HT AosHQ
An estimated 30 percent of American Jews voted for Trump, the highest Jewish vote for a Republican since 1988. Among religious Jews, anecdotal evidence suggests, support for Trump was overwhelming. But most Jewish Republican leaders backed Hillary Clinton or minor candidates in the general election while opposing Trump in terms that often climbed the walls of hysteria.
"Jews to this day continue to combine an almost pathologically intense concern for politics with a seemingly equally intense inclination toward political foolishness, often crossing over into the realm of the politically suicidal," wrote the late Irving Kristol, the original neoconservative. His son Bill Kristol proved the Jewish proclivity for political hara-kiri remains undiminished in his generation by doing everything he could to prevent the election of Donald Trump‐along with such high-profile Jewish conservatives as pundit Charles Krauthammer and Commentary Editor John Podhoretz. In the end, Kristol destroyed his own career. On Dec. 12 he resigned as editor of The Weekly Standard, the political journal he founded 20 years ago. I was most disappointed in Krauthammer, who I had great respect for
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2016
12:47 ||
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#1
To paraphrase Ben Richards (The Running Man) "Was de Hammer, now just hambone..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 13:39
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#2
They fought against the boogieman-Trump. They will now see how president-elect and then President Trump actually behaves. Without the need to pontificate at frequent intervals, they will have time to evaluate and analyze -- and being intellgent, thoughtful people, I expect at least some of them will learn useful thinge and draw useful conclusions from the experience. And at least some of them will resurrect their careers.
The Syrian city of Aleppo has fallen. Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad's Arab Socialist Baath Party regime have won.
Long known as Syria's Stalingrad, the Battle of Aleppo has raged since July, 2012, when the Free Syrian Army opened fire on Assad's security forces in the Salaheddine district.
Four and a half years later, after being held by checkboard of various rebel factions, Assad's army has retaken the city with a rogue's gallery of international allies.
It's just about the last place on earth you'd want to be right about now.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2016
12:13 ||
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#1
This is not the West's fault.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 13:42
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#2
Who stopped Jr from suppressing the Sunny uprising 4 years ago, MM?
#3
Sorry. The muzlimb spring was more like indian summer. Short and not for real...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 14:52
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#4
barry didn't have the rocks to keep the muzlimb bros in charge in Egypt either. So there is that...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 14:59
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#5
I feel sorrow for the people of Syrian and Aleppo. Like all wars and conflicts, it is evil and disgusting. I am however, not going to send my son or your son to help fix it. If they land on the OBX and invade Duck, I will personally drive there and help kill every last one of them.
#6
#5 has the only correct attitude regarding that mess...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 15:48
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#7
You don't get involved in civil wars. They are... not civil.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/17/2016 17:05
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#8
I'm with Mr. B and EC.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/17/2016 17:18
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#9
This is a proxy war -- Iran, Russia and Hizb'allah vs. Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and Qatari funds and weapons in Sunni jihadi hands, all willing to fight to the last Syrian.
#11
"Iran, Russia and Hizb'allah vs. Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and Qatari funds and weapons in Sunni jihadi hands, all willing to fight to the last Syrian"
Bingo, #9 tw.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/17/2016 21:21
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[Wash Times] The FBI and the Director of National Intelligence agree with a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks on the U.S. election were intended in part to help President-elect Donald Trump win office, according to news reports.
Citing U.S. officials’ accounting of a staff memo sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees, The Washington Post reported Friday that both FBI Director James Comey and DNI James Clapper supported the CIA’s analysis of Russia’s hacking efforts.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with (Director) FBI James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," Mr. Brennan wrote, according to the Post.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI."
NBC News also confirmed the Post’s report. Reports from earlier this week indicated that the ODNI had not endorsed the assessment that the Russian’s got involved to help Mr. Trump win the election.
Coming soon: Obama confers with Lynch, threatens to block removal of DNI, Director FBI and CIA pending outcome of investigation. Recommends pulling of Secret Service protection.
#3
They are prepping the battlespace for the delay of the electoral vote and the eventual nullification of it.
The states will vote monday as planned, but when the results are close to being certified in congress the rug will get yanked out from under us.
Election hacked, all previous results are null and void. Demoncrats keep power.
#6
Yeah, a lot of that money came from entities that felt they were buying something, not placing a wager. Nasty surprise for them...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 12:02
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"... Support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.... Bear true faith and alligence ...."
Funny how those words in the oath will require the people in the military to take seriously any such attempt to subvert a peaceful transfer of power. Sedition is in the air folks, and it needs to be dealt with if it goes any further than snowflakes talking.....
#9
I watched Obama's news conference yesterday. It was unpleasant and I had to force myself to sit through it.
When asked about releasing the evidence that proves Putin's involvement in the hack he said he could not reveal certain "sources and methods". He said we have a choice of trusting our own intelligence community or trusting Putin.
Gosh, that's a tough one. He wants us to trust the people who refused to prosecute Hillary for violating secrecy laws? The people who brought us Benghazi and Syria? The people who got us into Iraq under false pretenses? The people who for decades did absolutely nothing about the cyber war being waged against us all by the Chinese, Russians, Ukrainians, Turks, etc., etc., but then, when those enemies made Hillary look bad, all of a sudden our vaunted intelligence community tells us they were endangering our democracy?
I smell hypocrisy.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2016 12:54
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#10
I'm starting to debate the use of the CIA. They are not paid to politically manipulate This Country like they are.
It looks more like a bunch of un-professional, leftist goons.
They better stop playing games.
We could replace that festering blight on our Republic with a new OSS overnight.
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian PM last week accused the US of failing to come through with a single dollar of a promised $263 million. The American government actually gives more aid than any other country.
Paleostinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah claimed last week that his government has received no aid from Washington in 2016, accusing the US of imposing a "financial siege" on the Paleostinians. But the State Department has in fact provided Ramallah with over $357 million in financial assistance in the past year, according to information given to The Times of Israel by a US State Department official on Thursday.
Additionally, in 2016 alone, the US contributed $355,177,827 to the United Nations
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#3
The maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $127,200.
Which means, the vast majority of Americans will never reach full annual payment, and thus never qualify for full SSN benefits. Nothing quite like it, losing on both ends.
[IsraelTimes] Major changes in funding announced over concerns money was being used to pay salaries for convicted Paleostinian terrorists.
Britannia has made major changes in funding Paleostinians after a three-month freeze on part of its aid, over concerns that the money was being used to fund salaries for convicted Paleostinian terrorists.
In October the Secretary of State for International Development, Priti Patel, ordered a review of the funding procedure and froze about a third of Britannia’s aid to the Paleostinians while the review, undertaken in close collaboration with the Foreign Office, was carried out.
