Beer Drinkers Are Boycotting Yuengling After Its Billionaire Owner Endorses Trump
[Forbes] One of America’s wealthiest beermakers is in hot water after voicing support for Donald Trump. Dick Yuengling, the fifth-generation owner of America’s oldest brewery, gave Eric Trump a personal tour of his historic Pottsville, Penn. plant on Monday.
Brian Sims, one of Pennsylvania’s first openly gay state legislators, wrote a lengthy Facebook post criticizing the company. "D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc. believes that an agenda that is anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, anti-racial minority and anti-equality is best for them and that tells me all I need to know about what they think is best for their own customers," Sims wrote in the post on Wednesday, which he signed "a former customer of 17 years." Fortunately, Yuengling recently began distribution in my area - guess I'll head across the street and buy a 12-pack.
My recipe calls for porter or stout but when I don't have them available I've tried any dark beer around and B&T does well. Of course the B in a real B&T is Guiness so it's not unexpected.
In a video released by Project Veritas, James O’Keefe exposes what everyone except Democrats have known to be true. There is a lot of voter fraud.
In the video, NYC Democratic Commissioner of the Board of Elections Alan Schulkin is caught on hidden camera at a United Federation of Teachers holiday party admitting that there is widespread voter fraud in New York City.
"Yeah, they should ask for your ID. I think there is a lot of voter fraud," said Schulkin, who elaborated on the types of voter fraud that are taking place in New York.
Voter fraud has been labeled as a right-wing myth by the left, but Schulkin, a Democrat, confirmed everyone’s worst fears, going against the grain of his own party.
"You know, I don’t think it’s too much to ask somebody to show some kind of an ID...Like I say, people don’t realize, certain neighborhoods in particular they bus people around to vote," said Schulkin.
When asked about which type of neighborhoods the busing of voters takes place in, Schulkin confirmed that it was minority neighborhoods, adding, "they get busses and they move people around."
Schulkin expressed concern over voter fraud and suggested that Mayor Bill de Blasio was to blame for a lot of the voter fraud taking place in New York City.
"He gave out ID cards. De Blasio. That’s in lieu of a driver’s license, but you can use it for anything. But, they didn’t vet people to see who they really are. Anybody can go in there and say I am Joe Smith, I want an ID card. It’s absurd. There’s a lot of fraud. Not just voter fraud, all kinds of fraud."
Despite having disapproval with de Blasio’s faulty ID program and widespread voter fraud, Schulkin also expressed concerns over safety in the polling locations as well as the potential for voter fraud, specifically with regards to Muslims wearing burkas.
"They detonate bombs in the public schools, which we are using. That could disrupt the whole election...Your vote doesn’t even count, because they can go in there with a burka and you don’t know if they are a voter."
It is clear after listening to a New York City Democratic Election Commissioner that the Democrats are in denial of the fraud that surrounds them.
...public denial, at least. Privately, it is clear from this series of videos, they have no problem with it.
Schulkin confirms that voter ID laws are something that New York City desperately needs as a way to curb voter fraud.
#3
Net profit attributable to the newspaper publisher fell to $406,000, or break-even per share
that won't even pay for their Christmas Holiday Party
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/02/2016 11:01
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#4
They earned princely $400k in 3Q. Not bad for an upper westside newsletter owned by a Mexican plutocrat. Pulitzer Award Snark of the Day
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/02/2016 11:16
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#5
What they are NOT SAYING about all of this is the main reason for ads not being purchased. Progressive Big Government policy is destroying the economy.
[Task & Purpose] When the national anthem began playing during a Steelers and Patriots game, Marine veteran Christian Brown stood tall even though he has no legs.
Marine veterans Christian Brown and Nick DelCampo have been close friends since they joined the Marines in 2009. They stepped on the yellow footprints at Parris Island, South Carolina, were in the same platoon when they went through infantry training, and later, were assigned to Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
On Dec. 13, 2012, during their second deployment, Brown stepped on an improvised explosive device while leading his squad on foot in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The blast took one leg above the knee, and the other, below the hip. He also lost part of his right index finger.
After Brown’s injury, and throughout his recovery, the two stayed in touch, and in late October of this year, they met up for a wounded veterans deer-hunting trip in Pennsylvania.
While in the area, the two Marine vets were offered tickets to a Steelers and Patriots football game on Oct. 23. When they arrived, they both received signed jersey’s belonging to the Steelers’ offensive tackle Alejandro "Ali" Villanueva, himself a former Army Ranger.
When the national anthem began playing, Brown stood up in his wheelchair, and DelCampo took the photo, which went viral after he posted it to Facebook on Oct. 28. Con't.
[New York Post] A consultancy company linked to the Clintons is trying to silence a former employee, suing GOP strategist Ed Rollins for $10 million for talking about the inner workings of the controversial corporations.
The defamation suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, says Rollins made "false statements" about Teneo Holdings to Lou Dobbs on "Fox Business News" on Oct. 28 and to the New York Times in an Oct. 22 article.
In the Times article, headlined "A Constellation of Influencers: Behind the Curtain at Teneo," Rollins, who ran President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, said the company rented out high-profile consultants like former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton to business executives to boost their prestige at events.
"The ability to bring business and political leaders together to meet the CEOs was all part of the selling point," Rollins said.
He also told the newspaper that Teneo quietly hosted salons connecting executives with Democratic lawmakers. Even though Teneo sponsored the DC dinner parties, the company disguised its involvement by sending invitations through Bloomberg View columnist Margarat Carlson, the Times reported. Con't.
#3
It all depends on what you mean by "pay for Play."
Its the Democratic Party way to smear and intimidate. Or am I missing something?
Just so long as I don't have to be dead to actually Vote. I would hate that. Ask yourself WHO does it actually benefit ? And too, Follow the Money. Teneo? i will remember the name.
[Express] A MIGRANT turf war erupted into violence on the streets of one of Paris' trendiest neighbourhoods early this morning as asylum seekers beat each other to a pulp with wooden clubs.
The blood-curdling brawl erupted just yards from the Stalingrad Metro station, where a squalid migrant camp has popped up following the demolition of the Jungle. Asylum seekers wearing hooded tops wielded makeshift clubs fashioned from lengths of wood which they used to bludgeon each other as horrified pedestrians looked on.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the early morning fight, but rival gangs of people smugglers have previously been involved in violent brawls in Calais. And despite the horrific brawl, a pro-migrant rally is apparently being organised to take place at the camp at 6pm tonight.
The once peaceful neighbourhood, in Paris' 10th Arrondissement, used to be a popular area with tourists, boasting a lively nightlife scene bustling with restaurants and bars. But worried residents have revealed how it has become a no go zone in recent weeks following the establishment of the refugee camp, which has brought squalor and violence.
Thousands of migrants – mostly from Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, and Eritrea – have pitched tents under the Metro station after the demolition of the Jungle hampered their attempts to reach Britain. French police have tried and failed on many occasions to clear the squalid squat, but asylum seekers simply keep on returning and reestablishing it.
There are now nore than 2,500 migrants pitching up in the makeshift camp, with locals saying the eyesore is ruining their businesses and making life a "living hell". Residents in the once popular district say that the squatters are now becoming increasingly violent and dangerous, with increased reports of muggings.
Faisal, a shopkeeper, told the French daily Le Figaro that Stalingrad locals are living in fear, threatening the future of his business. He said: “The stench of urine, faeces, and rubbish has made Stalingrad an insalubrious place to live. The place is dead – no-one wants to come here anymore. People are afraid to go out and lock themselves in.
“I’m making less than €60 (£53) a day. A few more weeks like this and I’ll go bust!
“French people have been kind to them. I know they’re desperate, but the least they can do is respect the law and try and integrate into French society.”
Jeanne, another Stalingrad resident, told Le Figaro the migrants had become increasingly violent towards locals. She said: “Brazen migrants are snatching jewellery and handbags off passers-by – they’re even stealing bread. I’ve seen them beat people up too.”
Police have raided the camp some 30 times in the past year, and on Monday French president François Hollande vowed to close the camp for good. But within 24 hours of a police operation to move migrants on tents had sprung up again, showing the uphill battle authorities in the French capital face to shut down such illegal encampments.
Overnight fires broke out in many parts of the camp destroying shacks and makeshift shops along the camps main street. Many migrants have left by coach to be relocated at centres across France.
Marie, who lives right next to the makeshift camp, told Le Figaro: “Life here has become unbearable. More than 2,500 squatters were evacuated in September, and now, less than two months later, they’re back. And now that the ‘Jungle’ camp has been closed, things are about to get even worse.”
Another local, Monique, said that she was at “a loss for words” and “utterly distraught” over the situation. She said: “The streets are littered with rubbish and faeces. We can hear blood-curdling screams coming from the camp in the middle of the night.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
08:43 ||
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#1
Looks like anarchy to me. As is in the streets of Germany, a break-down of law and order. One can thank the "Globalists" and their "Open Borders" for such chaos.
According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating eastward, came to the land of Shinar (Hebrew: שנער). There they agreed to build a city and a tower "tall enough to reach heaven"; seeing this, God, viewing such behavior as rude and disrespectful, confounded their speech so that they could no longer understand each other and scattered them around the world.
#3
Move the refugees into stadiums and sell fight tickets to spectators.
Posted by: Andy Unineque5679 ||
11/02/2016 13:28
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#4
If you go to the link, in the sidebar you'll see a story about at town where the German locals are ganging up on the migrants again, and another story about the Swedish police across the country being overwhelmed by the migrant crime wave.
Recall the Jeff Foxsworthy show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" Latest version of the show in Minnesota with high school students.
[Minnesota.CBS] Republican candidate Donald Trump has won the first round of Minnesota’s mock election for high school students, narrowly beating out Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Secretary of State Steve Simon announced Tuesday the results of the Minnesota Students Vote 2016, which showed the flamboyant businessman taking 34.97 percent of the vote. Clinton was close behind, with 32.89 percent. Over 77,000 students so far have cast a mock ballot for U.S. President.
Detailed results of the poll. And it's Minnesota too. Strange, I was talking with a former 86-year old teacher yesterday and he expressed he was voting for Hillary. I silently questioned his lack of good discrimination.
#3
Ima gonna have to figure out how to embed a website embed thingee in the story.
Not your fault, JohnQC. I fixed the problem by removing the quotation marks the website embed icon automatically places around the URL. For some reason those quotes sometimes cause problems. So I always remove them in my own posts, just in case.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Police in Des Moines, Iowa, say two officers have been shot and killed in ambush-style attacks.
The Des Moines Police Department said in a news release that the shootings took place early Wednesday. Officers responded to a report of shots fired at about 1:06 a.m. and found an Urbandale Police Department officer who had been shot.
Des Moines officers responded to assist. About 20 minutes later, a Des Moines officer was found shot. Both officers have died.
The Des Moines Police Department said suspect information is being developed. The agency didn’t immediately release any other information but said a news conference was planned for 5 a.m.
#2
Looking for: Scott Michael Greene, 46, is considered armed and dangerous. He is about 5'11 and 180 pounds and is believed to be driving a blue 2011 Ford F-150 with an Iowa license plate 780 YFR.
Yesterday, there was a buzz around the internet that something was coming or happening. It's still not clear whether or not it's happened. However, today, a lead article at WAPO and a provocative headline at Drudge would indicate that something is going on. These headlines are: WASH POST LEAD WEDNESDAY: FBI SPOOKS--"GOV'T INSIDERS HELPING ASSANGE?" Moreover, there are several stories on the alt-news at YouTube sites that discuss these events. There seem to be a lot of moving parts to this story
[WashingtonPost] The surprise tweet from a little-used FBI account came about 1 p.m. Tuesday, announcing that the agency had published on its website 129 pages of internal documents related to a years-old investigation into former president Bill Clinton’s pardon of a fugitive Democratic donor.
The seemingly random reminder of one of the darkest chapters of the Clinton presidency a week before the election drew an immediate rebuke from Hillary Clinton’s campaign -- with its spokesman tweeting that the FBI’s move was "odd" and asking whether the agency planned to publish unflattering records about Republican candidate Donald Trump.
"Will FBI be posting docs on Trump’s housing discrimination in ’70s?" asked Brian Fallon.
For the second time in five days, the FBI had moved exactly to the place the nation’s chief law enforcement agency usually strives to avoid: smack in the middle of partisan fighting over a national election, just days before the vote.
The publication of the files related to the Marc Rich pardon inquiry, which agency officials said was posted automatically in response to pending public records requests, came as the Clinton campaign and Democratic lawmakers continued to fume over FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision with less than two weeks before the election to announce that he was effectively resuming a review of Hillary Clinton’s email practices.
h/t Instapundit
FBI Director James Comey’s decision to resume the Bureau’s never-quite-closed investigation of Hillary Clinton’s criminal mishandling of classified information hasn’t sent her to prison--yet--but it has crippled her campaign.
