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. She has been a politician since 1992, and prior to that was in training as a political science major. Her primary accomplishment seems to be that she's Jewish... , who appoints all of the committee members, for failing to include enough of his supporters on an initial list. But the latest statement notes that Wasserman Schultz allocated the campaign's seats "proportionally according to the current vote tally."
Along with West and Ellison, Sanders supporters on the committee are author Bill McKibben, Arab American Institute head James Zogby and Native American activist Deborah Parker.
Clinton loyalists on the committee are Ambassador Wendy Sherman, former Clinton staffer and current Center for American Progress head Neera Tanden, Ohio Rep. Alicia Reece, environmentalist Carol Browner, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutiérrez and union head Paul Booth.
The remaining four members were chosen by Wasserman Schultz.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Sen. Bernie Sanders ...The only openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords... defeated Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Liberatress of Libya and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Dean Rusk ... by 12 points in last Tuesday's Oregon Democratic primary. It was an unusual victory in that Clinton's nomination is already a done deal.
Sanders has no hope of catching the Democratic establishment's chosen champion. Even he knows superdelegates, party guardians of the status quo, are not going to defect from a candidate who has the most votes and earned delegates.
Yet not only did Oregon reject Clinton at this late stage, but Kentucky, viewed by most as a relatively safe state for her, very nearly went to Sanders as well. Her 1,900-vote, 0.5 percentage-point margin will probably hold. But it's not a ringing endorsement, more a resigned acceptance of the lifeless Democratic queen anointed long ago by the party episcopacy.
On their own, Tuesday's results and Sanders' recent wins in Indiana and West Virginia might not signify much. But combine this with the bitter chaos that enveloped the Nevada Democratic convention last weekend, and suddenly Democrats seem to be at risk from a party-unity problem not unlike that afflicting Republicans.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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Well, it's not fair! The evil Trumpbots are ... they're ... attacking our candidate! Trump's not playing by the old rules! I think I'll cry myself to sleep...
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:43
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The Clinton's have dominated the Democrats and will take the party to ruin. When they recover from the ruins the Democrats will be totally socialist.
#4
Sanders is campaigning hard in California. Last week he made at least two appearances in San Diego County. He drew large, enthusiastic crowds of young people who appeared to me to be mostly minorities. They were smiling, cheering and some almost swooning like they did for Obama back in 2008. They looked like exactly the kind of people Hillary would like to attract but she is nowhere to be seen. Bill has been here but he doesn't draw the same kind of crowds and he has a preference for fund raisers in posh, exclusive neighborhoods like Rancho Sante Fe. Sanders might be behind in the California polls but you'd never know it from the appearance of the crowds at his rallies.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:30
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#5
I'm thinking he'll win CA. Hillary is an awful candidate and horrible human
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 12:06
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#6
My expectation is that Hillary will be given the win easily.
My hope is that this so infuriates the Bernie-bots that they all stay home or vote for the Donald.
#8
I can never forget the anonymous but utterly believable story of her Secret Service detail leaking her comments when they went to a small rural 4-H event with just normal farmers and ranchers and their kids. Her comment to the staffer who arranged the drop by: "What the F.ck and we doing here? There's no f.ucking money here!" Says everything I believe about that grifting duo in a simple story. Pure liars and thieves set on looting the public treasury while in office!
[WASHINGTONTIMES] IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... Commissioner John Koskinen has declined to testify in his own defense at a congressional hearing Tuesday, but insisted in a statement that his bungling of a subpoena doesn’t rise to the level of "treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors" needed for him to be impeached.
The Judiciary Committee hearing is being viewed by some House Republicans as the precursor to impeachment, with the House’s top investigator saying Mr. Koskinen defied a congressional subpoena that demanded all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails be preserved as part of the investigation into tea party targeting.
But Mr. Koskinen, who said his schedule is too crowded for him to be able to appear on Tuesday, said the allegations against him are "unwarranted," and no matter what, they don’t rise to the level of impeachment.
In a point-by-point refutation of the four counts of potential impeachment, Mr. Koskinen says he "acted in good faith" and was telling the truth as best he knew it when he told Congress all of the emails were preserved. He said he only became aware later that emails were lost after Ms. Lerner’s computer hard drive crashed and backup tapes stored at an IRS facility in West Virginia were erased.
"The IRS made great efforts to produce all available Lerner emails, conducting a broad search at substantial expense. The breadth of the IRS’s efforts illustrates the good faith underlying the promise to comply with the committee’s request," he said in his statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#1
Going for "Plausible Deniability" I suppose. Good luck.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:48
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#2
This arrogant liar needs to be removed as an example
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/24/2016 8:42
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Quite probably he had indeed not spoken personally with Ms Lermer. The top boss usually doesn't -- that's why middle management was invented. But as soon ss she became a problem he should have been informed of all the particulars as they developed. And he most certainly should have found out who authorized the erasures -- or didn't notice that the hard drive and all those backups had been destroyed against explicit orders -- and immediately and publicly made horrible examples of them. Being senior management means dishing out necessary punishments as well as rewards and setting direction.