This week, DIFD -- the Department for International Development -- announced that although Britannia would continue to fund the Paleostinian Authority, there would be certain crucial changes. In future, DIFD said, its aid would go "solely to vital health and education services, in order to meet the immediate needs of the Paleostinian people and maximise value for money.
Funding will only go towards the salaries of health and education public servants on a vetted list". Money from the UK "will no longer be used to support the salaries of Paleostinian Authority public servants in Gazoo who have not been able to work".
And Britannia "will assess fiscal and public financial management reforms that the Paleostinian Authority will need to show progress against in order to secure full future payments from the UK".DIFD says that UK support to the PA -- up to £25 million this financial year `-- will help to pay the salaries of up to 30,000 teachers, doctors, nurses, midwives and other essential health and education public servants on a vetted list.
"This will enable around 25,000 young Paleostinians to get an education, provide up to 3,700 immunisations for children, and around 185,000 medical consultations annually."
The payments to the PA will now be made through an EU system which is checked by independent auditors; payments are additionally checked through a strict vetting process which takes in a variety of different sanctions, including, says DIFD, "terrorism financing".
[IsraelTimes] Senior Tunisian journalist says Israeli intelligence was tracking Mohammed al-Zoari, who helped terror group build drones.
Mohammed al-Zoari, an aviation scientist and engineer with links to Paleostinian terror group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, was rubbed out at point-blank range on Thursday in the Tunisian city of Sfax, Hebrew outlets quoted Arabic media as saying Friday evening.
According to reports on Israel’s Channel 10 and Army Radio, unknown assailants shot Zoari, who was said to have helped Hamas develop unmanned drones, multiple times when he was sitting in his car near his home.
The reports said between three and seven bullets were found in his body.
According to Channel 10, a senior Tunisian journalist said the Israeli spy agency Mossad had been tracking Zoari for quite some time, and was responsible for his liquidation.
Israel’s Channel 2 news said Zoari was reported to have received death threats because of his Paleostinian terror links.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... Channel 2 also quoted Tunisian security officials as saying that the investigation of the death did not currently suggest an liquidation by a foreign intelligence agency.
There was no official Israeli response to the reports.
The Tunisian interior ministry tossed in the slammer Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! five nationals on allegations of involvement with the killing, Channel 10 reported.
Zoari was known for his ties with Hamas and was credited with helping the group develop unmanned aerial vehicles. Channel 2 showed footage of him working on what appeared to be small drones.
Later Friday, a senior Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri, told a Tunisian radio station that "the Zionist enemy" was the only party likely to benefit from the liquidation of Zoari, and that Mossad had a long history of killing experts with capability to develop military technology, especially those related to developing UAVs.
Israel does not want such capabilities to reach Paleostinian organizations in Gazoo, Masri said, according to Israel Radio. He did not confirm Tunisian reports that Zoari was tied to Hamas.
[IsraelTimes] Fall makes November tally the second lowest figure recorded since October 2015, when cycle of violence began.
The number of terrorist attacks recorded in Israel dropped last month by 38 percent over October nationally -- largely thanks to a 72 percent drop in incidents in Jerusalem.
The Shin Bet internal security service recorded a total of 95 attacks in November, with only nine in Jerusalem, compared to 153 attacks in October nationally and 48 in the capital, according to the security agency’s monthly report, which it published on its website earlier this week.
Only one Israeli, a member of the security forces, was maimed in the November attacks -- he sustained minor injuries ‐ compared to 23 maimed and two killed during the previous month.
The drop in attacks makes the November tally the second lowest figure recorded since October 2015, when 620 attacks were recorded following a near tripling over the previous month. The lowest figure recorded in any month after that conflagration was in August of this year, with 93 incidents.
But for Jerusalem, November has been the calmest month since the flare-up last year, which Paleostinian nationalists said was over Israeli actions endangering the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located on the Temple Mount. Israel’s government denied these claims, maintaining it was keeping the status quo.
The Shin Bet reports do not include dozens of incidents of rock throwing that occur every month, mainly in the West Bank.
In September, October and November on 2015, the Shin Bet recorded 223, 620 and 326 attacks, respectively, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a "wave of terror."
h/t Instapundit
In recent weeks, we have witnessed ever-more cartoonish examples of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Even those of us who have been sharply critical of Trump (such as www.thelibertyzone.us) are staring on with a kind of revulsed fascination as our chattering class descends ever deeper into the pits of insanity. So do those who merely voted against Hillary rather than for Trump, such as the razor-sharp "Dystopic" or the underrated historical novelist Roy M. Griffis.
...As I was perusing Trump’s cabinet list in the Times of London the other day, I was struck not so much by the names -- some ’feck yeah!’, some ’well, OK’, some ’meh’ -- as by what wasn’t there. The ’Brahmandarins™’ had been left behind, as it were. Allow me to expand.
...Now how does this tie in with Trump and his cabinet? In the last several Presidential elections, Brahmandarin D candidates (Obama, Hillary) were pitted against Kshatriyas (McCain) or Vaishyas (Romney, Trump). While the D party used to be one with which particularly Shudras (laborers) could identify, over time it has increasingly become a patron-client coalition of Brahmandarins and Dalits.
...Fast-forward to the present. In the last several Presidential elections, Brahmandarin D candidates (Obama, Hillary) were pitted against Kshatriyas (McCain) or Vaishyas (Romney, Trump). Unsurprisingly, Brahmandarin presidents tend to appoint cabinet and senior aides from among the Brahmandarin caste, while Trump’s appointments came almost exclusively from the Vaishyas (Exxon CEO Tillerson for State, various other execs), and Kshatriyas (Mattis, Flynn, Kelly). It doesn’t matter that most of these people have real-world achievements to their names than a Robbie Mook type can only dream of: they are "ignorant" (read: insufficiently subservient to New Class shibboleths), "hate-filled", etc. -- All short-hand for "not one of us".
#2
I see it as much simpler.
Trump nominates folk who know enough about the agency they are being put in charge of to implement an austerity package based on "You are fired!".
Tell of desperate appeals from 'idiots' to oppose president-elect on Monday
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] The Associated Press has interviewed more than 330 of the electoral college's 538 voters
They will cast their vote on Monday with desperate pleas for them to back Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, despite the outcome of the election
Its reporters found just one Republican who will not vote for Donald Trump in defiance of the mandate given to him by his state
College members told how they have come under massive pressure to go rogue - with one telling of hand-written six page letters quoting the Constitution
'Hell will freeze and we will be skating on the lava before I change,' one said. 'He won the state and I've pledged and gave my word that that's what I would do.'
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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Say, just for conjecture, that several Electors cave in and change for Hillary. THEN Trump has to concede "defeat" and all the Lefty weepers cheer and assume we will give it all back.
yeah?
What you will get from that is that there will be a guns out Civil War. And the Military won't be able to handle.
The Electors are not stupid people. There is nothing they can be threatened with that amounts to zip from the Left. ANY Elector who denies his vote won't live out the year. The stupid don't live to be old.