Hillary’s lashing and thrashing counter-attacks on Comey and the FBI confirm the deep damage. Her responses are convulsions, not actions. In the debates Hillary tried to sell herself as cool and collected. Comey’s one-eighty shattered her mask of composure. Her panic is the tortured panic of a guilty soul.
...Team Hillary certainly plotted the 2016 election, and plotted it down to commas and periods. For example, Hillary made the final ruling on having a troll Donald Duck haunt Trump rallies.
...According to Clinton operative Nerra Tanden, (as quoted in a hacked Wikileaks email) Hillary set up her illegal server system because she thought she could evade Freedom of Information Act laws and manage to get away with it.
...In a Greek tragedy trying to "get away" with an overt ethical violation is an act of hubris.
Watch out pitiful human. Commit hubris and you insult the gods. Once you insult the gods, to hell with a logical plot. When you insult the gods you’ve entered quantum territory where the cat’s simultaneously dead and alive and the gods themselves may destroy you. Now anything can happen, from the subtle to the surreal. Why, the committer of hubris might do something depraved like unknowingly marry his mother (ask Oedipus) or, like, she might have her national security crimes exposed by a sexting pervert after she thought her political-media machine and The Clinton Foundation had managed to control or corrupt every potential threat to your presidential coronation--even the FBI.
BLUF: [Patriot News] Another witness told agents he and another Clinton aide with IT training built the server system "at the recommendation of Huma Abedin," who first suggested an off-the-grid email server as early as the "fall of 2008." And, the FBI noted "the only person at the Department of State to receive an email account on "clintonemail.com" was HumaAbedin!
Thus Huma Abedin, whose email account as "huma@clintonemail.com," was the only State Department aide whose emails were hosted by the private Clinton server she claimed she didn’t know existed until she heard about it in the news and claimed she "did not recall" the email exchanges. Making false statements to a federal agent is a felony. A lot of Clinton has rubbed off on Huma.
Several State Department people told the FBI they felt emailing Huma Abedin was "the equivalent of e-mailing Clinton." Abedin, routinely forwarded State government emails, including ones containing classified information, from her "state.gov" account to either her "clintonemail.com" or her Yahoo.com account "so that she could print them" at her home! Which brings us to, "Then what?" given her Muslim faith and family’s Saudi background. Another Clinton aide told the FBI, "Abedin may have kept emails that Clinton did not," which is also consistent with someone in espionage as something unimportant to Hillary may have had significance to Huma’s clients.
By forwarding classified emails to her personal email account, Abedin violated a Classified Information Non-Disclosure Agreement she signed at the State Department on Jan. 30, 2009, in which she agreed to keep all classified material under the control of the US government.
Even so, the FBI did not search Abedin’s laptop or Yahoo email account in their year-long "investigation" into the mishandling of classified information and espionage. Nor did the bureau call Abedin for additional questioning, despite documentary evidence, as well as statements from other witnesses, that clearly contradicted her own statements. Emphasis added.
#1
Everything cool until NY FBI Field office investigating Carlos Danger stumbles upon motherload of emails. Comey then forced to act.
The tell-tale before and after. If the documents in question were printed, classification markings removed, then scanned and re-transmitted, very bad juju.
If the FBI or US Intelligence had/has knowledge of Huma foreign intelligence contacts, the "Then What?" question may have been answered.
Yes, a great deal of conjecture, but something is afoot. It's not for nothing Comey did a complete 180. Added to that is the current PNG (personal non grata) status of HUMA on the Clinton team.
#2
Seems to me if classified markings were removed from an image that the area would be replaced by a square of uniform RGB white, and that may be detectable, especially on a scanned document.
[Wash Times] Donald Trump is learning at long last that when your opponent is destroying himself -- or herself -- you should get out of his way. The opponent deserves ample room to do the deed. The Donald is taking the high road past Hillary Clinton’s hell week.
He first praised James B. Comey, the director of the FBI, for his "courage" in reopening his investigation of Hillary’s vast email enterprise, and has so far devoted himself, without unnecessary bluster and bombast, to reminding everyone to listen and read the latest developments. No hyperbole needed. "Just the facts, ma’am," is enough to keep the bombshell on everyone’s mind.
Hillary and the Democrats have worked hard to keep alive the notion that her email enterprise is complicated but not really worthy of anyone’s attention. The computer era irritates everyone, and only wonks and nerds understand modern miscommunications. Bernard Sanders imagined he was speaking for everyone when he declared, in debate with Hillary, that "I’m tired of hearing about Hillary’s damned emails." If Bernie had listened a little closer and paid only a little attention to the issue, and acted accordingly, he would be the Democratic nominee today (unless Joe Biden beat him to it). Hillary would be in the counting house, her favorite place, nuzzling and cuddling the family gold.
Events since have even changed everything, even pulled some of the sleepyhead journalists who confuse being fatuous with being famous out of Hillary’s tank. Mr. Comey’s resurrection of his botched investigation has persuaded some of the famous and fatuous that maybe there’s a story here, after all. Pulitzers beckon.
For all the Donald’s rough vulgarity and his disrespect of women in an era defined by feminist vulgarity and coarse gaucherie, it’s nevertheless Hillary Clinton as the liar that no one trusts and who has become the abiding issue in the final hours of a bizarre campaign. Hillary is still the way to bet, but those who insist on betting on elections should get long odds.
If she wins she will of course be a historic first, the first women to be elected president of the United States, but she’ll be more than that -- the first president elected under credible threat of impeachment and conviction for high crimes and misdemeanors. The American public is sometimes generous and tolerant to a fault, but enough may soon be enough even for a Congress of the weak and compliant. Con't.
#1
Donald Trump is learning at long last that when your opponent is destroying himself -- or herself -- you should get out of his way. The opponent deserves ample room to do the deed.
Nah. He was just playing rope-a-dope with the entire Clinton gang. ;-)
#4
Hillary and the Democrats have worked hard to keep alive the notion that her real estate dealscommodities trading email enterprise is complicated but not really worthy of anyone’s attention.
[GatestoneInstitute] "We are losing control of the streets."
Key points fleshed out in the article with many examples:
During the first six months of 2016, migrants colonists committed 142,500 crimes, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office. This is equivalent to 780 crimes committed by migrants colonists every day, an increase of nearly 40% over 2015. The data includes only those crimes in which a suspect has been caught.
Thousands of migrants colonists who entered the country as "asylum seekers" or "refugees" have gone missing. They are, presumably, economic migrants colonists who entered Germany on false pretenses. Many are thought to be engaging in robbery and criminal violence.
Local police in many parts of the country admit that they are stretched to the limit and are unable to maintain law and order.
"Drug trafficking takes place right before our eyes. If we intervene, we are threatened, spat on, insulted. Sometimes someone whips out a knife. They are always the same people. They are ruthless, fearless and have no problems with robbing even the elderly." -- Private security guard.
According to Freddi Lohse of the German Police Union in Hamburg, many migrant offenders view the leniency of the German justice system as a green light to continue delinquent behavior. "They are used to tougher consequences in their home countries," he said. "They have no respect for us."
"It cannot be that offenders continue to fill the police files, hurt us physically, insult us, whatever, and there are no consequences. Many cases are closed or offenders are released on probation or whatever. Yes, what is happening in the courts today is a joke." -- Tania Kambouri, German police officer.
It seems safe to assume that the rest of Europe is experiencing similar excitements, about which they are similarly mum.
#6
But they'll will want a two state solution in every European country, Besoeker. After all, you can't expect North African Arabs in France to get along with "Syrians" in Germany, or Pathans in UK.
#10
Lawlessness in our streets would be our future too should the "Open Borders" flood continue. Wait a minute; there is Chicago, LA, NYC, Washington DC., etc.
#11
...while the progressives are all wrapped up with 'race' statistics in nearly every other venue, when it comes to crime, they seem to want everyone to ignore the same analysis.
#14
Looks like the Krauts are losing WW III. Makes them 0-3.
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/02/2016 11:13
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#15
I recommend a European 'Two State' solution with Marseille as the Islamic capital.
You're gonna give 'em prime ocean front property knowing how well that worked in Gaza? The only real solution is to ship 'em all back to Africa or the Middle East or wherever...just get rid of them.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/02/2016 11:53
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#16
The Europeans should have read the Koran first before they brought all of these people in.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
11/02/2016 17:17
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#18
Any thought of giving them safe havens - you know, like neo-colonial lands back in the old continent? Carving out 'safe havens' used to be an Old Euro pastime. Or would such competently run enclaves be too much of an embarrassment to the neighbors (and UN assembly members)?
#19
"During the first six months of 2016, migrants committed 142,500 crimes"
The number is correct, but the numbers are actually down by 36%.
Migrants also do not commit more crimes than Germans (with the caveat that some migrant groups, especially North Africa, Somalia, Eritrea and West Africa) do commit more crimes than Germans). People from Syria commit less crimes than German nationals.
Most of these crimes are non violent and would actually qualify as misdemeanors (riding buses without tickets, document forgery, petty theft). Sexual crimes are just 1.1 %. Dug trafficking accounts for 6.6%.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
11/02/2016 17:35
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#20
(riding buses without tickets, document forgery, petty theft)
Certainly minor crimes compared with murder, gang-rape, beating and stabbing. However, get enough of that stuff and it will kill off a high-trust society.
The Broken Windows model of policing speaks to what happens when minor crimes become tolerated and commonplace.
#22
EC: that's one helluva caveat you got there. Your stats lack any and all context and are therefore close to meaningless. I see where you're attempting to go and you may have a point, but this isn't it.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
11/02/2016 19:02
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#24
I'm referring to the same statistics of the Bundeskriminalamt the article in question is referring to.
I'm not saying that there is no problem (there is), but crimes Germans mostly suffer from are burglaries committed by criminal groups from South East Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania etc.)
Posted by: European Conservative ||
11/02/2016 20:55
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#25
Migrants also do not commit more crimes than Germans
(before we get started, let me declare I am NOT accusing anyone of misrepresenting)
As a budding stats weenie, one thing I have learned to watch for when people start tossing numbers around is the difference between raw totals and rates. Are we talking X instances total or X per thousand people?
Example: roughly speaking, the number of Blacks on welfare in the US is the same as the number of Whites on welfare. Equality, right? No, this is misleading because Whites are roughly 60% of the US population and Blacks are around 13%. So while the gross totals are equal, the rates between the two populations are wildly different. Said another way, 60% of the population accounts for half the welfare recipients while 13% of the population accounts for the other half.
[AlAhram] The head of the Turkish armed forces, General Hulusi Akar, was visiting Russia on Tuesday to discuss military cooperation and regional developments with his Russian counterpart, the Turkish military said in a statement.
Russia and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... member, are backing opposing sides in the Syrian conflict. In recent months they have been normalising ties that broke down a year ago when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along its border with Syria.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/02/2016
01:55 ||
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#1
I'm sure Russia will be very interested in hearing your military plans.
[AlAhram] Turkish authorities will appoint administrators to run the municipality in Diyarbakir, the mainly Kurdish southeast's largest city, after detaining its joint mayors last week, officials said on Tuesday.
The state will name the administrators in the coming days, the officials told news hounds on condition their names were not used.
A prosecutor accuses Gultan Kisanak, Diyarbakir's first female mayor and a well-known former parliamentarian, and her co-mayor Firat Anli of links with terrorism for public statements they made about greater autonomy for Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's population of 79 million people.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/02/2016
01:55 ||
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#1
Turkish authorities will appoint administrators to run the municipality in Diyarbakir, the mainly Kurdish southeast's largest city, after detaining its joint mayors last week, officials said on Tuesday.
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin: [walking in with Darth Vader] The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.
Tagge: That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?
Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/02/2016 5:30
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#2
Let's see, gassed up, grocery-store list from the missus, stop at Pet Smart for dog food, Benchmade knife, H&K 40 cal., O.K. all-checked out and ready.
#4
In the 4 sacred months of Islam, sin is punished doubly (or triply) which is why some muslims cool it during those months. However, if the muslim holy lands are attacked, everyone who is able to do so much join the defensive war and, not to do so, is a sin.
Lately, the Taliban, Boko, Al Q, ISIS and so on consider the whole world to have attacked the holy lands and so the global jihad is, in this view, a defensive war. This makes the 4 months more important for killing infidels than the other 8 months.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/02/2016 9:28
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#6
So is this why Germany and Paris are having more crime? This month? Or is there a 30 or 60 day lag in reporting?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/02/2016 11:09
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#7
Well I've got one pistol and as of yesterday one semi-auto center-fire rifle.
I'm a tad on the shaky side so I'm not going to make any hand grenades.
#8
yes, grom, it is year round - but some months are discouraged as holy months of no fighting
and some are encouraged
so while there is a low-level of small attacks all the time
the really devout will like to save it up for months like Safar and Ramadan
we are coming out of 3 forbidden months
Now we are in month 2: Safar, the traditional month of retribution
then the season continues to be open until month 7
so it's red November, red December, red January and so on until their month 7 of the moon calendar
you will have noticed in the last 3 months there have been no bataclans or Orlandos. There have been smaller shootings and stabbings in the west
and in Pakistan a big attack but it has been noticeably quieter.