If it was deliberate, that would constitute high crimes and misdemeanors. If accidental, that's negligence or gross incompetence -- a firing offence.
[Iran Press TV] GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has released an ad portraying Bill Clinton ...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of is... as a rapist as part of an attack on his wife, Hillary, who is the billionaire’s main opponent in the 2016 US presidential election.
Known and criticized for misogynistic views himself, Trump appears to be resorting to a psychological projection to blame Clinton, who is of course reminiscent of a major sexual scandal in the US history.
Trump released Monday the 15-second horror clip, showing the former president with a big cigar in his mouth.
In the clip, women are heard crying and accusing Bill of sexual harassment while Hillary is heard laughing maniacally.
Titled "Is Hillary really protecting women?", the ad targets her appeal to women and maidens of tender years by showing that she is not as supportive of women’s rights as she claims.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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psychological projection
Dat's some mighty big words for the Mad Mullahs.
They know how to do it, of course.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/24/2016 7:47
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If the ad is libelous the Clintons should sue. But they won't, will they?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:20
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#3
The Don is doing what the Feds should be doing. Making serious prosecutorial charges. Unlike the feds, Trump is using a sledgehammer.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
05/24/2016 12:56
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#4
Pass the popcorn and enjoy the show.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
05/24/2016 12:58
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[Rappler] Most of you will read articles in the media calling Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte a "fascist," "punisher," or "dictator." Some have even called the Filipino people "dumb" for even considering voting for him.
It is completely understandable to be shocked and appalled at some of the things he has said, such as his death threats to criminals, and his seeming disregard for due process.
You are probably wondering: how has this man amassed nearly double the number of votes compared to his closest rival? Why do so many Filipinos want this man to lead their country?
Duterte has promised very basic but necessary changes in security and well-being for the Filipino people. Pretty good explanation for why he was elected at the link.
In which Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald, who should know better, says a really stupid thing. Because like his former employer, Disney measures everything.
#2
Ummm, SimPark did, pretty damn sure Disney does too.
And even if they aren't, which they are, but the customers are which is why there is the deal where someone pays to chaperone a handicapped person so as both can use the express lane.
#3
4. Disney does measure wait times. There are signs saying from this point on 30 minutes, or 45 minutes. Also they've set up fast pass to help avoid the lines if you plan ahead.
#5
Are Disney's wait times designed to have customers die off before receiving services, like the VA?
Posted by: regular joe ||
05/24/2016 12:44
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#6
Disney, McDonald's, Applebee's, AT&T, Amazon, Jiffy Lube, most major private Hospital and Health Care entities plus lots of other companies (and maybe even some Waffle Houses) all measure customer wait times to determine improvements in their 'satisfaction delivery'. Some are VERY detailed in their measurements as their revenue depends on it, And I'm sure the Disney Company is no exception.
It IS a big deal for most firms, making the customer happy that is. They're not the 'Only Game in Town' like the VA.
Bureau of Indian Affairs Health System sucks, too.
Wonder what the common thread is?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/24/2016 14:26
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#10
What gorb said except I'd want them to get rid of all the folks at ABC News too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 17:58
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#11
Go back to the original copyright of 14 years with an extension by the individual artist/inventor/creator for another 14 years. Everything other than trademarks, would be public domain as it was originally intended. Now that would be payback.
#12
Why haven't we heard from Bernie on this? He is on the Veteran's Affairs Committie. In 2014 he was the Chairman. He's doing what he does best. Sitting on his ass, doing nothing, collecting a paycheck and waiting for someone else to do something.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/24/2016 19:57
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[WashingtonPost] Surveying the wreckage of the Middle East and the fraying of Europe, President Obama understandably would like us to believe that no other policy could have worked better. The United States has tried them all, his administration argues: massive invasion, in Iraq; surgical intervention, in Libya; studied aloofness, in Syria. Three approaches, same result: chaos and destruction.
So why bother? Why get sucked into “a transformation that will play out for a generation,” as Obama described it in his State of the Union address this year, “rooted in conflicts that date back millennia”?
Even setting aside the offensiveness of such a sweeping dismissal of Arab potential, the formulation is wrong on two counts, one prescriptive and one analytical.
It offers no plausible path for Obama’s successor — who, as Obama’s own fitful, reluctant re-escalation shows, will not be able to ignore the region. Instead, it invites the kind of demagogic promises we have heard during the campaign, to “carpet bomb” Islamic militants until we find out whether “sand can glow in the dark,” as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) threatened, or, in Donald Trump’s words, to “quickly, quickly” “knock the hell out of” the Islamic State and then “come back here and rebuild our country.”
More fundamentally, the administration’s fatalism ignores a fourth policy option that Obama, from the beginning, was determined not to try: patient, open-ended engagement using all U.S. tools — diplomatic as well as military — with a positive outcome, not a fixed deadline, as the goal.
That is an approach that has worked before. In Korea, the United States forged an intimate alliance more than a half-century ago, and today U.S. soldiers and diplomats are still present. U.S. support deterred an external foe while — and people forget this, given South Korea’s stability today — helping steady a society torn by civil war as its people gradually built a democracy.