INSTANT full name and address notoriety And then what does the stupid one have as a shield?
He just pulled the pin and ate the grenade is all he did.
#3
This was always a ridiculous effort. Electors are life-long party loyalists. Imagine the most hardcore Republican faithful true-believer you can, then multiply by 1,000. That's an elector. These people would rather sell their own children to Mongolia to make dog food than elect Hillary Clinton.
#4
We live in the age of Rachel Dolezal. Even people caught in the most ridiculous lie savor their 15 minutes of infamy. Whether there will be more - or less - of that type of behavior in the future will be up to all the rest of us...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2016 13:45
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I really hope the electors get together and publish a book filled with the threats and such they were sent. Really display to the nation the madness out there.
[al-Manar] In continuation of their atrocious crimes against the entire humanity, the takfiri terrorists chose a seven-year-old girl to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria’s capital Damascus, according to Al-Manar reporter.
In details, the female kid, holding a hidden explosive belt, entered a police station in Midan neighborhood in Damascus before she was remotely detonated, which claimed her slightly injured one officer, the reporter added.
The clearing of the last opposition-held areas of the Syrian city of Aleppo was put on hold on Friday after pro-regime militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two Shi’ite villages being besieged by rebel fighters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said a group of ambulances and cars containing hundreds of civilians and fighters were stopped by pro-regime gunmen at a checkpoint south-west of Aleppo. They later returned to the enclave.
The second day of the operation to take fighters and civilians out of Aleppo’s rebel enclave ground to a halt amid recriminations from all sides after a morning that had seen the pace of the operation pick up.
“Aleppo is now a synonym for hell,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters. “I very much regret that we had to stop this operation.”
Aleppo had been divided between regime and rebel areas in the nearly six-year civil war, but a lightning advance by the Syrian army and its allies that began in mid-November deprived rebels of most of their territory in a matter of weeks.
Russia said the Syrian army had established control over all districts of eastern Aleppo although regime troops were suppressing isolated areas where rebel fighters continued to resist.
Rebel sources accused pro-regime Shi’ite militias, the so-called Iran-backed Hezbollah, of opening fire on a convoy carrying evacuees from east Aleppo and robbing them. Road blocks went up and a convoy was forced to turn back.
Though both Russia and Iran back regime head Bashar al-Assad, rebels have blamed Tehran and the Shi’ite groups it backs in Syria for obstructing Moscow’s efforts to broker the evacuation of eastern Aleppo.
Rebels in eastern Aleppo went on high alert after pro-regime forces prevented civilians from leaving and deployed heavy weaponry on the road out of the area, a Syrian rebel commander in the city said.
A Syrian official source said the evacuation was halted because rebels had sought to take out people they had abducted with them, and they had also tried to take weapons hidden in bags. This was denied by Aleppo-based rebel groups.
But a media outlet run by the pro-regime Hezbollah group said protesters had blocked the road from the city, demanding that wounded people from the Shi’ite villages of Foua and Kefraya, which are besieged by rebel groups, in nearby Idlib province should also be evacuated.
Iran, one of Syria’s main allies, had demanded that the villages be included in a ceasefire deal under which people are leaving Aleppo, rebel and United Nations officials have said.
The chaos surrounding the Aleppo evacuation reflects the complexity of the war with an array of groups and foreign interests involved on each side.
The International Comimttee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on all sides on Friday to continue the evacuation operation which was suspended hours earlier.
“Regretfully the operation was put on hold. We urge the parties to ensure it can be relaunched & proceed in the right conditions,” Robert Mardini, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East tweeted.
No further details were given.
More than 40 wounded people and around 3,000 civilians including children and women were evacuated from east Aleppo on Thursday in two evacuations, the ICRC said in a statement.
Mardini stated that “many more” rotations of buses and ambulances might be needed in coming days.
Turkey to Set up Camp for Aleppo Evacuees in Syria That's awfully good of them, dontcha think
Turkey will provide a camp in Syria to receive people evacuated from Aleppo, Turkish officials said on Friday. The officials added that Turkey will, however, continue to take in the wounded to its own hospitals.
The camp shall be set to host around 80,000 people, in two potential sites, around 3.5 km (2.2 miles) inside Syria, two senior officials told media outlets.
“Work on the infrastructure for the camp will begin shortly,” a separate official from Turkish aid organisation IHH said by phone from inside Syria. The camp will be jointly set up by the Turkish Red Crescent, disaster agency AFAD and IHH.
The IHH official said evacuees majorly found a place to reside with relatives in and around Syria’s Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, but that work to identify those with nowhere to go was proceeding.
Turkey has taken in 55 wounded and sick evacuees, according to Hasan Aydinlik, head of an emergency response division of Turkey’s health ministry.
Turkey is already sheltering around 2.7 million Syrian refugees.
Beirut – It’s the “dream” day which turned into a nightmare. It’s the day of the “big departure” from destroyed Aleppo, after a tight siege ended through forced deportation of tens of thousands of families. And at a time when Iran’s conditions engendered more obstacles, Moscow took control of the situation in Aleppo Thursday by reinforcing the truce deal to secure the exit of hundreds of civilians and wounded people who had arrived in the afternoon to the west Aleppo countryside, as fighters are expected to head to Idlib.
The tears of mothers and families who were forced to leave their houses and the signs of hope of a near return, reflected the struggle which Aleppo residents endured in the last days spent inside their city. Before walking out, Aleppo residents preferred to burn their belongings so that they don’t end up in the hands of “strangers,” but they left behind them their loved ones and the human remains under the rubble, after the civil defense failed to remove them.
And while the Red Cross had described the first step of the evacuation as “positive,” Robert Mardini, the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Middle East director told Reuters on Thursday: “The report received and what my colleagues were telling me was heartbreaking. People are totally exhausted, disillusioned, and disappointed.”
Mardini added: “But they were so happy to see us, they were thankful for us being there, although we failed them, because it’s too little too late, but yet it is important.”
The first hours of the truce did not pass without violations before the Russians pledged to secure the safety of civilians. Civilians were therefore moved in several batches using green buses now recognized for being the transportation means of the “forced exile” conducted by regime forces.
President of the regime Bashar Assad appeared at noon on Thursday through the Facebook page of the Syrian Presidency. Assad “blessed” what he called “history in the making” in Aleppo.
Member of the local council of Aleppo Besher Hawi told Asharq Al-Awsat there was confusion in the evacuation process because concerned parties were quick in reaching an agreement concerning the exit of families.
But, Hawi said that the Local Council is currently working to organize the evacuation by preparing a list according to which each family would know the time of its departure from Aleppo.
He asserted the presence of at least 70,000 people, including 4,000 fighters. “Until now, there is no accurate numbers due to the presence of open passages through which some families were leaving eastern Aleppo,” Hawi said.