That's part of the reason
Mohammad was a warlord, and this is smart strategy really. You have to rest the pigs before slaughter. They get complacent, they forget about it, they start thinking islamophobia might be worse than terrorism
then they get hit again
so now the security forces will stop a lot but they can't get them all because nobody can prevent a guy getting in a truck and driving into a crowd etc etc
Deadly roadside bomb blast has ripped through convoy of African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops travelling in west of Mahaday town in Middle Shabelle region, witness said. Tuesday’s explosion hit the AMISOM armored personnel carrier in Elbaraf area as it was on its way to the camp, a witness told Shabelle Media.
The explosion was claimed by Al Shabaab, who are battling with African Union forces and Somalia National Army troops in the war-ravaged country. The group also said that the bomb explosion had burned down of the vehicles carrying the peacekeepers.
No word was available from the officials of AMISOM over the attack.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
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Igor Dodon, the Socialist Party candidate at Moldovan presidential elections, retains the leadership but fails to get 50 percent of the votes required to win the presidential elections in the first round, as all the ballots have been counted, according to Moldova's Central Election Commission (CEC), Sputnik International reported.
After 100 percent of the votes have been counted, Dodon holds 48.72 percent of the votes, while the runner-up Maia Sandu got 37.96 percent, the CEC said on its website. As a candidate needs to gain 50 percent and one vote to win the elections, Moldova is likely to hold the runoff on November 13.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
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#1
If Hillary doesn't win will we have to hold a second round of elections?
(IraqiNews.com) Kirkuk – Thirteen civilians were either killed or wounded in an IED, while fleeing from the Islamic State-held regions, southwest of Kirkuk, Al Sumaria News reported on Tuesday.
Al Sumaria News stated, “The families targeted by the bomb at Riyadh-Rashad road were leaving their residences at Hawijah (55 km from southwest Kirkuk),” pointing out that, “Four persons were killed and nine others were wounded due to the explosion.”
“IED attacks are taking place on a daily basis, to target civilians while escaping from the ISIS-held areas,” Al Sumaria added.
Hawijah, al-Rashad, al-Riyadh, al-Abbasi and Zab and other areas southwest of Kirkuk were under the ISIS control since June 2014, while more than 150,000 civilians fled to Kirkuk since then.
The United Nations estimated that more than 3 million Iraqis have been internally displaced since the start of the US-led coalition and Iraqi government’s military conflict with the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in 2014.
Iraqi forces, US forces and Shia militias are currently carrying out a major battle to free the city of Mosul from the ISIS hold, claiming remarkable victories against the group since the start of operations.
(IraqiNews.com) Mosul – The self-proclaimed Islamic State began Tuesday to evacuate its wounded militants from hospitals of Mosul, taking them to an unknown destination, local sources told Alsumaria news.
“Buses carried tens of wounded Daesh fighters overnight from hospitals to unknown destinations,” said the source who asked to remain anonymous. The source speculated that those destinations could either be inside Mosul or on the way of the Syrian city of Raqqa, a major IS stronghold.
The extremist, militant group also carried medical equipment along with its injured personnel, according to the source who said that the group was possibly seeking to set up field hospitals at its strongholds.
An Iraqi government security operation, codenamed “We Are Coming, Nineveh”, has entered its 16th day in a row to liberate the governorate from IS. On Monday, forces advanced to the left coast of Mosul on three axes, with IS coincidently ceasing to refer to Mosul as the capital of its proclaimed “Caliphate” and closing down its secret prisons and largest camps in Ghazlani.
[AlArabiya] The UN said Tuesday it had received more reports of ISIS militants forcing thousands of civilians into Mosul, possibly to be used as human shields against advancing Iraqi troops.
The militants also reportedly killed another 40 former Iraqi Security Force (ISF) members before dumping their bodies in the river, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
The rights office has listed numerous ISIS atrocities, including tens of thousands of forced relocations and hundreds of executions, allegedly committed in and around Mosul since a government operation to retake the northern city began last month.
Some of the allegations have been termed “preliminary” and needing more investigation.
Asked about the credibility of the fresh reports, Shamdasani said: “This is raw information. It hasn’t gone through our usual verification processes,” while stressing that rights office sources were “reliable.”
In the early hours of Monday, ISIS fighters “brought dozens of long trucks and mini-buses to Hamam al-Alil City, south of Mosul, in an attempt to forcibly transfer some 25,000 civilians towards locations in and around Mosul,” the rights office said in a statement.
Most of the vehicles were prevented from reaching Mosul because of coalition aircraft patrolling the area, the statement added.
Shamdasani said there was “a pattern” of the militants surrounding their offices and bases with civilians.
“That seems to support the assertion that they are planning to use these people as human shields as well as to make sure that the area is heavily populated with civilians to frustrate a military operation against them,” she added.
Separately on Saturday, 40 ex-ISF officers “were killed and their bodies thrown in the Tigris River,” after being kidnapped by ISIS earlier in the week, Shamdasani further said.
That brings to 296 the number of former Iraqi security officers killed by ISIS since last Tuesday, according to the UN.
The UN made its statements after Iraq’s special forces entered the outskirts of Mosul on Tuesday and were advancing toward its more urban center despite fierce resistance by ISIS militants who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.
Posted by: badanov ||
11/02/2016
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JEDDAH: UN’s special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said Monday he would return to the region without delay to try to convince warring parties in Yemen to reach a peace deal that would end the 19-month war in Yemen.
“The dawn of peace could be near if parties decided to prioritize national interests and work on rebuilding a stable state for all people,” Ould Cheikh said on Monday.
“It is now the responsibility of the delegations to prioritize peace, rather than partisan agendas. Parties must engage in good faith,” he added.
“I briefed the UN Security Council today (Monday) on the latest developments in Yemen and challenges facing efforts to ensure the country’s return to peace. What Yemen is witnessing today contravenes the commitments made by the parties to the UN,” he said yesterday on his Twitter account.
Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi rejected the latest UN peace proposal, saying it “rewards the putschists” who seized power in Sanaa, while the Houthi militias said the roadmap has “fundamental flaws.”
The UN envoy stressed that he conducted consultations with the parties over the last few weeks, and presented a comprehensive and detailed roadmap to end the conflict, stressing that he roadmap is consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2216, the GCC Initiative and the outcomes of the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference.
“The roadmap contains a set of sequenced political and security steps, conducted in parallel, which would help Yemen return to peace. It foresees the creation of military and security committees, which would supervise withdrawals and handover of weapons in Sanaa, Hodeida and Taiz,” he said.
“The committees would also be tasked with ensuring the complete end of military violence and the safety of population and state institutions. The roadmap lays out interim political arrangements, including appointment of a new vice president and the formation of a Government of National Unity,” said the envoy, adding that the international community supports the roadmap because it includes guarantees for the political representation all political groupings.
Urging the Security Council to lend its full support to the peace plan, an immediate cessation of hostilities and the release of detainees by the warring parties, Ould Cheikh said that if the warring parties in Yemen do not reach a peace agreement soon, the country could collapse, with dire consequences for the entire region.
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council on Monday that 80 percent of Yemenis, some 21.2 million people, need some form of humanitarian assistance and over 2 million people, including 370,000 children, are suffering from malnutrition.
The country now has 61 confirmed and 1,700 suspected cases of cholera, O’Brien told the Security Council by telephone from Bahrain.
Some Venezuelan city dwellers are trying to grow their own produce to offset the country’s severe shortages following socialist President Nicolás Maduro’s calls for “food sovereignty.”
But in a country where families are going hungry as a result of government mismanagement and sky-high inflation, many view the “Great Agro-Venezuela Mission” with skepticism.
“Agriculture shouldn’t be a solution” to the country’s shortages, said former landowner Iraima Pacheco de Leandro, 54, a well-to-do government opponent who lives in Caracas.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#2
government mismanagement and sky-high inflation,
As though there is any difference between the first, cause, and the second, effect.
Actually small plot agriculture worked in the USSR. After the collectivization movement some ridiculously large proportion of vegetables were grown on the tiny plots that were left outside government control.
#3
A guy I know from Chile told me the statists took over his country and redistributed the wealth of many of the estates. Most of the people who received the redistributed wealth ate the farm animals and edible foodstuff such as gardens and then they had no more. A few caught on how to husband their redistributed wealth and they started building and growing again.
During WWII in the U.S. people had Victory Gardens to help sustain themselves during the war. Of course many of them were property owners also. Property rights are important to freedom and liberty.
#4
Property and land ownership is the hallmark of freedom and the free man. Perhaps that is why gov't always wants to seize it and insist it be used for the public good.
#5
Most of the (cough) seed money is being distributed in densely populated urban areas, with marginal to poisonous soil, not in the countryside. We're talking patio farming here.
Filed under WoT: yes, this is terrorism, not just shooting at cops. These "protesters" are on public land, attempting to murder police, obstructing peace and justice, denying the rights of others, all the while shrieking and blabbering socialist/progressive nonsense. Terrorism.
Attempted murder and other charges have been filed against a Denver woman who allegedly fired three shots at North Dakota law officers during an operation to force Dakota Access pipeline protesters off private land.
Authorities say 37-year-old Red Fawn Fallis was arrested Thursday after she allegedly pulled out a .38-caliber pistol and fired three times, narrowly missing a sheriff’s deputy. Officers didn’t return fire.
Fallis also was charged Monday with preventing arrest, possession of a concealed handgun and possession of marijuana. Court records don’t list an attorney to comment on those charges. She faces up to 20 years in prison on the attempted murder charge.
Court records show Fallis was arrested twice in September during pipeline protests and pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.
So she escalated. Who put her up to it?
Protesters at the demonstration against the Dakota Access pipeline are increasingly divided over how to stop the project. Militant younger activists are seeking more aggressive tactics, and an older crowd argues for peaceful protest centered on prayer.
Who's whispering to the 'younger activists'? Might that person be employed by the usual progressive NGOs?
The differences came to a head last week after law enforcement officers in riot gear forced hundreds of protesters off an encampment on private property. In response, some demonstrators torched three vehicles on a bridge. That created a blockade that effectively cut off easy access to the pipeline construction zone and made it harder for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and nearby residents to get to Bismarck.
Many other protesters insist that their efforts cannot resort to law breaking. They support the threat of eviction that the main camp has issued against instigators.
Ah, the 'moderates', who can't quite bring themselves to do anything about their frisky colleagues...
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#3
One of my high school classmates traveled from SC to hang out with 'my indigenous brothers and sisters.' two days ago. In a totally unrelated matter, she voted for Bernie in the primary, 'cuz she hates corporate greed.
[NYTimes] Orlando Gunman’s Wife Breaks Silence: ‘I Was Unaware’
Things finally seemed to be going better for Noor Salman and her husband, Omar Mateen. He had been accepted into a police training program and had showered her with jewelry to celebrate. He had given her permission to visit her family in California and handed her spending money for the trip. And he had stopped hitting her.
Golly.
So when Mr. Mateen told her that he would not be home for dinner the afternoon of June 11, she asked him not to go. It was Saturday — and she hoped it would be a family night. But he told her that he had to see a friend, kissing her and hugging their 3-year-old son as he left.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
The Arab makes womenfolk frantic:
His passions burn firey and antic;
He's overprotective,
Loves lies and invective,
But other than that... so romantic!
The governor of Al-Hudaydah province in Yemen Abdulla Abu Ghaith has confirmed that more than 2.5 million people in the province, which is located on the Red Sea coast, are at risk of starvation, poverty and homelessness due to the intransigence of rebel militias and their insistence on completely restricting daily life there.
Abu Ghaith told Asharq Al-Awsat that the rebels procure more than 15 billion Yemeni riyals ($ 60 million) a month from ships and customs at the port of Al-Hudaydah. Despite this, they have imposed a suffocating blockade on the population and are preventing local, regional and international organisations from providing assistance and saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who are suffering from widespread famine in the province.
The matter does end there – according to the governor of Al-Hudaydah, “The rebels have imposed a financial tax and are extorting citizens in the name of supporting the war effort and the Central Bank which they financially ruined and plundered”.
Abu Ghaith revealed that the latest statistics confirm that 82 per cent of the province’s population is suffering from famine, i.e. 2,500,000 of the province’s residents are hungry, poor or homeless. He continued by saying that according to statistics from 2016, the population of Al-Hudaydah is 3,860,102. At the beginning of the coup, the province received 300,000 displaced people from other provinces, and around 20,000 people have fled from the difficult conditions and threats in Al-Hudaydah.
Abu Ghaith said that “The militia is suppressing and severely restricting life in the province” and that “If the situation is not rectified quickly and the lives of millions saved, the real disaster will be the fate of families and innocents who are worried by the famine”.