Obama came into office determined to avoid this approach. In Afghanistan, he set a timetable for troop withdrawal, untethered to conditions. In Libya, he bombed the Gaddafi regime out of power but did not stay to help a new government get on its feet. In Iraq, he overrode his civilian and military advisers and declined to keep in the country the 15,000 or 20,000 troops that might have helped preserve the stability the U.S. surge had helped achieve.
The president did not defend that withdrawal because millennia-old hatreds made Iraq a hopeless case. Just the reverse, in fact: Success had made a U.S. presence unnecessary. “This is a historic moment. A war is ending. A new day is upon us,” he said in 2011. “People throughout the region will see a new Iraq that’s determining its own destiny — a country in which people from different religious sects and ethnicities can resolve their differences peacefully through the democratic process.”
It does not require hindsight to appreciate the recklessness of his decision. True, few foretold just how completely the nation would fall apart, with a vicious caliphate occupying much of the country and a return of frequent bombings in Baghdad. But The Post’s editorial page was not alone in warning at the time that “a complete withdrawal sharply increases the risk that painfully won security gains in Iraq will come undone.”
I understand why Obama and so many other Americans reject persistent engagement, often derisively called “nation-building.” It is difficult, and the United States often does it badly and sometimes doesn’t succeed; Americans can’t impose democracy; we often end up doing work that we wish the locals or their neighbors would do. Obama is right, too, that other regions, such as the Pacific, are more important to the global economy and more central to U.S. strategy.
But against all that wisdom stands one stubborn fact, again proved by Obama’s re-escalation: The United States does not have a choice. The unraveling doesn’t stay put, but spreads to Syria and Paris and Brussels and the skies over the Mediterranean and, eventually, the United States. Under conditions far more difficult than they might have been, the president finds himself unleashing bombers over Syria and dispatching soldiers into Iraq.
He cannot acknowledge, maybe even to himself, that disengagement was a mistake. That is why, even as Americans are, once again, being killed in Iraq, Obama insists that no service members are in combat.
But it would be healthy for the country, and the next president, to move beyond make-believe. There is no “quickly, quickly” defeating Islamist terrorism — and there is no safe way to retreat from the challenge of combating it for the long term.
[RT] There will be severe consequences if Sirajuddin Haqqani ...son of Pashtun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, still titular head of the Haqqani Network.... , considered one of the most dangerous warlords in the Middle East, becomes leader of the Taliban following the reported killing of Mullah Akhtar Mansour, a Russian Foreign Ministry official has said.
Haqqani, believed to be in his mid-40s, has been largely cited as a possible successor to Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was reportedly killed in a targeted US drone strike in a remote Pak area on Saturday.
"There will be hell to pay" if the Afghan guerrilla commander replaces Mansour, Foreign Ministry official and the Russian president's special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... ov, told Interfax on Monday.
The Russian diplomat added that so far Haqqani is regarded as the most possible candidate to become the new Taliban chief, and said that although Moscow does not yet possess any final data on Mansour's death, "the probability [of him being killed] is high."
Talibs choosing Haqqani as their new chief will be the worst possible scenario, Kabulov told RIA Novosti, adding that he's "the most radical figure in their leadership."
The ministry official also said that Mansour's alleged killing might lead to an escalation of military tensions in Afghanistan, and could "significantly complicate the negotiation process" in the region.
On Monday, US President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... confirmed the American military had killed the Taliban leader, proclaiming his death "an important milestone." Having called on other murderous Moslems to agree to peaceful negotiations, Obama said that "the Taliban should seize the opportunity to pursue the only real path for ending this long conflict [by] joining the Afghan government in a reconciliation process."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#2
Someone forgot the numerous "Second Highest" we wacked in Iraq before getting Number One. Sort of like killing the flea population first before hosing the rats during a plague.
#2
I actually saw her perform at the end of her career. She couldn't do the athletic moves any more, but every thing she did do was amazingly precise. Got a standing ovation and it wasn't just for old times sake. She earned it for an outstanding performance... unsolicited endorsement,, and I don't even much like ballet...
#4
With Rudolph Nureyev in Swan Lake with the Philadelphia Orchestra and a young lady whom I shall remember forever. Sigh. It is a much different world. Too bad I couldn't change with it.
[Iran Press TV] A Saudi soldier is killed and three others injured in a landmine kaboom near the border with Yemen, Saudi state media say.
The four soldiers were on patrol on a designated road in the southwestern Jizan region alongside the Yemeni border when the landmine detonated on Monday morning, the Saudi Press Agency quoted an Interior Ministry front man as saying without providing further details.
The incident took place as the warring sides in the Yemeni conflict held their first direct meeting after a week-long break on Monday.
The UN special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said on his Twitter that the face-to-face talks came after a delegation representing the resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, accepted to end its one-week boycott of the talks in Kuwait.