He expected the evacuation to last 3 to 5 days.
Posted by: badanov ||
12/17/2016
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[THELOCAL.DE] On Thursday morning a flight carrying 34 rejected asylum seekers arrived in the Afghan capital, Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... . They were the first people to leave Germany in a highly contested programme of "collective deportations" to the war-torn country.
Awaiting the men were Afghan coppers and refugee ministries officials, as well as representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The mood was sombre among the deported men. Some were sad, others were angry.
Babur Sedik said that he had spent four years in Germany and had never made it out of a refugee camp. The 22-year-old said he has no idea what to do next. He comes from Kabul province, which is still relatively stable.
"But if the security situation doesn’t improve and I don’t find work, then I won’t have a choice - I’ll have to flee again. Or I’ll go to Pakistain or some other country."
For Rahmat Khan, the possibilities are even slimmer. Also 22, he comes from Paktia province and he says that he can’t go back as the Taliban are everywhere there. He lived in Germany for five years, working as a waiter and learning the language.
"In Germany I wanted to work towards a better future for my family," he says, adding that he has no idea where he will go now.
The so-called Sammelabschiebungen (collective deportations) have resulted in protest due to the unstable security situation in Afghanistan.
[DeutscheWelle] An Afghan refugee deported from Germany spoke to DW after arriving in Kabul about his last moments in Germany. He said he was forced to pay for his deportation and was not allowed to contact his family before leaving.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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#1
Deportation WORKS. Tell him to wear a hat and dress warm. No, he doesn't need to pack anything. Tell him the truck will be by with six soldiers as soon as he puts his curly toed slippers on.
[DAWN] At least 10 children were maimed, three of them seriously, when Indian troops opened fire on a school van in Azad Jammu and Kashmire along the Line of Control (LoC) on Friday, Assistant Commissioner Zeeshan Khan said.
The driver of the van, carrying 20 students of a private school, was struck down in his prime as the vehicle came under attack in Nakyal sector of Kotli district.
"A shell fired by Indian troops hit a school van at LoC in Nakyal sector," Zeeshan Haider, a senior government official told AFP.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a statement confirmed that a civilian was killed and four school children injured "when Indian troops violating ceasefire sanctity" targeted the school van.
"Pak troops effectively responded and targeted Indian posts from where fire was coming," the ISPR added.
The injured children are between the age of eight and 15 years, AC Zeeshan said.
The injured children were transferred to District Headquarters Hospital Kotli. Three amongst the injured were reported to be at death's door and will be transferred to Islamabad for treatment.
Muhammad Nasrullah Khan, a doctor in Nakyal hospital told AFP that the children had shrapnel injuries but their condition was not life threatening.
The latest cross-border firing has come after a calm of over two weeks at the LoC. On Nov 23, nine people were killed when Indian troops targeted a passenger bus in AJK's Lawat area.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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Once you pay Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.
[Ynet] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... offered Niger 610 million euros ($635 million) on Thursday to curtail migration from Africa through the Mediterranean to Europe and said it was seeking more such money-for-migration deals ahead.
Some 1.4 million refugees and migrants colonists arrived in Europe this year and last, and the EU wants to cut back on the uncontrolled influx of people.
Niger's desert city of Agadez is a popular waystation for people trying to cross the Sahara to reach Libya and eventually Europe via Italia. This year has become the deadliest on record for those seeking to make the journey.
The EU has already offered similar schemes to Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... , Æthiopia, Nigeria and Mali, as well as to Afghanistan, Jordan, Leb and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , among others. On Thursday, EU leaders agreed in Brussels they would seek to engage more African countries in such collaboration.
The bloc has also strengthened control of its external borders and is trying to deport more people who make it to Europe but have no case for asylum.
#2
All "moslem refugees" will be put in Camps and issued work clothes, issued tools and have them charged for their maintenance and tenting expenses, and fed in Communal kitchens and set to building or maintaining roads, sewer projects and land clearance projects in the mountains.
Use the Military to police and guard the camps.. Separate the men from the women and children. Put the children under 12 in special education Camps. There they will learn to speak and read and observe the customs of the Country. Islam is not allowed. They will be taught a trade and can apply for citizenship when they are 21.If approved, NONE are allowed to marry a born citizen and all are on probation until the age of 40.
All Mosques are to be closed. Anyone who wishes to become or remain a Moslem will be Deported and property confiscated.
Any citizen who disagrees with the measures can work in the Camps and live with the Moslem refugees as an equal. Here is your shovel. Pay for it and don't lose it.
[DAWN] ISLAMABAD: Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa has confirmed the death sentence awarded to 13 hardcore turbans who were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing of innocent civilians and security personnel, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations.
Among these convicted murderous Moslems is Latif Mehsud, former deputy chief of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP).
According to an ISPR statement, following are some of the well-known attacks for which these murderous Moslems had been awarded death sentences: attacks on Bacha Khan University, Charsada, (January, 2016), Parade Lane Mosque, Rawalpindi, (December, 2009), Marriot Hotel, Islamabad, (September, 2008), office of the World Vision NGO, Mansehra
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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[ARA News] Raqqa – In cooperation with the US-led counter-terrorism coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) organized a military training for new recruits. The SDF trained 365 new Arab fighters from Raqqa this week to participate in the Euphrates Wrath Operation, a campaign aimed at liberating Raqqa from ISIS.
Talal Silo, the official spokesman of the Syrian Democratic Forces, told ARA News that the anti-ISIS coalition assisted in organizing the training to further the SDF capabilities in the fight for Raqqa.
“This is the second military training for the SDF to prepare new factions in this camp. The training was facilitated and supported by the US-led coalition” Silo said. “The newly trained fighters will join the Euphrates Wrath Operation.”
The Syrian Democratic Forces launched the battle for Raqqa on November 6. Under the banner of Euphrates Wrath Operation, the campaign proceeds stage by stage with the goal of isolating and eventually liberating Raqqa from ISIS.
Thousands of Arab fighters have joined the Kurdish-led SDF forces in the battle for Raqqa. Some of the new SDF factions previously fought under the Free Syrian Army while others used to operate independently. The new SDF-led factions include the Syrian Elite Forces, Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigade and the Deir Ezzor Military Council.
Imad Menno, and SDF military trainer, said that US Special Forces played a key role in training the new SDF recruits.
“Coalition experts have participated in training our forces on combat skills,” Menno told ARA News.
The SDF was formed with the start of the cooperation between the Kurdish forces of People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the US-led coalition. Then dozens of Arab factions joined the Syrian Democratic Forces’ ranks. The SDF umbrella expanded after these forces expelled ISIS from major areas in northern Syria.
The SDF and the US-led coalition have liberated 37 km2 so far as part of the second phase of the operation. During the first phase of Euphrates Wrath, SDF soldiers captured an area measuring approximately 560 km2.The long-term objective of Euphrates Wrath is the elimination of the Islamic State in its de facto capital, Raqqa city.