[IsraelTimes] A woman was placed in durance vile Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Tuesday carrying two concealed knives near in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that the woman, in her 30s, approached a checkpoint near the site, where her behavior raised the suspicions of the Border Police.
When police searched her bag they found two knives hidden inside. They arrested the woman, who allegedly admitted that she planned to carry out a terror attack.
She was transferred to security forces for questioning, police said.
The shrine, revered as the final resting place of the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, is also revered by Moslems as the Ibrahimi Mosque.
[Lawfareblog] There are limited details about the recent U.S. Freedom of Navigation (FON) operation in the South China Sea on October 21, but by any account it surely did not achieve what some had advocated: challenging China’s installations on artificial land in the Spratly Islands. Instead, if press accounts and expert analysis (such as Julian Ku’s post) are correct, the USS Decatur challenged Chinese claims to "straight baselines" surrounding the separate Paracel Islands, which the U.S. government has long claimed are excessive. By challenging an explicit claim on the grounds that it exceeds what international law supports, such a maneuver is a textbook FON operation. A military maneuver designed to challenge China’s Spratly Islands construction is far less clear-cut.
This most recent FON operation was the first publicly known instance since May. This is not necessarily extraordinary, but an anonymous source told Reuters in November 2015 the challenges would occur "about twice a quarter or a little more than that," which many observers took as a reference point. The Decatur’s operation took place 164 days--almost two full quarters-- after the last public report on May 10 and some had begun to question U.S. resolve.
But the public maneuvers from May 10 and October 21 are not necessarily the only recent examples of U.S. FON operations. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Danny Russel implied not all FON operations are announced, saying "some things are only visible to people with radar and tracking." The U.S. government does, however, publish an annual report describing which "excessive claims" by which countries the FON program challenged through "DoD operational assertions and activities."
Beirut, London- Opposition forces launched a new battlefront in Aleppo as its military operations to break the regime’s siege expands. Both warring parties are exchanging accusations of using toxic gases.
Opposition forces and the Free Syrian Army are in a quest to break the siege over regime-ruled regions in Aleppo in order to connect eastern regions with the western countryside.
The opposition denied accusations made by official Syrian media that the opposition forces “launched missile that contain Chlor on Hamdaniya, east the city, on Sunday.” The regime forces were in return accused of “launching toxic gases on another battlefront.”
Jaish al-Fatah said in a statement that it “has currently moved to a new stage of military operations for the sake of breaking the siege completely, after seizing a number of towns … We urge residents to remain in their houses and to refuge to crypts if available. To Aleppo residents we say, we are coming to liberate your land.”
A military opposition source from Aleppo said that the “basic battle is occurring in Al-Assad Military Academy… The rebels intensified attacks on Aleppo to deprive the regime and its allies the opportunity to carry out maneuvers. We actually achieved tangible progress.”
The source added that the regime and its allies’ spirits relapsed after captivating 160 members of the regime and militias, most of them from the so-called Hezbollah.
Brigadier General Fayez al-Asmar, strategy and military expert, told Asharq al-Awsat that rebels did not receive any new arms but what has changed is forming a unified operations’ chamber. “The fighters also benefitted from the change of weather and carried out a sudden attack,” he added.
[Ynet] A boom-mobile targeting a military checkpoint on a road leading to Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri went kaboom! Tuesday, killing all nine people in the vehicle, police and witnesses said.
It was unclear if any soldiers were hurt in the attack, which was blamed on 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... Death Eaters.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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Ministry of Defense (MoD) on Tuesday said that a large-scale military operation is underway in Uruzgan to repel insurgents' attacks on some key areas.
The operation started following reports of a Taliban takeover of a number of army check points in Chora district of the province.
Meanwhile, a number of sources have said that at least 41 army soldiers had surrendered to the Taliban along with their weapons, but the Ministry of Defense (MoD) has said that the credibility of such reports needs to be verified.
Soldiers deployed in Dehrawood and Charchenoi districts of Uruzgan have warned over a possible siege of their military units. They have also complained about the lack of ammunition.
"Problems exist, there are attacks by the enemy, but our forces are continuing their mission over there," a defense ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said.
"Chora district is now under siege, Trenkot center of Uruzgan is also under siege, our humble request from the ministry of defense is that do you want the Taliban to capture Chora ... so act now before they infiltrate into the area," said senator Hanif Hanafi.
In addition to this, members of parliament from Uruzgan have said that the scale of threats in the province is much bigger than the statistics presented by the security officials.
"Fatalities among our soldiers in Kandahar, Nangarhar and Uruzgan is a very concerning issue to the entire people of Afghanistan," said first deputy of senate Farhad Sakhi.
Similar reports surfaced in the media in the past about the surrendering of army officers to the Taliban. But one of the complaints lodged against government regarding these issues is that the government, despite making commitments to investigate the issues, never shared the outcome of these investigations with the people.
[NPR] For years, New Jersey drivers enjoyed relatively cheap gas -- thanks to one of the lowest state gasoline taxes in the country. The state's gas tax hasn't gone up since 1988. But that all changed Tuesday, when it jumped by 23 cents a gallon.
Across the state on Monday, drivers raced to fill up their tanks before a tax hike took effect.
"I already went to a couple of different stops, and they were out of regular gas," said Tobin Gringras, as he topped off his tank at a gas station in Hoboken, right across the river from New York City. "So obviously there's a lot of people that are filling up right now."
"I'm speechless, cause I really relied on this," said Jazmine Rogers, who commutes from Ellenville, N.Y., about 90 miles each way. "It's gonna hit my pockets hard, unfortunately."
James O'Connor of Hoboken was skeptical that New Jersey will spend its new windfall wisely. "I just hope it's used for what it's supposed to be used for," he said. "You know, it's supposed to be for roads and bridges and so forth. They put these taxes on, and where's it go?"
There's no doubt that New Jersey's roads are in bad shape. The state's transportation trust fund ran out of money this year. So lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal to raise the state's gas tax by 23 cents a gallon, to 37.5 cents. Gov. Chris Christie says the deal will generate billions of dollars a year for transportation projects, and allow the state to lower the sales tax and phase out the estate tax altogether. Con't.
#2
Gov. Chris Christie says the deal will generate billions of dollars a year for transportation projects, and allow the state to lower the sales tax and phase out the estate tax altogether.
No mention of impacts to consumer goods, bread, milk, fuel costs for school buses, public transport. The hidden taxes increases paid by everyone.
#5
even with the increase, NJ State fuel tax will be less than NY (about 43c)or PA (about 54c) which are its biggest competitors for biz
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/02/2016 11:24
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#6
Gas prices have dropped by about half at the pump, probably permantly, and tax revenue fell as a result. Overall, consumers are still ahead of where they were.
Attacks targeting the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will increase and the party must be careful to resist “provocations,” CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said, after a senior party official was shot in the leg on Oct. 29.
“My deputy chair, Bülent Tezcan, was injured by a bullet. Provocations against the CHP will increase … We have to be very careful about provocations targeting us. We have to be prudent and cautious,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on Nov. 1 in a speech to his party group in parliament.
"Principles are all well and good, comrades, but let's remember we're talking about the risk of being put into a Turkish prison!"
He particularly recalled an incident in when he escaped two separate armed attacks by outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants targeting his party’s motorcade in the Şavşat district of the Black Sea province of Artvin on Aug. 25.
“A bullet has also been thrown at me during a martyr’s funeral, and one of my deputy chairs has been injured by a bullet. If a price has to be paid, it will be me who first pays that price,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
More armed groups could appear in the post-July 15 coup attempt process, he also warned, slamming the government for imposing a “regime of chaos in the country.”
“Could there possibly be a state like this?” he added, repeating his earlier claim that the attack on Tezcan was a well-planned act.
“It was a planned attack and I am curious about the will behind it,” he said.
“They said [he was] a nationalist. But nationalists are patriots: They love their flag and they love their country. Those who act on someone else’s command and shoot someone cannot be a person of an ideal. They are prone to being exploited,” Kılıçdaroğlu added.
Tezcan was shot in his foot on Oct. 29 while he was in a restaurant in the Aegean province of Aydın. The perpetrator of the act, identified as Alparslan Sargın, was caught by police shortly after the attack.
Shot the victim in the foot? That makes Sargin a Palestinian, doesn't it?
Posted by: Steve White ||
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There was a sharp spike in civilian dead and wounded in Libya during October with UNSMIL recording 29 people killed and 73 injured, up from seven slain and four wounded in September.
The victims, largely from shelling and airstrikes, included seven dead children and three dead women. Thirteen children were also injured.
The majority of the deaths was in Benghazi where 19 were killed and 64 injured, followed by Zawia, where five civilians have perished in recent fighting. UNSMIL warned that this figure was likely to increase as reports of other fatalities are confirmed.
In Tripoli, one of the two dead was a Tawerghan woman in a refugee camp. There were also single killings in Derna, Sorman and Sirte, in the last of which the victim was Dutch photojournalist Jeroen Oerlemans.
The Benghazi death toll was boosted by the discovery of ten handcuffed bodies on a rubbish dump at Sheibna near the social security headquarters. As the month closed a car bomb killed four and injured 18 civilians in the city’s Kish Square. Among the slain was anti-corruption activist Mohamed Bughaighis.
UNSMIL said that two women and five children died in airstrikes on Benghazi’s Ganfouda district where civilians were trapped because of fighting between the Libyan National Army and the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shura Council. It noted “While no one claimed responsibility for the air strikes, information received indicated that the LNA or their allies carried out the airstrikes that caused civilian casualties in Ganfouda and Derna.”.
A group commander of the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group was arrested during an operation in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
The ISIS commander, Sefatullah, was arrested by the counter-terrorism forces of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan.
Sefatullah is said to be originally hailing from the Laghman province and was involved in major terrorist activities in eastern Nangarhar province.
According to the security officials, Sefatullah was arrested from Deh Bala district of Nangarhar where he was also acting as the shadow judge of the terror group in the area.
The loyalists of the terror group have not commented regarding the report so far.
The Afghan and foreign forces based in the country are regularly targeting the loyalists of the terror group in eastern Nanangarhar province and other parts of the country as the terror group attempts to expand foothold.
The Deputy House Speaker of the Lower House of the Parliament, Wolesi Jirga, Zahir Qadir, earlier warned that the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group will establish the Khurasan Caliphate if they managed to seize Tora Bora.
The top US commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson also said earlier that the loyalists of the terrorist group are attempting to establish a caliphate inside Afghanistan.
Posted by: badanov ||
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SRINAGAR, KASHMIR : India and Pakistan on Tuesday tallied at least 19 deaths in recent firing across their disputed border in Kashmir, where the nuclear-armed neighbours are engaging in increasingly intense artillery duels.
Tension over the Himalayan region has run high since a September cross-border raid on an army base killed 19 Indian soldiers, prompting what New Delhi called retaliatory "surgical strikes" against Islamist militants in Pakistan.
Each accuses the other of repeatedly violating a 2003 ceasefire. On the diplomatic front, already chilly relations have gone into the deep freeze following recent tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.
Both sides also dispute each other's version of events that come against the backdrop of heightened tension in Indian-ruled Kashmir after security forces killed a separatist field commander in July.
Pakistan officials said at least four people were killed and five injured in its part of Kashmir on Monday, as the arch-rivals exchanged heavy fire concentrated in Pakistan's Nakyal sector along the Line of Control.
"It appears as if a full blown war is going on between India and Pakistan," said Mohammad Saeed, a resident of the village of Mohra in the region.
"Please have mercy and stop it," he said, speaking to Reuters by telephone amid the sound of gunshots.
Six people were killed and 10 injured in Nakyal and the adjacent Tatta Pani sector last Friday and Saturday, Pakistan has said.
On the Indian side of the Line of Control, seven people - including three women and two children - were killed on Tuesday, in Pakistani shelling along the Ramgarh sector in Jammu and Kashmir, a senior police officer told Reuters.
On Monday, an Indian soldier and a civilian were killed along the line of control in Kashmir in the Rajouri sector on the Line of Control, an Indian army spokesman said.
The increasing cross-border firing is raising fears that military escalation could trigger a potentially devastating nuclear exchange over Kashmir, the bone of contention that has sparked two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since partition and independence from Britain in 1947.
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[TheFederalist] There’s a reason Planned Parenthood isn’t very good at women’s health care, as these reviews attest: Planned Parenthood’s bad business model. Because Planned Parenthood is a rational economic actor, its clinics will push abortion over other women’s health care--explicitly in the event of a pregnancy, and implicitly by not providing adequate contraceptive care and instruction.
Why? First, Planned Parenthood is a business franchise, just like McDonalds, and its franchisees--local clinics, usually referred to as "affiliates"--are cost-sensitive. Affiliates get the highest profits from abortion, so they have an incentive to oversell this service.