Hadi's delegation withdrew from negotiations after accusing Yemen’s Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... Ansarullah movement and allies of failing to keep their word. Hadi's representative had urged the Houthis to begin to implement a UN Security Council resolution and withdraw from the capital Sana’a and other places they control and surrender their arms.
But the Houthis refused to give in, setting their own preconditions, including a full halt to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... 's aerial and ground attacks that have left close to 10,000 killed and at least 16,000 others injured in 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... over the past 14 months.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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#1
If they think the wall can't be built and won't be effective even if it is built then why are they spending so much time, effort and money to stop Trump?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:37
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(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Monday the leadership of al-Hashed al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced liberating two areas in the northern entrance of Fallujah (62 km west of Baghdad), while pointed out to the killing of dozens of ISIS members during the operation.
The media director of al-Hashed al-Shaabi forces in Anbar Captain Essam El-Din Abdullah said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The joint security forces were able to cleanse the areas of al-Zagharid and Abu Sidira (10 km north of Fallujah),” pointing out that, “Dozens of ISIS members were killed during the liberation battles of the northern entrance of Fallujah.”
Abdullah added, “The security forces are working to open safe ways for the military vehicles and tanks to break into the remaining areas in the northern entrance of Fallujah.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Monday the leadership of al-Hashed al-Shaabi in Anbar Province announced, that the joint forces liberated three areas in the district of Karma east of Fallujah from the control of the so-called ISIS, while pointed out to the killing of 40 ISIS elements, including Arabs and foreigners.
The commander of Karmat Fallujah 1st brigade, Col. Mahmoud Madi Jumaili, said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “This morning the joint security forces managed to cleanse al-Harariyat, al-Shahabi and al-Dwaya areas (20 km east of Fallujah) from the ISIS control,” noting that, “The operation resulted in the killing of 40 ISIS fighters, including Arabs and foreigners.”
Jumaili added, “The security forces are advancing in the eastern and northern entrances of Fallujah after the collapse of ISIS terrorist members,” pointing out that, “ISIS lost control on its strongholds in the main axes of Fallujah.”
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Monday, official journalists with the Ministry of Defense announced, that more than 42 ISIS fighters were either killed or wounded, including the so-called ISIS Wali of Fallujah during the ongoing military operations that were launched to liberate the city (62 km west of Baghdad).
The journalists said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “Baghdad Operations Command managed to kill more than 36 ISIS fighters, including the so-called ISIS Wali of Fallujah Haji Hamza, along with a number of his companions and the senior leader Abu Amer al-Ansari, as well as wounding six others members.”
The statement added, “Baghdad Operations also managed to destroy a vehicle belonging to ISIS in Rashad area, as well as destructing ISIS communication headquarters in al-Roufa area.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – An informed source announced on Monday, that eight members of the so-called ISIS were killed, including 2 Tunisian leaders in an aerial bombardment carried out by Iraqi F16 fighter jets and targeted an explosives laboratory in the vicinity of Fallujah City (62 km west of Baghdad), while indicated that the Tunisians leaders were experts in explosives industry.
The source said in in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The Iraqi F16 fighter jets bombed, at noon today, an explosives laboratory in al-Sijr area north of Fallujah, killing eight members of the so-called ISIS, including two Tunisian leaders, and destructing the laboratory completely.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The dead Tunisians leaders are Abu Abdullah, an expert in explosives industry, and Abu Younis.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – On Monday, Badr Organization announced liberating two areas northeast of Fallujah.
The organization said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The area of al-Harariyat and al-Laifiya villag northeast of Fallujah were liberated,” adding that, “The organization forces also dismantled 17 improvised explosive devices that were emplaced to hinder the advance of the security forces.”
Earlier today the member of Anbar Council’s security committee Raje’ Barakat al-Aifan emphasized the killing of dozens of ISIS members in the first day of Fallujah liberation battle.
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – The member of security committee in Anbar Provincial Council Raje’ Barakat al-Aifan announced on Monday, that dozens of ISIS members were killed in the first day of Fallujah liberation battle.
Aifan said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “Today, dozens of ISIS members were killed in a violent aerial bombardment conducted by the Iraqi Air Force and Army Aviation, backed by an artillery shelling on ISIS headquarters in Fallujah.”
Aifan added, “The bombardments hit ISIS headquarters in the neighborhoods of al-Shohada, al-Saqlawiya and al-Hasa area in southern the city.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – A source in Anbar Operations Command announced on Monday, that the security forces liberated two areas in Nuaimiya village in southern Fallujah (62 km west of Baghdad), while pointed out to the killing of 14 ISIS fighters.
The source said in a statement received by IraqiNews.com, “The security forces that are participating in the liberation operation of the city of Fallujah managed, at noon today, to liberate the areas of Anaz and al-Kroush in the village of Nuaimiya (10 km south of Fallujah), after fierce battles resulted in the killing of 14 ISIS fighters, as well as detonating three car bombs.”
The source, who asked anonymity, added, “The security forces deployed armors and tanks in preparation to storm the remaining areas of Nuaimiya and the city of Fallujah in order to liberate it completely in the next few hours.”