Military sources told ARA News that more than 200 ISIS jihadists have been killed since November 6. Cihan Shekh Ehmed, an SDF spokesperson, declared that the “operation will continue until all of its goals are accomplished.” Video report at the link
Random gunshot hits Afriqiyah airbus at Mitiga Nothing cures the Wedding Bell Blues like a few bursts from the trusty, rusty AK, right fellas?
[Libya Herald] One of Afriqiyah Airways airbuses is reported to have been damaged by random gun fire. Shots are said to have hit the main body of the aircraft. According to reports, the plane is currently being examined to assess the extent of the damage.
There are unconfirmed suggestions thatthe shots were fired during a nearby wedding celebration.
Some six Afriqiyah aircraft were damaged and one completely burnt out in July 2014 when Libya Dawn forces attacked Tripoli international airport and destroyed the place. Some were subsequently repaired.
[Libya Herald] The Libyan Ground Services Company has suspended its operations at all airports except Tripoli’s Mitiga airport after baggage handlers went on strike over a year of unpaid salaries.
A month ago, baggage handlers at Misrata suspended industrial action the started the previous week over the salaries’ issue, giving the company until 15 December to sort it out. Otherwise, they warned at the time, they would ensure a nationwide strike.
The suspension of work, which puts a stop to flights in and out of Labraq, Misrata, Tamenhint, Tobruk and Zuwara comes despite efforts by the Presidency Council (PC) to avert a strike. Four days ago, PC Deputy president Ahmed Maetig wrote to the acting finance minister ordering him to pay the handlers their back salaries. This has not happened so far, although it is not clear if Mitiga handers have been paid.
International flights in and out of Mitiga are operating normally.
LONDON/ABU DHABI: While Yemeni people continue to face severe food shortage, Houthis are blocking wheat and aid shipments, Arab Coalition spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ahmed Al-Assiri told Reuters on Friday.
“Houthis are deliberately blocking wheat and aid shipments,” Al-Assiri said, pointing to cargoes being held up at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
“The Houthis are trying to play the card of ‘starving people’ to gain international media attention,” he told Reuters.
Yemen’s biggest traders have stopped new wheat imports due to a crisis at the central bank, documents seen by Reuters show.
At the same time, aid agencies are warning that Yemen — the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country — is on the verge of famine, although they have yet to declare one.
Famine means more than two people dying per day for every 10,000 in the population, or about 5,500 deaths per day across a country of Yemen’s size, according to a Reuters calculation.
In September, Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi ordered the central bank’s headquarters moved from Sanaa, controlled by Houthi rebels in the north, to the southern port of Aden, the seat of the new government.
This has led in effect to a de facto partition, with rival institutions in the north and south.
Hadi’s government said the Houthis had squandered some $4 billion on the war effort from central bank reserves; the Houthis claimed that the funds financed imports of food and medicine.
In a Nov. 30 letter addressed to Yemen’s Trade Ministry in Saana, which the company had dealt with before Hadi’s decree to move, leading trader Fahem Group said: “We would like to inform you that we have been unable to conduct any new contracts for wheat as local banks cannot transfer dollars for the value of any wheat cargoes.”
Fahem Group said in the letter, seen by Reuters, that it wanted to continue importing wheat to cover the population’s needs but was unable to open letters of credit.
[al-Manar] Eleven Burkina Faso soldiers were killed Friday in what local authorities said was the biggest ever ‘jihadist’ attack on the army, at a base near the restive border with Mali.
“We lost 11 of our men in the attack this morning in Nassoumbou … the biggest jihadist attack ever perpetrated” against the army, the high commissioner of Soum province, Mohamed Dah, told AFP by phone.
Two more men were missing after around 40 ‘jihadists’ riding pick-up trucks and motorbikes attacked the base some 30 kilometers from the Burkina-Mali border, he added.
“They were heavily armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-launchers. They opened fire at the depots, the tents and set fire to some of the vehicles,” he added.
A security source who asked not to be named said the assailants were wearing turbans and waving black flags.
The army, which said in a statement that the Nassoumbou base had been attacked in the morning, said it had sent reinforcements.
“We have launched a hunt and a more detailed toll with be provided,” a security source said.
Troops at the Nassoumbou base are part of a 600-strong anti-terrorist battalion that was deployed in January 2013 when France sent in troops to counter a jihadist insurgency in northern Mali.
This is the second direct attack against the Burkina army since ‘jihadist’ assailants surfaced in the country in early 2015, mostly staging attacks in the north near the borders of Mali and Niger.
But in January this year, three ‘jihadists’ left 30 people dead and 71 injured in an attack in the heart of the capital, Ouagadougou.
The army has, since 2012, had an anti-terrorist battalion deployed along the country’s long border with Mali, an area which is frequently subjected to attacks and kidnappings.
[THELOCAL.DE] A young boy tried to set off a nail bomb at a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen, but the device failed to detonate, prosecutors have confirmed.
The boy, a German citizen of Iraqi heritage, attempted to blow up the device at the Ludwigshafen Christmas market on November 26th. When the device failed to detonate he gave up, before trying again on December 5th, prosecutors said on Friday.
This time he took the bomb, hidden in a rucksack filled with nails, and placed it in a bush near the town hall.
Fortunately a pedestrian spotted the bag and alerted police, who then had specialists carry out a controlled kaboom, Focus magazine reported on Thursday, citing security sources.
The 12-year-old, born in the town in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2004, had been radicalized and was encouraged to carry out the attack by an as-yet unknown member of the Isis terror group, according to Focus.
Public broadcaster Suedwestrundfunk, also citing unnamed security sources, said the boy was thought to have received instructions from the Isis via the encrypted instant messaging service Telegram.
According to an earlier report by police Sherlocks, the powder in the homemade bomb had been created out of the ingredients of fireworks and sparklers and was flammable but not explosive.
Local prosecutor Hubert Ströber told AFP that to call the device a bomb would be an exaggeration. He said that although the powder was combustible, it was unclear whether it would have went kaboom!.
The child, who cannot face a German court because he is aged under 14, was detained and placed into a juvenile care facility, said Focus.
City mayor Eva Lohse said he "is currently staying at a secure place and therefore presents no public threat".
Federal prosecutors are however investigating the possibility that a terror network supported the attempted attack.
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[al-Manar] The Kremlin on Friday slammed Washington for pointing the finger at President Vladimir Putin over cyber attacks targeting the US election, after Barack Obama pledged to retaliate against Russian hacking. "All lies!"
“At this point they need to either stop talking about this or finally present some sort of proof. Otherwise this looks extremely scurrilous,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists during a visit to Japan.
Obama on Thursday warned that the United States would take action against Moscow after the White House accused Putin of direct involvement in cyber attacks designed to influence the US election.