Second, because many Planned Parenthood customers have nowhere else to turn, Planned Parenthood can get away with providing shoddy contraceptive care. Here, there are two incentives at play: Planned Parenthood faces a low profit margin when selling contraceptives; and providing subpar contraceptive care and instruction indirectly pushes abortion on some customers.
...
If revenue per abortion is estimated to be around $500 (a conservative estimate), then $164 million, or 15 percent of clinic-level revenue, comes from abortion. This not only factors in "Non-Government Health Services Revenue," but also includes "Government Reimbursements" that go toward abortion (more than half of the states cover abortion through their Medicaid programs). Pro-choice advocates love to point out that abortion is only 15 percent of Planned Parenthood affiliate revenues. From 2015, but I got a little curious and was astounded to find the Planned Parenthood model resembles that of ReMax, etc. but subsidized by $Taxpayer.
The ReMax business model works very well for driven, entrepreneurial real estate agents who don't want to be held back by less able colleagues, nor to give up a large portion of their earnings to a broker who does not do much for them because they do so much for themselves. But there are still plenty of able, driven real estate agents in traditional brokerages to provide competition, keeping the ReMax folks honest.
[DailyCaller] The memo, dated April 7, 2015, lays out several proposed changes to the foundation. Regarding donations from foreign governments, the memo states that "There are multiple options for consideration."
"Secretary Clinton’s preference is for the Foundation to continue to accept foreign government contributions, but to significantly increase disclosure," the memo states. "She does not want to limit the Foundation’s ability to operate programs now or in the future."
"We could go further and say the programs are already funded (listing out current funders) and we are not expecting additional funds, but we don’t want to close the door to unexpected opportunities."
A "compromise" option, according to the memo, "would be to say that the Foundation will not accept contributions from foreign governments unless that funding is part of an ongoing program or a disbursement for a completed negotiation." So, how difficult would it be for the Most Powerful Couple in the World TM to find an "unimpeachable source" to backdate a document?
#2
Well, you know one has to feather the nest. "We came out of the WH dead broke."
Meanwhile, Hillary is prattling on about Donald Trump's tax returns on the TV. Hillary and "The Art of the Pivot" to soon come to a bookstore near you.
#5
Even if McKacklepants wins she will lose. The whole systems has been exposed as completely corrupt, right up to Obama. He can't pardon her and if she gets in and has a semi-friendly congress the people won't accept her.
She is either going to jail or going the way of Mussolini.
#6
There are too many Americans who are armed for it to go Mussolini.
The American Military will move on Hillary, if the people want her gone. They loath her already. They loath Obama too.
Trump WILL win. He;s vain and narcissistic but he fights. Congress , of course, is largely a can of drooling worms, but there are still a few good men in Congress.
The US isn't over yet. You can't fool all of the People ALL of the time is still true. Just Democrats, it seems. But the long term doesn't favor the Stupid.
How FBI boss called attorney-general's bluff before revealing Weiner breakthrough
[DailyMail] An astonishing confrontation between the attorney-general and the FBI director over Hillary Clinton's emails was revealed Monday.
Sources told Reuters how James Comey, the FBI boss, challenged Loretta Lynch, the nation's most senior prosecutor, over whether she was directing him to keep the bombshell discovery of new, 'relevant' emails secret from Congress.
The development was revealed by the news agency hours after the White House went out of its way to back Comey as a man of 'integrity' and rubbish Hillary Clinton's attack on him.
It also slapped down claims by Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, that Comey may have been breaking the Hatch act and influencing the election, saying the President did not believe he was doing such a thing.
The Comey-Lynch confrontation unfolded on Thursday, some time after Comey was fully briefed on the existence of the trove of emails uncovered by agents investigating Anthony Weiner's sexting of a 15-year-old girl.
Lynch made it known that she thought his decision violated department policy, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
As Comey and Lynch aides debated last Thursday whether alerting Congress about the emails would comply with longstanding Justice Department policy against announcing overt investigative steps that would influence an upcoming election, Comey asked whether he was being explicitly directed not to do so.
Lynch never gave Comey the order not to send the emails, a senior government official said.
It got so bad that in 2015, as Warah explains, a coalition of nine UN whistleblowers got together to raise the matter with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. "Each of us has blown the whistle on serious wrongdoing, gross misconduct, and even criminal acts at the United Nations," the group wrote in the letter, which is quoted in the book. "Our collective experience of reporting misconduct in the UN covers sexual exploitation, abuse of power, corruption, and other criminals activity over a period of more than a decade and a half."
Instead of the UN scrambling to make things right, though, it responded in every case by attacking the whistleblower instead of the crimes, abuse, and the people behind the problems. "Each of us has faced retaliation for reporting the wrongdoing," the whistleblowers continued. "Our cases are well-known, and sadly, deter others from reporting wrongdoing. This must change." Unfortunately for humanity, despite threats from Congress to cut funding, and increasingly widespread media attention, nothing has changed, as the book documents extensively.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
11/02/2016
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#1
Well that explains why Obama wants to be Sect'y General...
"Yeah, that was us..."
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group loyalists claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on local tribal elders in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
The group issued a statement in Arabic language claiming that the attack left at least 15 people dead and several others wounded.
The statement further added that the attack was carried out by the group’s fighter Salman Al-Khurasani, targeting the Pacher Agam district elders in south of Jalalabad city.
However, the local security officials said at least 4 people, all civilians, were killed in the attack and at least 6 others were wounded.
The attack in Khalis Family area of Jalalabad city on Monday afternoon came as the local tribal elders had gathered to discuss the situation of the province.
The ISIS loyalists have recently increased to their insurgency activities in the remote areas of Nangarhar including in Pacher Agam district.
The deputy house speaker of the Afghan parliament Zahir Qadir earlier warned that the terror group is attempting to establish the Khurasan Caliphate in the country.
Qadir said the loyalists of the terror group have managed to take control of a strategic area in Pacher Agam and are looking to expand foothold in the neighboring Tora Bora mountainous region, warning that the Caliphate will start taking shape if they managed to seize Tora Bora.
Posted by: badanov ||
11/02/2016
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Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, which saw a wave of detentions targeting executives and columnists early on Oct. 31, has published reports aimed at “stirring public disorder in line with the aims of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ),” according to the probe’s prosecutor.
The purge enters a new phase. Erdogan now shuts down the opposition media. Soon the opposition pols will have no voice. Then they too go to the Turkish prisons...
According to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s probe, Cumhuriyet is accused of “committing crimes on behalf of FETÖ and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK] without being a member,” aiming to “conceal the truth with manipulation and publish stories that aimed to make Turkey ungovernable.”
Reminder, Hurriyet Daily is a pro-government mouthpiece.
The prosecutor noted that Cumhuriyet was the target of the Gülenists during the Ergenekon coup plot case, but after the December 2013 probes Ergenekon’s prosecutors were involved in daily meetings with Cumhuriyet’s then editor-in-chief Can Dündar, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Nov. 1.
The Ergenekon case was a massive probe into hundreds of senior military personnel, journalists and politicians on charges of attempting to stage a coup against the Turkish government. It is widely believed to be a conspiracy plotted by Gülenists.
The December 2013 corruption cases targeted figures close to the government and resulted in lasting enmity between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Gülenists.
According to the probe, Cumhuriyet started “publishing articles originating from FETÖ” after the probe cases and became the “public relations” outlet of terrorist organizations.
The charges also include the daily’s articles published after the failed July 15 coup attempt, believed to have been masterminded by the Gülenists. It complained that Cumhuriyet “made the counter-terrorism operations look like wars.”
The prosecutor also claimed that Cumhuriyet described anti-coup demonstrations as being marked by “hatred,” the post-coup attempt suspensions as “purges,” and the “resistance of the people against the coup-plotting soldiers as chaos.”
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
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#1
Dateline: Turkey 2026
The last remaining individual of Turkey's 75 million people was arrested today and charged with plotting to overthrow Sultan Erdogan. Said the Sultan, "That will teach those Gullenist f****rs to mess with me!"
[PJMedia] Terrorists behind string of hotel attacks pledge allegiance to ISIS
A West African Islamist group that has participated in a string of grisly attacks aimed at foreigners across multiple countries is now officially part of ISIS, 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.... said Sunday.
"The Murabitin Brigade under leadership of Abul-Walid as-Sahrawi in northern Mali pledges allegiance to Shaykh His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... and joins the Islamic State," ISIS' Amaq news agency said in a statement.
ISIS released a video in which as-Sahrawi reads a statement of allegiance, then masked fighters put their hands in team-style while reciting a pledge to al-Baghdadi. They then cheered "Allahu Akbar."
As-Sahrawi, an Algerian, pledged allegiance to ISIS last year, but it was not publicly recognized by the Islamic State. Divisions within al-Mourabitoun rendered that more of a personal declaration than speaking for the whole group. In particular, al-Mourabitoun co-founder Mokhtar Belmokhtar, also Algerian, was reportedly not on board. In December, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb announced that al-Mourabitoun was part of AQIM once again.
Al-Mourabitoun began as a merger of two jihadist groups: the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), linked to as-Sahrawi, and Belmokhtar’s al-Mulathameen Brigade. Belmokhtar has maintained his loyalty to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodx al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra... Al-Mourabitoun and AQIM attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mail, last November, killing 20 including American development expert Anita Ashok Datar. In January, the two groups attacked the the Cappuccino restaurant and Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , killing 30 including two former members of the Swiss parliament and American missionary Michael James Riddering. In March, AQIM and al-Mourabitoun again teamed up for an attack on a beach resort in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, killing 18.
Meanwhile, the other branch of the Mourabitounes is also keeping itself busy:
[AnNahar] A Romanian mineworker kidnapped by an al-Qaida affiliate last year appeared in a video released Monday urging his government to secure his release as soon as possible. Iulian Ghergut, then a security officer, was taken on April 4, 2015, when five armed men attacked a manganese mine in Tambao, 220 miles (350 kilometers) northeast of Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, officials said at the time.
Ghergut, heavily bearded and squinting slightly, says he is in good health in the video he dated September 21 of this year. Speaking in a thick accent in French, he says he thinks of his family, while pressing his family and the Romanian government itself to do everything possible to secure his release.
The clip was distributed by SITE, a group based just outside Washington that monitors extremist groups.
Ghergut was taken by Al-Murabitoun, led by one-eyed Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar. The group, which has since affiliated itself with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, has claimed responsibility for several spectacular and bloody attacks in sub-Saharan Africa.
Kidnappings of foreigners, often for ransom, occasionally occur in Mali and Niger but not usually in Burkina Faso, a landlocked Sahel country.
[PJ] A former top State Department official who worked under Hillary Clinton told John Podesta that the use of private email accounts by Obama administration officials is widespread. "Btw you know as well as I every g*d d*mn cabinet officer and WH staff uses [their] gmail account!" Tom Nides, the former deputy secretary of state for management and resources, wrote to Clinton's campaign chair in a March 2015 email released by WikiLeaks.
Nides advised Podesta on how the campaign should handle the Clinton email scandal. "For what it’s worth. There is only one thing that needs to be done on this email thing. (Which I am sure nobody wants to do). Get a state dept career lawyer to go through all the emails and pull the official ones. I know all the reasons not to do it but it’s going to happen so we should do it," he wrote to Podesta. Con't.
Anything business related needs to use the official company email address each employee has. Period.
Failure to do so means you are fired. Period.
You can use as many private email addresses as you like for your private stuff but you may not use company computers to access it. Period.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
11/02/2016 9:26
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#6
They think they are untouchable, that is the problem.
When I worked for DOD, any hint that someone was using an unsecured account would bring down the wrath. These people do not fear retribution and punishment.
New policy - Anyone caught using unsecured communication methods will have their hands cut off and their tongue removed from their head.
#8
My company won't even let you use personal gMail on its devices or network for security reasons. But then, we're serious about protecting our data, not in fostering cheap political theatre.
Posted by: regular joe ||
11/02/2016 13:10
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#9
I'm pretty sure there's a reason they all use GMail accounts...
#11
So in order to hide their activities from FOIA scrutiny they conduct their business on an insecure platform with a huge attack surface and expose their precious information to any foreign entity that isn't electronically deaf and blind?
How much does it cost to bribe a Google intern to download the content of their mail accounts on a USB stick?
The free world is lead be people displaying Bizarro level stupidity.
#12
One rather 'wild eyed' theory is that the email scandal was actually created by the Clinton team (knowing that everyone including POTUS does it) and introduced by the NYT in order to portray HRC as the 'underdog.' Underdog status being necessary to win against Trump.
If that theory proves valid, the created scandal appears to have gotten somewhat out of hand.
[IsraelTimes] Small-scale festivities break out in Qabatiya during raid on home of Paleostinian policeman who shot Israeli soldiers on Monday
The brother of a Paleostinian security services officer who shot at a group of Israeli soldiers, wounding three, at a checkpoint outside Ramallah Monday, was tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! in the northern West Bank as part of a series of early-morning raids Tuesday, the army said. In addition, Israeli soldiers revoked the work permits belonging to family members of the gunman, Muhammad Turkman, at the family’s home in Qabatiya, south of Jenin, the Israel Defense Forces said.