(IraqiNews.com) al-Anbar – The Commander of Fallujah Operations, Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Sa’adi, said on Monday, that the security forces had managed to advance into the area of Nuaimiya south of the city of Fallujah, while pointed out that those troops arrived in the area of the al-Tufaha Bridge.
Sa’adi said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “The security forces were able, today, to enter the area of Nuaimiya south of Fallujah,” pointing out that, “Those forces arrived at the al-Tufaha Bridge.”
He also added, “The security forces continue to advance into their specific targets.”
Posted by: badanov ||
05/24/2016
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[USATODAY] ... So why do the rest of us bother to obey the law? And, yes, that’s an increasingly serious question.
People follow the law for a mix of reasons. First, they may simply fear punishment. That undoubtedly motivates a lot of people, though in fact the risk of punishment is usually pretty low, and people, in general, obey the law even when the risk of being caught is negligible.
People may also obey the law because they agree with it: I don’t need to worry about the likelihood of punishment for torturing kittens because I think that’s wrong, and I wouldn’t do it anyway.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[VANGUARDNGR] A Nigerian mother of three has described how she beat feet fromBoko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists after being kidnapped, drugged and told she was going to become a jacket wallah.
Khadija Ibrahim, 30, said she was snatched by two men from a bus station in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Friday, as she travelled to see her doctor for medical treatment. Her account backs up theories thatexploding trollop female suicide bombers used by Boko Haram are not willing participants.
The group has deployed the tactic against civilian "soft" targets since mid-2014.
"They offered me a lift, which I readily accepted because I wanted to be at the hospital on time. They drugged me by placing something on my nose and I lost consciousness," she told news hounds on Sunday.
"I just woke up to realise I had been stripped and strapped with a boom jacket and heard one of my captors whispering to me that I was going to do God’s work."
Ibrahim, who has three children, said the kidnappers told her she was being taken to attack the Kantin Kwari textile market in the northern city of Kano. But she said she came round from the effects of the drugs and feigned unconsciousness until she saw her chance to escape when the car overheated twice on the way and was forced to stop. Ibrahim said she managed to unfasten the bomb vest during the second breakdown, which happened after they reached Kano late on Friday.
"While the driver went to look for water the other man went out to the opened bonnet to examine the engine, which gave me an opportunity to ran out of the vehicle," she said.
Another young woman who was in the car with her may also have been drugged, she suggested, as she looked "dumb and unaware of what was happening around her". It is not known what happened to her.
Ibrahim said she was picked up by a man in the Hotoro neighbourhood of Kano late on Friday, who took her to the police. They then handed her to the state governor, Umar Ganduje.
"If this woman had not regained consciousness the story would have been different by now," he told news hounds.
Boko Haram has attacked the Kantin Kwari market before. In December 2014, two youngexploding trollop female suicide bombers killed four people, while a third refused to detonate her explosives and was tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! .
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[AlAhram] Egypt's state-sponsored Islamic authority (Dar Al-Ifta), which issues edicts, said on Monday that an announced plan by the now-banned Moslem Brüderbund group to re-examine its political ideology and activities was overdue.
A sub-body of Dar Al-Ifta that monitors jihadist and hard boy edicts said that recent remarks by Brotherhood leaders indicating the movement aims to carry out a major reassessment is a result of an "ideology of failure" and its "defeat in the political and religious fields."
The religious unit made the comments days after a senior Brotherhood leader in exile, Gamal Heshmat, said his movement seeks "major revisions," mainly politically, while stressing the group would separate its political and religious work.
The Islamic authority said the announced plan by the group is "inevitable to preserve the security of society and protect individuals from drifting towards violent, bad boy ideology that characterised the group over the past period."
It urged the once-ruling organization to review all strategies it had adopted and have contributed to "violence and polarisation" in Egypt.
Heshmat's statement came as Tunisia's Islamist Party Ennahda, a Brotherhood offshoot, made a similar announcement saying that it has learned "there is no future in political Islam."
"All sides within the groups have stressed the determination to separate the competitive party work from that of preaching and education. This will be announced soon," Heshmat told the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency last week.
He said the move will help develop the organization and reintroduce it to public opinion in a better shape.
Ill-timed move?
The 88-year-old Brotherhood has worked for decades in the shadows before it was catapulted to the forefront of Egyptian politics following the 2011 uprising that toppled long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... The group's Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was ousted after a year-long rule that alienated large segments of the Egyptian population.
The group has since been forced back underground, with most of its upper echelons and supporters thrown behind bars.
The Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing established in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising, was dissolved by a court ruling in August 2014.
On the announced reform efforts, researcher of Islamist movements and a former Brotherhood member Ahmed Ban told Ahram Online "it is a call that will not go any further."
He said that the organization should have made such efforts while holding legitimacy during its reign.
"Now they are not part of the state's calculations," he said, explaining that the group would no longer be allowed to combine politics and religion.
"Separation means they will aim to keep both branches of work but segregate them functionally, which they will no longer be permitted to do in Egypt," he added
While some observers say the move indicates a compromise, the group, nevertheless, does not seem to seek a settlement with the state but is rather working towards lobbying against a "regime of coup," in reference to Morsi's ouster.