“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action,” Obama told NPR radio.
“And we will, at a time and place of our own choosing.”
The outgoing US president’s remarks dramatically upped the stakes in a dispute between the world’s leading nuclear powers over alleged interference in last month’s presidential race.
Obama’s threat came after the White House ratcheted up allegations over the Russian hacking by personally tying Kremlin strongman Putin to the attacks.
“I don’t think things happen in the Russian government of this consequence without Vladimir Putin knowing about it,” one of his top advisers, Ben Rhodes, said earlier Thursday.
#2
“At this point they need to either stop talking about this or finally present some sort of proof.
The US MS media realize there is no proof. They report it anyway.
What does that tell you about the MS Media?
What does it tell you about Journalism in the US? What does it tell you about Journalists?
NBC is your friend? CNN is your friend? The NYTimes is your friend?
Trump WILL be inaugurated in January and everything after that will be Legal and inside the Constitution. But, the seating at the White House Pressers will be on stools in a smaller room.
[NEWSWEEK] Nigeria’s government says it has discovered crude oil in Borno state, the northeastern state that has borne the brunt of 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... ’s seven-year insurgency.
Jamila Shua’ra, the permanent secretary of Nigeria’s petroleum ministry, announced the find during a presentation at the Petroleum Technology Development Fund in the capital Abuja on Thursday, Nigerian newspaper Leadership reported.
While the administration of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has sought to diversify the country’s economic interests, the oil and gas industry still accounts for the vast majority of national revenue. Petroleum products are worth more than 90 percent of Nigerian exports, according to OPEC.
Shua’ra did not elaborate on how much crude oil had been discovered, but if it is found to be in commercially-viable quantities, the find could be an economic boon for Borno, which has been ravaged by Boko Haram. The bully boy group took up arms in the state capital, Maiduguri, in 2009 and have been fighting to create an extreme Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria since. More than 26,000 people have been killed in Borno since 2011, according to the Council on Foreign Relations; the vast majority of the deaths are likely to be due to the insurgency.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[THELOCAL.DE] On Thursday, prosecutors announced the arrest of a Tunisian man suspected of planning an unspecified mission for the Isis jihadist group.
The 24-year-old identified only as Charfeddine T. had joined Isis before he arrived in Germany in October 2015, the prosecutors' statement said.
Prosecutors had obtained an arrest warrant against him on Wednesday, accusing him of membership of a foreign terrorist organisatio
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
The Cleveland Browns are inching closer to a 0-16 season and one devoted fan is moving forward with his idea to celebrate the feat.
Chris McNeil created an event on Facebook last month for the “Browns Perfect Season Parade.” On Wednesday, McNeil met with Cleveland city officials to turn what started as a joke into a reality. The steering committee meeting included about 20 people from different city departments like police and fire. He said he received good feedback and everyone seemed open to the idea. A private security firm has been retained for the event and most permits have been filed.
McNeil said the parade will likely happen, unless the Browns win a game. More than 4,300 users said they are going to the Jan. 7 celebration around FirstEnergy Stadium. The route originally created a zero and 16, but has been changed to minimize any disruption to the Great Lakes Science Center.
Cleveland is 0-13 0-12 heading into their game on Sunday at the Buffalo Bills against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Per ESPN, the Browns have a 54% chance of going 0-16. And a 0.3% chance of winning the remaining three games, though there's only a ten percent chance of that...
#1
...As a lifelong Browns fan (grew up almost within earshot of old Lakefront Stadium), I know exactly how this is going to end: you have a dedicated Browns fan who is putting together an event to make people feel good about a disastrous season, to try to put a smile on people's faces about it and remind them that no matter what happens, these are our Browns, and we love them, and we will be there next year.
And just watch. The Browns will screw it up by winning one.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/17/2016 6:37
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Oh, come ON! After the election are we STILL quoting MSM probabilities? Come off it!
An would-be suicide bomber on a motorcycle was shot dead by Rangers personnel on Hyderabad's Daman-i-Kohsar road after he lobbed a 'cracker' into a nearby graveyard while fleeing, Rangers sources told Dawn on Friday. His accomplice fled the scene of crime.
A Rangers vehicle on patrol near the Amani Shah graveyard signalled for two men on a passing motorcycle to stop, sources said.
The men stopped and one lobbed a 'cracker' into the graveyard. Rangers sources said they shot and killed the man who threw the 'cracker' into the graveyard. Upon examination, they found he was wearing a suicide vest.
The assailant could not be identified, but Rangers sources claimed he appeared to be in his early 30s.
The sources alleged the would-be suicide bomber had intended to target the under-construction imambargah nearby.
A Rangers press release, however, claimed that two assailants on a motorcycle, while attempting to enter the imambargah during Friday prayers, attacked a Rangers mobile with a hand grenade.
Rangers personnel shot the assailant dead. A suicide jacket, arms and ammunition were recovered from the assailant's body, the statement claimed.
[THELOCAL.DE] The man, whose brutal attack on a woman at a Berlin U-Bahn station went viral, has been identified but not jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! , officials said on Wednesday.
Public prosecutors said they had identified the man who kicked a 26-year-old woman down a flight of stairs at a Berlin U-Bahn station.
According to Berlin tabloid B.Z., police had not been able to apprehend the suspect because he had gone to his home country of Bulgaria. But prosecutor Martin Steltner told DPA of this report that: "We will investigate."
Tagesspiegel reported that police would neither confirm nor deny the report to their journalists.
The assault had taken place in October at the Hermannstrasse U-Bahn station, but police last week released CCTV footage vividly depicting how the man - seemingly unprovoked - had kicked the woman in the back, causing her to fall face-first to the platform below. He and several acquaintances then walked away while others on the platform came to the woman’s aid.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#6
That's what I love about Rantburg, EC - we have so many people "on the ground," so to speak, all over the place who can give us the correct information.
Thank you.
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[Daily Excelsior] A nine-year-old boy was injured in stone pelting as festivities broke out at several places across Kashmire after Friday prayers today.
Clashes broke out at several places after Friday prayers as normal life was disrupted due to strike called by separatists. Police and CRPF were deployed at sensitive places to prevent any protests.
Protests and stone-pelting festivities took place in Nowhatta area of old city after the culmination of Friday prayers.
The protesters hurled stones on security forces who, were deployed in strength in the area. They in return fired teargas to disperse the protesters.
Police said that some miscreants started disrupting normal life by pelting stones on a police deployment immediately after the Friday prayers at Bada Bazaar Sopore.
"During the stone pelting one 9-year-old passerby Mursaleen Azad Dar son of Azad Ahmad Dar resident of Batapora, Sopore was hit by a stone and received head injury," he said.
The front man said that the injured boy was immediately rushed to hospital for medical treatment. Police has started the paperwork but haven't done much else and investigation was taken up.