On Monday evening, Turkman approached the Focus checkpoint, near Ramallah, and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at the troops stationed there. One soldier was seriously maimed in the attack -- his condition was later upgraded to "moderate" -- while two others sustained light injuries from shrapnel, according to medical authorities.
In Turkman’s home village of Qabatiya, small-scale festivities broke out between local residents and Israeli forces during the early Tuesday morning raid to arrest the gunman’s brother, who was identified by official Paleostinian Authority media as Muhannad Turkman, 23. Photos of the scene, posted on social media, showed rocks and cinderblocks scattered along the road in the Paleostinian village, as well as a fire raging in the middle of the street. According to an army spokesperson, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the troops, although she said that type of clash was "not out of the ordinary."
There were no serious injuries reported on either side.
A larger skirmish also broke out in the Deheisheh refugee camp, near Bethlehem, between local residents and a joint IDF-Border Police contingent on Monday night, with approximately 30 Paleostinians throwing rocks and improvised bombs at the troops, the army said. The Israeli force responded with non-lethal riot dispersal means, including flash-bang grenades, an IDF spokesperson said. There, too, no serious injuries were reported.
In the West Bank village of Deir Ballut, east of Petah Tikva, IDF soldiers also arrested a Paleostinian suspected of having defaced and damaged the security fence separating Israel from the West Bank, the army said.
During a raid in Talfit, southeast of Nablus, Israeli forces arrested three alleged members of the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group, the IDF said.
Another five Paleostinians -- one from Dura, near Hebron, and four from Tubas, in the northeastern West Bank -- were arrested for allegedly throwing rocks or taking part in violent protests, according to the army.
[IsraelTimes] Unclear if move was meant to prevent attack, or prompted Turkman’s shooting of IDF soldiers; cop’s brother was Al Aqsa Marty’s brigade member killed in 2011
Paleostinian security Monday night raided the family home of a Paleostinian police officer hours before he opened fire on IDF soldiers in the West Bank, according to testimony from the attacker’s father. Muhammad Turkman, 25, maimed three soldiers with an AK-47 assault rifle on Tuesday at the Focus checkpoint, near Ramallah.
Hours earlier, security forces burst into his family’s home in the West Bank village of Qabatiya, near Jenin, and confiscated weapons, Turkman’s parents told the Paleostinian news site Quds Net on Tuesday. However, ars longa, vita brevis... it is not clear if security forces raided the home to prevent an attack, or if the raid itself prompted Turkman to carry out the shooting.
In a separate interview with the Arab Israeli radio station A-shams, Turkman’s father, Abdul Khaleq, said his mother had called their son after the raid, and suggested this prompted him to carry out the attack.
"His mother told Muhammad what happened, and it seems it angered him greatly. He had his personal weapon on him issued by the security forces. We don’t know what his reaction was," the father said.
Muhammad is the second son from the Turkman family to be killed in recent years. His brother Rabia, who was a member of Fatah’s armed wing, the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, was killed in 2011 as a result of festivities with the IDF in Ramallah, Quds Net reported.
An unnamed source told the pro-Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", outlet Palinfo that an AK-47, a homemade cartridge and ammunition were confiscated from the Turkman home during the raid.
According to a senior Paleostinian security source, Turkman was a guard at the Paleostinian parliament. After his shift, he took a gun without permission and carried out the attack, Israel Radio reported on Monday.
Adnan Damiri, the spokesperson for the Paleostinian Security Forces, told Israel Radio on Tuesday his side still had "nothing" in their own investigation into the shooting. He added that the IDF does not do joint-investigations with the PA security forces, even when PA police are suspects.
Somalia National Army forces have withdrawn from Gofgadud area, 30Km from Baidoa town, the provincial capital of Bay region, residents said. They reportedly vacated the area over unknown reason.
The area was re-captured by government troops backed by forces from South-West State administration.
In an online statement, Al Shabaab said it had entered and liberated the area, shortly after the forces pulled out.
Somalia military officials were unavailable to reach on the phone for comments on the vacation made their forces.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
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(IraqiNews.com) Basra – Two Iraqi engineers were freed, hours after they were kidnapped near an oil field west of Qurna, the security committee at Basra Provincial Council stated on Monday.
Head of the Security Committee Jabbar al-Saedi said, “On Sunday, security forces received information indicating that two engineers working for the Russian oil company Lukoil were kidnapped, and the perpetrators of the incident are still unknown.”
“The security forces managed to free them after cordoning off a nearby neighborhood,” Saedi explained. “The rescue troops discovered an Iraqi broker held captive by the kidnappers at the same location and set him free in process,” he added.
Despite a relative stability in its security situation, Basra had witnessed a spike in armed tribal tensions, murders, kidnappings, armed robberies and carjacking during the first half of 2015. The situation, however, improved slightly early 2016 with a security operation resulting in the arrest of thousands of convicts within a few months.
North Korea is preparing to launch another intermediate-range ballistic missile in the next 24 to 72 hours, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the latest intelligence assessment tell Fox News.
The pre-Election Day launch of the Musudan missile would be the ninth test launch this year, in addition to two nuclear tests by the communist nation in defiance of United Nations sanctions.
Neither official would specify what the latest satellite imagery showed indicating a launch was days away. The U.S. military is concerned that the Musudan can be launched from concealable road-mobile launchers, typically from highways or mountainous areas. North Korean officials have long expressed a desire to build a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile to strike the United States.
North Korea has shown a propensity to conduct missile launches around major events in the United States. In early February, Superbowl Sunday in the United States, North Korea launched a satellite into space. One of the Musudan launches came before the final presidential debate and while top South Korean leaders visited Washington earlier this month.
In March, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning a January nuclear test as well the long range launch putting the satellite in space. Resolution 2270 calls on North Korea not conduct further tests and immediately suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program.
On Monday, for the first time in 28 years, a U.S. Navy ballistic missile submarine visited the U.S. island territory of Guam in the western Pacific, according to Navy officials. USS Pennsylvania, the American submarine which made the call to Guam, can carry 24 Trident D-5 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a range of nearly 7,500 miles.
Last week, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the goal of persuading North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons is probably a "lost cause."
Thanks in part to DNI Clapper...
Earlier this month, North Korea attempted two Musudan launches, which both failed according to the U.S. miltiary. One of the launches occurred while South Korea’s top diplomat and defense minister visited Washington for scheduled talks. At the State Department, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter vowed an “overwhelming” response if the United States or its allies were attacked. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. would deploy an advanced anti-missile system, THAAD, “as soon as possible.”
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se warned that North Korea was “nearing the final stage of nuclear weaponization” and called the threat “grave.”
At a Pentagon press conference alongside his American counterpart hours after the North Korean launch, South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo, speaking through an interpreter, said there was a “high possibility” North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was present for the launch. Han said his country would keep up “psy-ops” or psychological operations to expose North Korea to the outside world.
Recent satellite photos first reported by the Washington Post last week allege the two recent missile launches on Oct. 15 and Oct. 20 may, in fact, be long range KN-08 missiles and not Musudan intermediate-range missiles.
Despite a number of spectacular failures beginning in April, North Korea conducted a Musudan launch last summer that was deemed partially successful. The U.S. military’s Strategic Command said a June lunch resulted in a Musudan traveling nearly 250 miles into the Sea of Japan. When fully operational, a Musudan can travel up to 2,500 miles, well within range of U.S. forces stationed in Japan and Guam, according to officials.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2016
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At least 19 militants including an Egyptian national leading the group were killed during the operations in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Defense of Afghanistan (MoD) said Tuesday the militants were killed during the separate operations conducted in Asmar and Dangam districts.
MoD further added that 4 militants were killed and 4 others were wounded during a separate operation conducted in center of Ghor province.
The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the reports so far.
This comes as at least 19 militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group were killed in an airstrike in eastern Kunar province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said Sunday the airstrike was carried out in Dangam district and at least 8 militants of the terrorist group were also wounded.
Lashkar-e-Taiba also known as Army of the Righteous, is one of the largest and most proficient of the Kashmir-focused militant groups.
Kunar is among the relatively volatile provinces in eastern Afghanistan where anti-government armed militant groups are actively operating in a number of its districts and often carry out insurgency activities.
Pennsylvania state police have raided a Delaware County political field office seeking evidence of possible voter-registration fraud, according to court records. In a warrant filed late last week in County Court, investigators said they were seeking documents, financial information, and lists of employees at the Norwood office of FieldWorks LLC, a national organization that often does street work for Democrats, records show.
The warrant did not specify the nature of the probe, but said agents also were looking for "templates . . . utilized to construct fraudulent voter registration forms" and "completed voter registration forms containing same or similar identifying information of individuals on multiple forms."
A Delaware County judge on Friday afternoon signed the search warrant, but it was not known when it was executed. The warrant application was approved by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office. Jeff Johnson, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, declined to comment.
In a statement Monday, a spokesman for FieldWorks' national headquarters in Washington, said the company has "zero tolerance for fraud."
"FieldWorks is now working with county officials to provide them with information on our program and applications they are investigating," said the spokesman, Matt Dorf. "In keeping with our regular practice, we will work aggressively with authorities to seek the prosecution of anyone involved in wrongdoing."
FieldWorks describes itself as "a nationally recognized grassroots organizing firm founded to help progressive organizations, advocacy groups, and members of the Democratic family take their public engagement and electoral strategies to the next level." It was founded in 2001, according to its promotional information online.
The company did not respond to requests for comment on which campaigns or political groups have hired them to work in Pennsylvania.
In 2012, FieldWorks' voter registration efforts in Ohio sparked some controversy. FieldWorks employees filed thousands of new voter registration cards in the final week before the registration deadline. Some of them were found to be fraudulent.
In that same election, FieldWorks included a cover letter with its mass voter filing warning that it itself viewed scores of the submitted names as fraudulent.
Police in Cincinnati arrested a former Ohio University student in 2012 working in FieldWorks on charges of forging 22 signatures on a petition drive. Police said at the time that FieldWorks itself played no role in that man's scheme to pad his list.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
11/02/2016
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#1
Hell kill em all for that stupid stupid light and the bogus warranty.
At least 7 civilians were killed in an explosion triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in northern Parwan province of Afghanistan.
According to the local security officials, a wedding-bound vehicle struck an IED in Syed Khel district of Parwan.
The district administrative chief Ahmad Lemar Osmanyar confirmed the incident and said the civilians were on their way to a wedding party when their vehicle was targeted in roadside bomb explosion.
Osmanyar further added that an investigation is underway regarding the incident but the officials usually blame Taliban group for the IED attacks.
No group including the Taliban insurgents has so far claimed responsibility behind the incident.
Taliban insurgents and militants belonging to the other insurgent groups frequently use Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces but the ordinary civilians are often targeted in such attacks.
This comes as the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan released the latest civilian casualties report late last month which stated at least 3726 civilians were killed or wounded between January and June of this year.
The UN mission said the civilian casualties in the country has reached to a record number since counting began in 2009, with 5,166 civilians recorded killed or maimed in just the first six months of this year, of whom almost one-third were children.
The total civilian casualty figure recorded by the UN between 1 January 2009 and 30 June 2016 has risen to 63,934, including 22,941 deaths and 40,993 injured.
According to the UN mission, the anti-government elements remain responsible for 60 percent of the civilian casualties with ground engagements continuing to cause the highest number of civilian casualties, followed by complex and suicide attacks and improved explosive devices (IEDs).
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has downplayed Europe’s “red line” on press freedom and rejected remarks by the head of the European Parliament over the detention of the top staff of daily Cumhuriyet on terror charges.
He would, wouldn't he...
“Brother, we don’t care about your red line. It’s the people who draw the red line. What importance does your line have?” Yıldırım told members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in a speech in parliament on Nov. 1.
"And my boss speaks for the people who draw the red line. Why, it's his hidden hand that draws the red line. His hidden hand and your blood..."
“Turkey is not a country to be brought in line with salvoes and threats. Turkey gets its power from the people and will be held accountable by the people,” Yıldırım added.
The United States and European Union both voiced concern about the move in Turkey, while European Parliament President Martin Schulz wrote on Twitter that the detentions marked the crossing of “yet another red line” against freedom of expression in the country.
“The detention of [editor] Murat Sabuncu and other Cumhuriyet journalists is yet another red-line crossed against freedom of expression in Turkey,” Schulz said.
Yıldırım accused Europeans of applying double standards on freedoms, saying they allowed propaganda by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the European Parliament.
“We have no problem with press freedom. This is what we can’t agree with our European friends. They always bring up press freedom when we take steps in our fight against terrorism,” he said, adding that they should allow the judiciary to perform its duty without interference.
Perhaps because the Euros are really, really good at understanding when someone is using the "fight against terrorism" to suppress legitimate opposition. After all, the Euros themselves have experience at this...