"There must be major revisions... but we first need a sensible organization to bolster an anti-coup movement... to topple a regime of coup," Heshmat said.
Heshmat made allusions, however, that the re-evaluation of the group's strategies will not be an easy task given that the movement is suffering from what he called a "major administrative vacuum" amid a rising schism of late.
The Brotherhood has been lurching from crisis to crisis, with the recent rise of an internal rift boiling over between chief Mahmoud Ezzat of the group's London office and a youth administration at home.
The split, which came to surface late last year, intensified last week with the group's London leaders sacking eight senior members, including former international cooperation minister Amr Derrag, after more than 240 members signed a document calling for an across-the-board election that would in turn force out long-serving leaders.
Youth leaders at home have snapped back, announcing a list of sackings of long-time leaders of the international bureau.
[AnNahar] Al-Azhar's Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, who had a historic meeting with Pope Francis on Monday, has been on a mission to update Islamic thought while championing classical scholarship against jihadist ideologues.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2016
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[WSJ] The constitutional challenge to President B.O.’s executive action on immigration keeps getting more remarkable. A federal judge has now exposed how the Justice Department systematically deceived lower courts about the Administration’s conduct, and he has imposed unprecedented legal measures to attempt to sterilize this ethics rot.
On Thursday District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas found that Obama Administration lawyers committed misconduct that he called "intentional, serious and material." In 2015 he issued an injunction--now in front of the Supreme Court--blocking Mr. Obama’s 2014 order that rewrote immigration law to award legal status and federal and state benefits to nearly five million aliens.
When 26 states sued to block the order in December 2014, Justice repeatedly assured Judge Hanen that the Department of Homeland Security would not start processing applications until February 2015 at the earliest. Two weeks after the injunction came down, in March, Justice was forced to admit that DHS had already granted or renewed more than 100,000 permits.
Justice has also conceded in legal filings that all its lawyers knew all along that the DHS program was underway, despite what they said in briefs and hearings. One DOJ lawyer told Judge Hanen that "I really would not expect anything between now and the date of the hearing." As the judge notes, "How the government can categorize the granting of over 100,000 applications as not being ’anything’ is beyond comprehension."
Justice’s only explanation is that its lawyers either "lost focus on the fact" or "the fact receded in memory or awareness"--the fact here being realities that the DOJ was required to disclose to the court. The states weren’t able to make certain arguments or seek certain legal remedies because the program supposedly hadn’t been implemented, leaving them in a weaker legal position.
More to the point, an attorney’s first and most basic judicial obligation is to tell the truth. Judge Hanen concludes that the misrepresentations "were made in bad faith" and "it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct." Many a lawyer has been disbarred for less.
As a result, Judge Hanen ordered that any Washington-based Justice lawyer who "appears or seeks to appear" in any state or federal court in the 26 states must first attend a remedial ethics seminar on "candor to the court." He also ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to prepare a "comprehensive plan" to prevent such falsification. Such extraordinary judicial oversight is usually reserved for companies with a pattern of corruption or racially biased police departments. Justice is sure to appeal, and whether Judge Hanen has the jurisdiction to impose his plan is uncharted legal territory.
Yet the misconduct he has unmasked should trouble Americans of all political persuasions. Prosecutors often abuse their powers in run-of-the-mill cases. But this is a constitutional challenge with major consequences for the separation of powers, and the deceit must have required the participation and coordination of dozens of political appointees and career lawyers. That suggests a serious institutional failure, not mere rogue actors.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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[DAWN] Akhtar Mansour, leader of the Afghan Taliban, has reportedly been killed in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... in a US drone strike. While confusion still persists over the news made known to the world initially by US officials, and subsequently corroborated by Afghan officials and the Afghan Taliban, the security equation in the Pak-Afghan region has changed once again.
Pakistain, the country that is alleged to have hosted Mullah Mansour, and said to have helped him ascend to the top of the Taliban leadership and nudged the group to the negotiating table with Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... , is left with unanswered questions and is at the receiving end of considerable international finger-pointing.
Yet again the morass that has been Afghan policy -- for many states, but perhaps most consistently for Pakistain over the past three decades -- looks set to lead a number of countries into an uncertain future with few good options.
Five years since the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... was killed in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , and less than a year since it was revealed, though never conclusively proved, that Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... too had died on Pak soil, Mullah Mansour’s reported death in Pakistain is not altogether surprising.
Pak officials have acknowledged that the so-called influence, though not control, that the state here has over the Taliban is partly a result of providing sanctuary to Afghan Taliban leaders. If there were no sanctuary, there would be no influence -- and certainly none of the control that the outside world accuses Pakistain of having over the Taliban.
Yet, it is troubling that Mullah Mansour was apparently allowed to move freely on Pak soil even as it became clear that the Taliban he controlled were neither lowering the intensity of the war they are waging against the Afghan state nor really looking for a way to start dialogue.