Protests and stone pelting were also reported from Jamia Masjid, Sopore area after Friday prayers. Police and CRPF were deployed in strength in the area. Police fired tear-smoke to disperse the stone pelting protesters.
Stone pelting festivities were also reported from Baramulla.
In Bijbehara and Sangam areas of Anantnag district, protest marches were carried out after Friday prayers. The protesters pelted stones on the security forces in these areas triggering festivities. Police and CRPF fired teargas to disperse the protesters.
Clashes were also reported in Hamdania market area of Tral township of Pulwama district in South Kashmire after Friday prayers. Security forces fired teargas to disperse the protesters.
Elsewhere normal life remained disrupted in Kashmire in response to strike called by separatists. Shops and business establishments remained closed and traffic was mostly off the roads. Schools and colleges were also closed.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... braving the cold, thousands of devotees thronged Hazratbal shrine on the banks of Dal lake on the eve of Friday following Eid Milad-un-Nabi (SAW) for special prayers.
Posted by: Fred ||
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To help tackle the root causes of instability, irregular migration and forced displacement in the Horn of Africa, the European Commission has adopted a new set of programmes today. The package of 11 measures is worth €170 million and was decided by the third Operational Committee meeting of the Horn of Africa region of the EU Trust Fund for Africa.
It complements 24 previously adopted actions amounting to €436.5 million for the Horn of Africa, which were approved in three packages in December 2015, April 2016 and October 2016.
Of the previously adopted actions for the Horn of Africa, €204 million have already been contracted. Among these are national projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda, and four regional projects.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
The Byzantine sent a wagon load of God to Attila the Hun's camp in the hopes he would not invade Thrace and the Balkans.
#4
Well, some more hard earned Europeans' tax money to be dumped down a hole.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2016 12:10
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From die Blombos cave, 70k to 100k years before the modern era. Still struggling with the concept of civilization. €170 million will accomplish what again ?
An April 25 trial date has been scheduled for three southwest Kansas men accused of planning to detonate bombs at a pair of Garden City apartment buildings where a number of Somali refugees live and worship.
Terrorism is terrorism. Jug these guys for a long, long time.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren scheduled a jury trial for Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, both of Liberal, and Patrick Eugene Stein of Wright,
...a.k.a. Patrick Stein...
to begin at 9 a.m. April 25 in federal court in Wichita.
The three men are charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction to carry out a planned attack on a pair of apartment buildings on Mary Street, home to many Somali Muslims. A one-bedroom apartment in one of the complexes, 312 W. Mary St., serves as a Muslim mosque.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the indictment against the three men alleges that they conducted surveillance to size up potential targets, stockpiled firearms, ammunition and explosive components, and prepared a manifesto to be published after the bombing.
If convicted, the men face up to life in federal prison.
According to a criminal complaint, the men were part of a small militia group called the Crusaders that espouses sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant beliefs.
The planned attack allegedly was scheduled for Nov. 9, the day after Election Day.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#2
Be sure and "like" Facebook for being so thoughtful of your right to express yourself and CENSORING you when you do.
they are only doing it for your own good. Ever wonder why Facebook is "free stuff"? Its because you ARE the Product. They go over all your posts and process them into data and sell your data to advertisers and collect money on you and all your friends.
You are farm animals to Facebook. They buy and sell you like pigs and sheep.
Anyone who needs Facebook will be happy happy to put on a collar . Sucker.
#1
I'd been more happy had the self-immolation been simply delayed.
It'll be interesting to see how far BHO has to twist himself to pass this on to DJT. Or, maybe, he'll feel the need to (dangerously) take a "Legacy" position.
#2
It isn't military and there are large numbers floating around in the oceans. If China wanted whatever secrets they contain. Not that I think they have any secrets. They would have taken one sereptitiously. Which makes this provocation, pure and simple.
#4
The price on that oceanographic instrument just went up. We've cancelled payments on $150B in your U.S. bonds, and we've closed west coast ports to all Chinese shipping until further notice.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2016 6:37
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#6
Just like the weapons ISIS acquired from Obama, and the billions of dollars released to Iran, I am sure drone technology to China via this incident was not without pre-meditation by this regime.
USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class environmental research ship, attached to Navy intelligence as a spy ship, which was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known today as the "Pueblo incident" or alternatively, as the "Pueblo crisis".
#9
What may be happening is that China and Russia et. al. were so invested in the expected Hillary coronation that they didn't plan for the possibility of DJT.
Therefore, all of the crap they've been planning to take advantage of BHO and HRC weakness and incompetence and evil intent had to get moved up real fast cause they doubt that DJT will play along.
#12
Don't need to attack the so called large stationary targets. Hit China economically. Sun Tzu back at you ChiComs.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2016 9:59
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#13
It may be they didn't want any information about their precious islands to get out from undersea charting. Which of course means there's something WRONG with the islands.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2016 10:15
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#14
..I say send a couple of smart and aggressive SSN skippers to start doing random 'Yankee Searches' on PRC warships, especially that overbred aircraft transport they call a carrier.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/17/2016 11:54
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#15
overbred aircraft transport
I thought that was the new model artificial reef, Mike.
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Republican elector Chris Suprun, 42, was not a first responder during 9/11 attacks as he has previously claimed
Suprun, a Dallas, Texas, resident, portrayed himself as a heroic firefighter in an editorial this month for The New York Times about not voting for Trump
The 42-year-old claimed to be a first responder with the Manassas Park, Virginia, fire department
The Manassas Park Fire Department didn't respond to September 2001 attacks
And what's worse - Suprun wasn't hired by the department until October 2001
Suprun is the sole Republican to publicly announce his ballot would not be cast for the president-elect
DailyMail.com has asked the New York Times if they fact-checked his claims - the paper says it 'fact checks' all op-ed articles
Posted by: Fred ||
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[NAIJ] Borno is in total chaos as soldiers of the 21 Brigade of the Nigerian Army drafted to put an end to the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... insurgency in the state and around the Sambisa Forest, have reportedly turned against their senior officers.
The soldiers are reported to be shooting sporadically in all direction in extreme protest against the way they are being treated by the senior officers of the Army.
Premium Times reports that the information came from those who are familiar with the matter.
According to the report, the soldiers had complained of maltreatment and then "began to shoot indiscriminately, threatening to kill any officer who stands on their way."
The report quoted a military source as saying: "The brigade is based in Bama but is currently deployed at Bula Bello in Sambisa for Operation Rescue Final.
"But suddenly soldiers started mutinying at 6AM today, firing in all directions and threatening to pull out of the operation.
"As some of them fire gunshots, some started preparing vehicles to move out of location. They also warned officers to steer clear or they would be rubbed out.
"They are saying their commanders have been treating them badly and telling them lies. As I speak to you, the firing is still going on, and there is confusion everywhere."