Police detained the editors and top staff of daily Cumhuriyet, a pillar of the country’s secularist establishment, on Oct. 31, on accusations that the newspaper’s coverage had helped precipitate a failed military coup in July.
Journalists at the paper were suspected of seeking to precipitate the coup through “subliminal messages” in their columns before it happened, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. The suspects were charged with “committing crimes on behalf of the Fethullah Terrorist Organization [FETÖ] and the PKK.”
And just try proving that your writing isn't "subliminally" influencing someone else. It's the whole point of writing, after all...
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
I only "write" to make the djinns go away. Working so far.
CBBC’s series Just a Girl is the latest baffling attempt at normalizing, trivializing and even celebrating the completely unnecessary process that is childhood sex change. Freely available online on CBBC’s website, the series even teaches children about taking hormones and puberty-halting drugs. Do we truly know the effects of such drugs on one’s developing body and brain chemistry. Of course not. Why is this radical and aberrant process promoted to children? To what Circle of Hell do Programming Executives go?
Although X and Y chromosomal abnormalities are more common than people appreciate, but that never enters the discussion. It's always framed as an issue of personal choice.
#2
This entire manufactured transgender issue is utter nonsense. The very definition of Delusional is an individual who cannot reconcile emotionally and/or intellectually with physical reality. I am afraid a middle aged man such as Bruce Jenner who looks into a mirror and sees a woman staring back does not need surgery as much as a stint in the proverbial Quiet Room with some puzzles and baskets. The idea that this lunacy is being spread like manure over the airwaves is cultural madness, and worse yet aimed at the most defenseless segment of the population.
#3
This entire manufactured transgender issue is utter nonsense. The very definition of Delusional is an individual who cannot reconcile emotionally and/or intellectually with physical reality.
Silicone Gel Implants to a lesser degree? No 'nonsense' to plastic surgeons and big pharma. Follow the money, per usual.
#4
Bruce Jenner who looks into a mirror and sees a woman staring back does not need surgery as much as a stint in the proverbial Quiet Room with some puzzles and baskets.
Mr. Jenner doesn't see a woman staring back. Rather, he has a kink that gets off on having breasts of his very own. (He has refused to have his male bits removed.) Other than that he is robustly heterosexual, but very frustrated that none of the women in his life have agreed with him that the change is a turn-on. And yes, therapy to deal with this is a much better idea than indulging him.
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – The army’s 9th brigade announced on Tuesday liberating two villages, in eastern Mosul, from the control of the Islamic State, while emphasized that its forces continue advancing toward al-Hayy al-Arabi area, in the center of the city.
Deputy-Commander of the army’s 9th brigade, Brigadier General Nouman Khalifa, said in a statement, “Troops of the 35th and 36th regiments of the army’s 9th brigade managed, at noon today, to liberate the villages of Khowaytela and Shahrazad in Bartella area, in eastern Mosul, from the ISIS control.”
“Security forces are advancing toward al-Hayy al-Arabi area in central Mosul,” Khalifa added.
Yesterday, media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced, that the joint security forces are advancing toward the east coast of the city of Mosul from three axes.
Security force capture state TV facility in Mosul
(IraqiNews.com) Mosul – Iraqi security forces liberated on Tuesday the state-run Iraq Media Network’s office in the city of Mosul from the self-proclaimed Islamic State extremist group, state TV has announced in breaking news.
“Anti-terrorism forces have entered the city’s first districts, liberated the Iraq Media Network’s building in the east side of Mosul, capital of Nineveh Governorate, and raised the Iraqi flag above,” the report said.
An operation by Iraqi security forces, codenamed “We Are Coming Nineveh”, has entered its 16th day to liberate the governorate, IS’s last stronghold in the country. The campaign reached the east side on Monday, with IS abolishing reference to Mosul as the capital of its proclaimed “Caliphate” and evacuating its camps and secret prisons in the Ghazlani, besides taking out its wounded fighters from the city’s hospitals to an unknown destination.
In a related context, Abdel Karim al-Kilani, media advisor to the Nineveh governorate council, said Islamic State militants are holding 100 former security officers captives inside an ancient church in Babd al-Bid in central Mosul. He suggested that the group holds the captives for fear of a popular uprising against its fighters as Iraqi forces continue to successfully advance towards the province’s capital.
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Iraqi media outlets reported on Tuesday that the ISIS Operations Official was killed in the west side of the city of Mosul.
Al Sumaria News stated, “The ISIS Operations Official, Abu Yakoub, was killed along with one of his aides, in clashes with Iraqi joint forces at al-Shallalat district, which the security forces invaded on Tuesday.”
“An unprecedented state of chaos is prevailing at the west side of Mosul due to the advance of large vehicles equipped with heavy weapons towards the east side,” Al Sumaria added.
Earlier today, Iraq’s state TV said, that Iraqi forces stormed into al-Shallalat district, north of Mosul, and also liberated al-Samah district, west of Mosul, while the Anti-Terrorism forces freed the state TV office in Mosul from the ISIS fighters.
Iraqi government forces, Shia paramilitary troops and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, all supported by a US-led coalition, have been carrying out a major offensive in Mosul, the last Islamic State stronghold in Iraq.
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Joint Operations Command announced on Tuesday, that the troops of the army’s 9th brigade are advancing toward the areas near the west side of Mosul, while praising the victories achieved by the Federal Police forces and Nineveh Operations Command in the southern battle front.
Spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul, said during a press conference at the Joint Operations Command’s headquarters in Makhmur district, “Our heroes are achieving notable victories, and the army’s 9th brigade started to advance toward the areas of the west side of Mosul.”
“The heroes of the army’s 16th brigade are advancing toward their targets in the west side,” Rasoul explained.
Rasoul also praised the victories achieved by Nineveh Operations Command in the southern axis, in coordination with the Federal Police forces that liberated al-Shura area, one of ISIS important strongholds.
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Iraqi Ministry of Interior announced on Tuesday preparing police regiments to control the liberated areas in the city of Mosul, while emphasized reopening police stations and Civil Defense centers in the liberated areas of the city.
Spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Brigadier General Saad Moen, said in a statement, “The Ministry of Interior will handle the responsibility of the liberated areas in Mosul,” adding that, “The police forces reopened the police stations of Qayyarah, Shura and Hamam al-Alil, Hamdaniyah and Bartella.”
“The police regiments were prepared to control the liberated areas in the city of Mosul, especially the west coast of the city,” Moen added. “Civil defense centers also started to operate in the liberated areas,” Moen explained.
Moen also revealed that the Ministry of Interior is providing humanitarian aid to civilians in the liberated areas, while the Federal Police forces achieved notable victories and liberate 65 villages for far.
More from al-Manar
Members of the Iraqi army’s elite forces, the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), have recaptured a village and a television station on the edge of Mosul, in their latest push to liberate the northern city from the grip of ISIL terrorists.
“We finished clearing Gogjali and took control of the Mosul television station building,” Staff Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi said on Tuesday.
Major General Sami al-Aridi also confirmed the recapture of the TV station in Mosul, located in an eastern district of the city.
He noted that the advance on Mosul came after heavy fighting near the state TV building as Iraqi forces tried to push into more urban areas of the city.
The TV station is the first important building in Mosul that has been retaken by Iraqi troops since the beginning of the liberation operation.
Also on Tuesday, a CTS commander stressed that the “true liberation” of the contested city had begun, with Iraqi troops being stationed at the edge of Mosul.
“Our final goal is arriving in Mosul and liberating the city,” Staff General Taleb Sheghati al-Kenani told the Iraqiya state television from Gogjali.
Turkey deploys tanks to frontier with Iraq
Additionally on Tuesday, unnamed Turkish military sources said the army had started deploying tanks and other armored vehicles to the Silopi area of Sirnak province, situated close to the border with Iraq.
Photos provided by the sources showed a long column of vehicles, including tanks, tank rescue vehicles and construction vehicles in single file on a dual carriageway.
Last week, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units, announced that its members had begun operations aimed at cutting supply routes between the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqah by freeing Tal Afar, home to a sizeable ethnic Turkmen population.
However, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that his country was seeking to reinforce its troops in Tal Afar and vowed a “different response” if the Iraqi forces allegedly “cause terror” there.
Meanwhile, Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik said that the deployment is related to the developments in Iraq,
Turkey has “no obligation” to wait behind its frontiers and will take necessary measures if forces from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) take a foothold in Iraq’s Sinjar, he added.
Yet again more from al-Manar
Elite Iraqi forces were poised Tuesday for a first push into Mosul, after the prime minister warned terrorist groups who hold the city have no choice but to surrender or die.
Forces from Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) were fighting the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) in Gogjali, a village on the eastern edge of Mosul that they reached on Monday.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi appeared on state television on Monday wearing camouflage uniform.
“We will close in on (ISIL) from every place,” he said.
“They don’t have an exit, they don’t have an escape, they can only surrender — they can die or they can surrender.”
For the time being, the terrorists do have an escape route — to the west towards ISIL-controlled territory in neighboring Syria.
Paramilitary forces from the Popular Mobilization Forces have been advancing north in a bid to cut it but they still have some way to go.
They are not directly headed for Mosul, instead setting their sights on the town of Tal Afar which commands the city’s western approaches.
The PMF said on Monday that they had retaken a series of villages during their advance and surrounded others.
On the northern and eastern sides of Mosul, peshmerga forces from the autonomous Kurdish region have taken a series of villages and towns and consolidated their positions.
To the south, federal forces, backed by coalition artillery units stationed in the main staging base of Qayyarah, have been pushing north.
They have the most ground to cover and are still some distance from the southern limits of Mosul.
The initial shaping phase of the operation, during which dozens of villages and several towns have already been retaken from ISIL, is still under way.
Once it is over, Iraqi forces are expected to besiege Mosul, try to open safe corridors for the million-plus civilians still believed to be inside, and then enter the city to take on die-hard terrorists in street battles.
ISIL has been losing ground steadily in Iraq since 2015 and the outcome of the Mosul battle is in little doubt, but commanders have warned it could last months.
More from Asharq Al-Awsat
Iraqi troops entered the outskirts of Mosul on Tuesday taking the state television building and advancing despite fierce resistance by ISIS militants who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.
In over two years, this was the first time Iraqi forces have set foot in the city, Iraq’s second largest, as the two-week campaign to recapture the jihadists’ last main bastion in Iraq entered a new phase of urban warfare.
Artillery and air strikes pounded the city, still home to 1.5 million people, and residents of the eastern neighborhood of al-Quds said the ultra-hardline Sunni militants had resorted to street fighting to try to hold the army back.
Soldiers of the elite Counter Terrorism Service (CST) also stormed into the state television station in Mosul on Tuesday, the first capture of an important building in the ISIS-held city since the start of the offensive about two weeks ago, the force commander, Lieutenant-General Talib Shaghati, said.
“This is a good sign for the people of Mosul because the battle to liberate Mosul has effectively begun,” Shaghati said.
Iraqi troops, security forces, Shi’ite militias and Kurdish Peshmerga have been advancing on several fronts towards Mosul, backed by U.S.-led troops and air forces. Special forces units sweeping in from the east have made fastest progress.
“We are currently fighting battles on the eastern outskirts of Mosul,” CTS Lieutenant-General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi said. “The pressure is on all sides of the city to facilitate entry to the city Centre.”
He said CTS forces had cleared ISIS fighters from most of the eastern district of Kokjali, a neighborhood inside Mosul’s city limits close to al-Quds, on Tuesday, “so now we are inside the district of Mosul”.
“The special forces have stormed in,” Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces said. “Daesh is fighting back and have set up concrete blast walls to block off the Karama neighborhood and our troops’ advance,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the ISIS group. Bombs have been laid along the road into the city, he added.
Inside the village, white flags still hung from some buildings, put up a day earlier by residents eager to show they wouldn’t resist the Iraqi forces’ advance.
Reuters reported residents speaking by telephone of heavy clashes since dawn and “deafening and frightening” explosions.
“We can see Daesh fighters firing towards the Iraqi forces and moving in cars between the alleys of the neighborhood. It’s street fighting.”
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday that Iraqi forces were trying to close off all escape routes for the several thousand ISIS fighters inside Mosul.
“God willing, we will chop off the snake’s head,” Abadi, wearing military fatigues, told state television. “They have no escape, they either die or surrender.”
Commanders have warned that the fight for Mosul, which could be the toughest of the decade-long turmoil since the U.S. invasion which overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, is likely to last for months.
The U.S. military estimates IS has 3,000-5,000 fighters in Mosul and another 1,500-2,500 in its outer defensive belt. The total includes about 1,000 foreign fighters. They stand against an anti-ISIS force that including army units, militarized police, special forces and Kurdish fighters totals over 40,000 men.
The United Nations has said the Mosul offensive could also trigger a humanitarian crisis and a possible refugee exodus if the civilians inside in Mosul seek to escape, with up to 1 million people fleeing in a worst-case scenario.