While Pakistain has rightly insisted that it cannot realistically be expected to take military action on Pak soil against the Afghan Taliban, surely the freedom of movement that friendly Taliban leaders are believed to still enjoy is not in Pakistain’s interests.
What is indisputably in the interest of Afghanistan, Pakistain and other regional and international powers is for the Afghan question to be settled through dialogue. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... given that the US has now bluntly stated that the Taliban leader was an impediment to negotiations and reportedly eliminated him, it is not clear who dialogue can be conducted with among the group or even if the Taliban will be able to stay united.
Whatever the case, Pakistain should be wary of repeating the process that led to Mullah Mansour’s accession and the determined attempt to unify the Taliban behind him.
With new strains in relations with Afghanistan and the US, Pakistain must be clear about what it believes it can deliver and set realistic expectations. Otherwise, the regional security situation may deteriorate further.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
#1
Five years since the late Osama bin Laden
was killed in Abbottabad, and less than a year since it was revealed, though never conclusively proved, that Mullah Omar too had died on Pak soil, Mullah Mansour’s reported death in Pakistain is not altogether surprising.
It would be surprising if they had died anywhere else.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/24/2016 11:48
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#2
Are there really any new twists when it comes to that elusive Afghan peace?
#4
Not really g(r), it's kinda like my last job bringing the plant up. Every day I'd drive down there, tell myself this was gonna be the day we'd drain the swamp... and every day, by mid morning, I'd be up to my ass in alligators. Finally I had a brainstorm, and when the guy who had the HR hat (among many others) was next there, I asked him: maybe we could hire less alligators?
I hear they eventually filled my position with a herpetologist from the local university working part time.
Anyway, to make a long story short, having Pakistan as your peace partner means you're never short on alligators in the marshes of Afghanistan. We'd be better off not hiring them to begin with.
[AlAhram] US forces killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in an air strike last week because he was engaged in plotting that posed "specific, imminent threats" to US and coalition personnel in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon front man, said the attack against Mansour inside Pakistain on Saturday was a defensive strike aimed at disrupting the Taliban plotting.
Mansour was engaged in "specific actions, specific things ... in real time," Davis said.
Asked if the Taliban threats were imminent, he said: "Yes, specific imminent threats to US and coalition personnel ... in Afghanistan."
I would be, God willing, the first president coming from the Left. I am Bayan, and I have been Bayan for the many years I have been mayor. I am not a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines. We follow the path of socialism. But this extremism is not good for me. My being a socialist is left of center, only up to here in the armpit, don't be scared. But my dimensions in life, I am only a poor man's son.
They say that's too ambitious. My God, try me. That's what I told the Davao criminals before. I had them called out, 'Do you want to go out of the city? Do you want to go to Manila? Life is good there. Just go there, you want?' Those who didn't believe me are dead. What do we have to talk about?
"Ang sabi ko sa military pati police (I told the military and police), only criminals, drug-related offenses, I will tell the police and military, ’Go out and kill them.’ Period. Before you become a police, you have the situations where you can really kill. Of course, in the enforcement of the law, because it is really to overcome the resistance and if you find yourself in jeopardy of losing your life, shoot...Ako bahala (I will take care of it). Basta (Just) follow my orders and do it in accordance with the book. Huwag kayo lumabas doon (Don't go beyond what the book says). No abuses. I have the best police force in the entire Philippines, talagang (really) behaved." (Los BaĂąos, March 11, 2016)
If you really want me to be president, this year, after elections, the salaries of the police and military will be doubled...Then they will be given rice so they have something to eat every day. Their children will have free education from kindergarten to high school, only in public school. When they die in the line of duty, they will receive 3 years' worth of salaries...Now, if I double their salaries and they still ask for bribes [makes clucking sound to indicate gunshots].
You know, we are from different tribes. There are Tausug, Maranao, Tagalog, Bicolano, Ilocano. You know, our dialects are different, so is our culture, even our idiosyncracies. But now what remains to hold us together is this Philippine flag. The written manifestation of the flag is the Constitution. I hope that everybody would remain loyal to that flag because if not, if you start to fuck it, you steal the money and let us live in our poverty there, we don't even have enough resources after we give you all our money and you send us a pittance and things are messy, you leave to us a serious problem of maybe a fractured island.)
He often uses this rhetoric to justify why a shift to a federal form of government is necessary. Federalism would allow regions to retain most of their income instead of sending most of it to the national government in Metro Manila. The writer of the piece says we need to watch 1 or 2 of his speeches to understand him. Videos and more analysis at the link.
QUETTA: Unidentified gunmen on motorcycles opened fire and killed five people in an Iranian pickup in Balochistan's Kech district on Monday.
Four assailants on two motorcycles sprayed bullets at the pickup, Levies sources told DawnNews. The victims, who were identified as Abdul Kareem, Ameen, Muhid, Abdul Qayoum and Nadil, died on the spot. The bodies were shifted to Turbat hospital.
The motive behind the attack could not be immediately confirmed, Levies said, adding that personnel had reached the site of the attack as an investigation into the attack went underway.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
[Iran Press TV] Austria's independent candidate Alexander Van der Bellen has narrowly defeated far-right rival Norbert Hofer in the country’s presidential runoff.