The International Organization for Migration said that nearly 18,000 people have been displaced since the start of the campaign on Oct. 17, excluding thousands of villagers who were forced back into Mosul by retreating jihadists who used them as human shields.
U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said ISIS fighters tried to force another 25,000 civilians from a town south of Mosul back towards the city on Monday. Most of the trucks carrying them turned back under pressure from patrolling aircraft, she said.
Yet again more from Asharq Al-Awsat
Kirkuk – Iraqi military officers gave conflicting statements on Monday on the battle of Mosul as one confirmed the Iraqi forces entered the city, while the other denied.
Iraqi troops entered the Karama district of the ISIS stronghold of Mosul on Monday, their first advance into the city itself after two weeks of fighting in the surrounding area to dislodge the militants, an officer said.
Commander of U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service told Reuters that forces entered the left neighborhood of Mosul and are close to the city center.
“They have entered Mosul. They are fighting now in al-Karama district,” the commander said.
Yet, Lieutenant General Abdul Wahhab al-Saidi denied that troops had entered Karama, but he did say that they were moving on Kukjali, an industrial zone west of Bazwaya that lies about 1km from Mosul’s municipal boundary.
The counter-terrorism unit resumed the offensive on the eastern front on Monday. It had paused its advance last week after it made gains quicker than forces on other fronts, to allow them to close the gap and get nearer to the city.
According to a military statement: “The operation to liberate the left bank of Mosul has started,” with the participation of units of the army’s ninth armored division, third platoon, and 16th infantry troop.
Counter Terrorism forces were under attack as they advanced toward the Christian town of Bartella. A warplane targeted a site suspected to belong to ISIS and used by terrorists to launch missiles, and a Humvees motorcade targeted an industrial area controlled by extremists.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Federal Police (IFP) and Iraqi rapid intervention forces with air and ground support from the international coalition, stationed in Qayyara military airbase south of Mosul, advanced towards the north. In addition, federal police continue to clear the town of Shura of ISIS militants after its liberation.
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Iran-supported, began a new front at the west axis. PMF’s operations do not aim to head towards Mosul directly, but towards Shiite-majority town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul. That would cut off any chance for the extremists to retreat their positioning to Syria or receive reinforcements.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Iraqi Joint Special Operations Command, Yahya Rasoolal-Zubaidi told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the ninth division and counter terrorism are 2 km away from the center of Mosul. He added that the forces are stationed on the bank of Tigris river and awaits orders to enter the city.
Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Counter Terrorism Forces, and about 10,000 tribe fighters started the offensive, with air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Mosul.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi assigned the west of Mosul, particularly the strategic town of Tal Afar, to the PMF to cut any reinforcements and prevent militants from escaping toward Syria.
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11/02/2016
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[AlArabiya] The Syrian army and its allies seized a strategic area in the besieged rebel-held eastern Ghouta area of Damascus, tightening their grip on the biggest insurgent stronghold near the capital.
Opposition forces said the army stormed the town of Tel Kurdi on Sunday bringing them only a few kilometers from the city of Douma, the once sprawling urban heart of the eastern rural area of Damascus known as al Ghouta.
“After intensive battles on this front that continued more than fifty days in which the Assad militias used a scorched earth policy, the Mujahdeen were forced to retreat from the area,” said Hamza Bairqdar, the military spokesman for Jaish al Islam, the biggest rebel group in the area.
Since the start of the year, Syrian government forces and their allies, including Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have moved into Eastern Ghouta from the south, the southwest, and the east, helped by infighting among rebel groups that control the area.
“The collapse of the fronts is due to the internal fights,” said Adnan Abdul Aziz, a lawyer in the rebel run Douma local council.
Tel Kurdi comes after a string of advances from the towns of Hosh Nasri, al Fara and before that Maydaa and Deir al-Asafir that culminated in the seizing of a southern agricultural belt.
The densely populated rural Ghouta area consists of farms and towns stretching northeast from Damascus that has been in rebel hands since the uprising began in 2011.
Securing Damascus
Several hundred thousand people are believed to be trapped in Eastern Ghouta, an action similar in scale to the 250,000 civilians under siege in Aleppo.
Government troops, backed by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, have been rooting out pockets of rebellion near the capital, notably taking the suburb Daraya.
Daraya's fall put pressure on other besieged rebel strongholds, boosting government hopes of subduing western and eastern suburbs of Damascus whose close proximity to Assad's seat of power posed a major threat.
Separately, in the southwest of Damascus, in an area known as the Western Ghouta, the Syrian army and its allies have severed supply lines between rebel-held Khan al Shih, a Palestinian refugee camp, and the town of Zakiya to its south. The army had earlier seized the nearby town of Deir Khabyeh.
Aleppo attacks
Meanwhile, a tank shell hit the United Nations office in western Aleppo on Sunday, damaging the top floors of a building that is well known to be the UN base in the contested Syrian city, a UN statement said on Monday.
“It is appalling that the building that houses the UN offices was directly targeted,” the top UN official in Syria, Ali Al-Za’tari, said in a statement.
“We strongly condemn the increased violence in all of Aleppo, east and west, which has resulted in the death and injury of scores of civilians, including children.”
The UN statement did not mention any people being hurt by the explosion, nor did it specify how it was known to be a tank shell, rather than any other type of munition, or which side was responsible for firing the shell.
Rebel groups have launched an assault on western Aleppo in the past few days to try to lift a siege on the eastern half of the city, where an estimated 275,000 people, and 8,000 rebels, are surrounded by forces loyal to Assad.
Over 40 people have been killed and many more wounded by rockets indiscriminately launched by non-state armed groups on civilian areas in western Aleppo, the UN statement said.
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Syria’s military said Monday that it is determined to repel an attack on the government-controlled western part of Aleppo as it continued to battle insurgents in intense battles on the city’s edge.
The military said in a statement that opposition fighters have killed 84 people, mostly women and children, since launching their offensive Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights opposition monitoring group estimates that 51 civilians, including 18 children and 61 pro-government fighters, have been killed. Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said about 70 opposition fighters were killed in the fighting that included airstrikes on the frontline.
Amnesty International said the armed opposition offensive was “marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas.”
An insurgent alliance, known as the Army of Conquest and which includes an al-Qaida-linked group, attacked western Aleppo, aiming to breach a months-long siege on the rebel-held eastern side of the city.
They captured al-Assad district on the western edge of government-controlled Aleppo Saturday, and the village of Minian further north. On Monday, insurgent media reported that they repelled an attempt by government and allied troops to regain control of the village.
The Syrian military accused the insurgents of “criminal acts” that included an alleged attack of toxic gas that wounded several. But it said that won’t dissuade its troops from continuing its war on terrorism.
The insurgents denied those allegations and also accused the government of using chlorine barrel bombs on civilians in rural Aleppo.
Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.
Amnesty International said the use of chemical weapons, regardless of who is behind the attack, can never be justified and constitutes a war crime.
The rights group said insurgents showed a “shocking disregard for human lives,” using imprecise explosive weapons in the vicinity of densely populated areas.
“The goal of breaking the siege on eastern Aleppo does not give armed opposition groups a license to flout the rules of international humanitarian law by bombarding civilian neighborhoods in government-held areas without distinction,” said Samah Hadid, deputy director for campaigns at Amnesty International in Beirut.
Meanwhile, in southern Syria, government troops repelled an insurgent attack on military posts in rural Daraa. The state news agency said troops foiled an attack by four car bombs heading for the military area, killing dozens of militants.
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[Ynet] After conquering villages in northern Iraq, ISIS spells out in great detail their system of rules; 'Pre-pubescent girls can be taken as concubines. You cannot have penetrative sex but you can still enjoy them.'
After ISIS conquered villages in northern Iraq, it spelled out in minute detail the rules of its self-proclaimed caliphate, from beard length to alms to guidelines for taking women as sex slaves.
ISIS documents and posters, obtained in villages captured by Iraqi forces, highlight a tight and comprehensive system of rule by the bully boys, who went to great lengths to explain their myrmidon philosophy.
The documents and other materials, printed with ISIS logos, were found by Rooters in offices used by the group until a few days ago. Members of the Iraqi forces told Rooters the documents originated from ISIS, although this could not be independently verified.
Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have seized several villages and towns during an offensive against the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , ISIS's last stronghold in the country.
When ISIS swept through the north in 2014, it announced a self-proclaimed caliphate, which appealed to some fellow Sunnis who felt marginalized by the Shi'ite-led central government.
But that appeal faded as ISIS enforced its medieval thinking with brute force, beheading anyone deemed an opponent.
Slick, colorful posters, pamphlets and documents highlight ISIS's intense focus on dictating what it called proper Islamic behavior for the citizens of its caliphate.
Violations of its rules meant punishment such as public whipping or being hauled off to Mosul for execution, according to several villagers who recently beat feet from ISIS areas.
A green wallet-size insert lays out guidelines for how to pray properly. It shows a young boy undertaking ablutions. "Wash your feet from the direction of your toes down to your heels," it said.
Gold bracelets
A five-page pamphlet with pictures of gold bracelets, diamond rings and wheat on the front spelled out instructions on how to give alms, an obligation under Islam. Failure to do so would mean a penalty.
In the village of Shura, where seven ISIS jacket wallahs were recently rubbed out as they rushed toward Iraqi forces, murderous Moslems kept meticulous records of who had given alms. Entries showed whether an individual owned gold, property or a car. Monthly salaries were also noted.
Unlike al Qaeda, its predecessor in Iraq, ISIS made its name in the jihadi world by becoming the first bully boy group to capture significant amounts of land in the Middle East, hold it and then set up an administration.
But air strikes by a US-led coalition targeting ISIS's leaders and its sources of income have dealt a major blow to the caliphate.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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#1
They recommend destroying your dish TV? That's hardly a winning recruiting message.
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.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Police in Des Moines, Iowa, say two officers have been shot and killed in ambush-style attacks.
Posted by: JohnQC ||
11/02/2016 8:07
[Lawfareblog] There are limited details about the recent U.S. Freedom of Navigation (FON) operation in the South China Sea on October 21, but by any account it surely did not achieve what some had advocated: challenging China’s installations on artificial land in the Spratly Islands. Instead, if press accounts and expert analysis (such as Julian Ku’s post) are correct, the USS Decatur challenged Chinese claims to "straight baselines" surrounding the separate Paracel Islands, which the U.S. government has long claimed are excessive. By challenging an explicit claim on the grounds that it exceeds what international law supports, such a maneuver is a textbook FON operation. A military maneuver designed to challenge China’s Spratly Islands construction is far less clear-cut.
[NPR] For years, New Jersey drivers enjoyed relatively cheap gas -- thanks to one of the lowest state gasoline taxes in the country. The state's gas tax hasn't gone up since 1988. But that all changed Tuesday, when it jumped by 23 cents a gallon.
SRINAGAR, KASHMIR : India and Pakistan on Tuesday tallied at least 19 deaths in recent firing across their disputed border in Kashmir, where the nuclear-armed neighbours are engaging in increasingly intense artillery duels.
[TheFederalist] There’s a reason Planned Parenthood isn’t very good at women’s health care, as these reviews attest: Planned Parenthood’s bad business model. Because Planned Parenthood is a rational economic actor, its clinics will push abortion over other women’s health care--explicitly in the event of a pregnancy, and implicitly by not providing adequate contraceptive care and instruction.
[DailyCaller] The memo, dated April 7, 2015, lays out several proposed changes to the foundation. Regarding donations from foreign governments, the memo states that "There are multiple options for consideration."
It got so bad that in 2015, as Warah explains, a coalition of nine UN whistleblowers got together to raise the matter with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. "Each of us has blown the whistle on serious wrongdoing, gross misconduct, and even criminal acts at the United Nations," the group wrote in the letter, which is quoted in the book. "Our collective experience of reporting misconduct in the UN covers sexual exploitation, abuse of power, corruption, and other criminals activity over a period of more than a decade and a half."
Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, which saw a wave of detentions targeting executives and columnists early on Oct. 31, has published reports aimed at “stirring public disorder in line with the aims of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ),” according to the probe’s prosecutor.
Zawahiri
North Korea is preparing to launch another intermediate-range ballistic missile in the next 24 to 72 hours, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the latest intelligence assessment tell Fox News.
Pennsylvania state police have raided a Delaware County political field office seeking evidence of possible voter-registration fraud, according to court records. In a warrant filed late last week in County Court, investigators said they were seeking documents, financial information, and lists of employees at the Norwood office of FieldWorks LLC, a national organization that often does street work for Democrats, records show.
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has downplayed Europe’s “red line” on press freedom and rejected remarks by the head of the European Parliament over the detention of the top staff of daily Cumhuriyet on terror charges. 
[AlArabiya] The Syrian army and its allies seized a strategic area in the besieged rebel-held eastern Ghouta area of Damascus, tightening their grip on the biggest insurgent stronghold near the capital.