The 72-year-old Van der Bellen, a former economics professor, won over 45-year-old Hofer, from Freedom Party (FPOe), by 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent, said Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka during an official announcement in the capital Vienna, adding that "a difference of 31,026 votes," clinched victory for Van der Bellen.
"Very few people thought I could catch up. But in the last 14 days, there has been such a momentum among voters -- musicians, actors, workers, totally different people across all generations, professions and all sections of society," Van der Bellen, who had campaigned on a pro-EU platform backed by the Greens Party, said late on Sunday.
Hofer conceded defeat in the knife-edge runoff and said in his Facebook account: "Of course I am sad. I would have loved to have looked after this wonderful country for you as president."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016
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The Interior Ministry count gave van der Bellen, a former Greens party leader, 50.3 percent of the vote, compared to 49.7 percent for [Norbert] Hofer [of the Freedom Party]. The margin of victory was just over 31,000 out of nearly 4.5 million valid votes cast.
#6
I wonder how much 'help' our beloved administration gave to Mr. Van der Bellen?
Probably a significant amount, though likely not as much as the Euros did.
Interesting that, even with "such a momentum among voters -- musicians, actors, workers, totally different people across all generations, professions and all sections of society," they barely eked out a victory.
So, that's what they mean by the slogan, "There's more to a Ford..."
[DefenceBlog] The improvised rocket launchers based on Ford pickup truck used by Iraqi police force. The Iraqi Federal Police (FP), sometimes called the National Police, is a gendarmerie-type paramilitary force designed to bridge the gap between the local police and the army.
The improvised rocket launchers is a Multiple Rocket Launch System based on Ford F-350 Super Duty is a commercial pickup truck. The Iraqi rocket launchers having a range exceeding 3,500 miles (5,630 km) and It has two missiles on the launcher. I don't think so. Intercontinental MRLs?
The Ford F-350 Super Duty is a commercial pickup truck. This heavy-duty vehicle is produced in large numbers. This popular and rugged vehicle is also used by the military. It is in service with Iraq (300), Ireland, Qatar, and possibly other countries.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/24/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
#3
Multiple Rocket Launch System based on Ford F-350 Super Duty is a commercial pickup truck. The Iraqi rocket launchers having a range exceeding 3,500 miles (5,630 km) and It has two missiles on the launcher.
*blinks* Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot, over.
J- school grad was either pulling random factoids from wikipedia to fill column inches, or got confused between miles, meters, and Km's
The only possible explanation that makes any kind of sense to me at all.
#6
Old wine in new bottles. The 'desert chariot', an armed Toyota truck, was used quite successfully in the nineteen eighties by Chadian forces in their war with Libya.
#11
Quick Google of the BM-27 220mm MRL sez it's got a range of 35km.
Duh. That burned 45 seconds.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2016 11:44
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#12
If that is what the National Police are launching then it is definitely not the TOS-1. Looks like a refinement of the Syrian civil war explosive filled water heater powered by a BM-21 class rocket motor. 3,500 meters is very optimistic (maybe on the moon).
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.
[NYT] On the morning of Oct. 29, 2014, a long convoy of armored vehicles and trucks rolled northward in the shadow of Iraq’s Zagros Mountains and crossed a bridge over the Khabur River, which marks the border with Turkey. As the convoy rumbled past the border gate, the road for miles ahead was lined with thousands of ecstatic Kurds, who clapped, cheered and waved the Kurdish flag. Many had tears in their eyes. Some even kissed the tanks and trucks as they passed. The soldiers, Iraqi Kurds, were on their way through Turkey to help defend Kobani, a Syrian border city, against ISIS. Their route that day traced an arc from northern Iraq through southeastern Turkey and onward into northern Syria: the historical heartland of the Kurdish people. For the bystanders who cheered them on under a hazy autumn sky, the date was deliciously symbolic. It was Turkey’s Republic Day. What had long been a grim annual reminder of Turkish rule over the Kurds was transformed into rapture, as they watched Kurdish soldiers parade through three countries where they have long dreamed of founding their own republic.
[Iran Press TV] Islamabad has summoned the US ambassador to voice its concerns over a recent US drone strike on Pak soil that reportedly killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
[CNN] Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and prosecutors from the Justice Department's public integrity unit, U.S. officials briefed on the probe say.
[Iran Press TV] A senior German official says nearly 1,000 offenses were perpetrated in the country against refugee shelters in 2015, a five-fold annual rise amid an influx of asylum seekers.
Hillary Clinton
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Sen. 
[Iran Press TV] GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump has released an ad portraying 
[WashingtonPost] Surveying the wreckage of the Middle East and the fraying of Europe, President Obama understandably would like us to believe that no other policy could have worked better. The United States has tried them all, his administration argues: massive invasion, in Iraq; surgical intervention, in Libya; studied aloofness, in Syria. Three approaches, same result: chaos and destruction.
[WSJ] The constitutional challenge to 