The report said the commander of the brigade, Col AG Laka, could not immediately be reached for his reaction while the Nigerian Army is yet to issue a statement.
Spokesperson for the Army, Sani Usman, was said to have refused to comment on the development.
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[DAILYCALLER] Whoopi Goldberg thinks the right to celebrate Christmas and get an abortion are the same thing.
"The View" host was talking about the right to display Nativity scenes on Tuesday when she brought up abortion out of nowhere.
"You cannot pretend that Christmas doesn’t start with the birth of Christ!" Goldberg said. "Listen, I’m not, wait, wait, wait, don’t do it, don’t do it because I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want to disappoint you. I’m not a religious person, OK? I’m not a religious person but I do know that Christmas starts with the word Christ! It’s about the birth of Christ."
"So you can’t, you can’t erase that! And if you don’t believe in it, if you don’t believe in it, then you got Santa Claus. Santa Claus is not a religious thing."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Wasn't she supposed to move to Canada or Australia or something?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/17/2016 1:23
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#2
Her mouth wouldn't fit through the airplane door.
#3
Santa ( Saint ) Claus ( Nicholas), born in the year 260 AD and is a Catholic SAINT. In the Church calendar his Feast Day is December 6th the beginning of Advent, the Liturgical color of Red, the beginning of the Church year and Santa ( Saint ) Nicholas is the ANNOUNCER of Catholic Advent.
The Mall Santa may or may not be another matter. THAT is about getting your MONEY.
The Left speaks through Whoopi. Listen to her and learn. The Left is not your friend.
#8
The fact that ABC, and its parent corporation Disney, allow Goldberg and her unhinged partner Joy Behar to spout their nonsense for a half hour on nationwide television every weekday morning proves irresponsible they are.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2016 13:51
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#9
how irresponsible
But, hey, at least I'm not on television.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2016 13:52
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[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] A former Credit Suisse banker spat in his wife's face after he found details of her sex games scribbled on notepaper from the hotel where she met her lover, a court heard. This wouldn't have happened if they'd lived in Italy, would it?
Marc Grosjean, 43, exploded in rage after he found the note in his wife's handbag describing sex acts.
His wife Artemis "Mitzi" Berberi, herself a lawyer, claimed it was just a game she was playing with a female friend.
But Grosjean checked her car's sat nav and found she had been going to the very same hotel. In a fight that followed he spat in her face, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Grosjean was convicted by magistrates of both spitting and punching his wife in October.
He appealed and was cleared of striking Ms Berberi after inconsistencies were found in his wife's account and Grosjean's lawyers claimed she had lied about the incident.
But his conviction for common assault by spitting was upheld. Grosjean is a former director at Credit Suisse and Anoa Capital.
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Well, there's "liberation" and then there's whatever these jamokes do.
[LibyaHerald] The head of the Libyan National Army, Field Marshal Khalifa Hafter, has called on officers and soldiers to be ready for the offensive to free Tripoli. He was speaking to members of the LNA. A top LNA official confirmed to the Libya Herald this evening that Hafter had made the call.
Exactly what sort of offensive Hafter intends was not stated. He has previously stated that he would never go to Tripoli if it involved a fight. However, although there are reports of him being in contact with some forces in the capital, it is generally thought that any attempt by LNA forces to take Tripoli will unite the currently divided militia forces there against them.
For the past two and a half years Hafter has been regularly predicting the liberation of Benghazi.
Hafter also spoke about the rape case in Tripoli, saying that he had been deeply upset by it, as if it had affected him personally.
[POLITICO] Republicans should realize they have a problem, President Barack Obama said over and over on Friday, when they’re agreeing with the Kremlin so much.
Isn't that what you Democrats have wanted for the past 70 years?
That they don’t, shows him just how broken American politics has become, and how vulnerable the country has become after Republicans spent years demonizing him and fellow Democrats and gumming up the government.
It’s not only a vulnerability to foreign powers, according to Obama. There’s now a real risk of America abandoning the ideals and values that have bound the country together for 240 years.
Everyone should be scared about what that means and where it leads, he said. I simply have to wonder if this POS is ever going to go away.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
There are certain similarities: Russians kicked out communists, Americans voted to get rid of you & your crowd.
#5
O lives for this. In office or out. Give him a stage and he will perform. That is what keeps so many political clowns in media. An unwanted child locked in a private room who escapes now and then. He could easily play the part of Joker with such a fiendish grin he has.
#6
Obama's a real dickhead. Past presidents have always faded into the background to give their successors maximum room for maneuver. Obama just has to be different.
#8
Well charger you can't say he doesn't set difficult standards for himself.
Worst president....check
Worst ex-president.....we'll see. His best chance at NOT winning this award is to become an inveterate golfer, always trying to shave another stroke off the Hdcp. If he works real hard on that, Jimmuh may hold the title for a while yet.
#10
In keeping with #5, PE DJT will, imo, seriously upset and investigate the apple cart (boodle wagon?).
The 'crats are being backed into a corner and are fighting like it.
The selection of Flag Officers with their far-reaching MILINT contacts + FBI are scaring the $hit out of BHO, HRC and company. They have everything to lose and are, therefore, extremely dangerous.
#12
So since he has already had $800,000,000 worth of vacations, after this statement he left on another to try and make it an even billion $ on vacations - Fricking piker.
There were heavy clashes today in Tripoli’s Hay Al-Akwah area, by the elevated Airport Road next to the Abu Sleem district.
According to reports they started after an armed group tried to take the area from the so-called Abu Sleem Central Security Force, headed by Abdul Ghani Kikli (also known as Ghneiwa). This in turn had supposedly followed the arrest by Ghneiwa’s forces of a man allegedly involved in robbery and murder.
After armoured vehicles were deployed to the area it returned to Ghneiwa’s control. The elevate section of the Airport Road remain closed for some time, however.
However, in an increasingly common military chain reaction in Tripoli, when one group moves all others move, largely to secure their territory. This appears to have again been the situation in the city today. There were unconfirmed reports of shots fired in Tajoura.
The city’s various militias are seen as nervous after Khalifa Hafter’s call this week to the Libyan National Army to be ready to march on Tripoli.
[DAWN] Two suspected gangsters were killed in an alleged shootout with law enforcers in the Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... area on Friday, an official said.
Police with Rangers troops raided a hideout on reports about the presence of some gangsters in the Chakiwara area, the official said.
"The gunnies in the hideout attacked the personnel of our team as they were taking positions following a tip-off about the presence of some criminals in the area," said Chakiwara SHO Inspector Arshad Khan.
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Gang ‘Smuggled Islamists into UK’ with Fake Passports
13 Dec 2016
Hundreds of illegal Iranian migrants, including suspected Islamist terrorists, were smuggled into Britain by a gang selling fake passports for up to £12,500, Greek investigators have said.
'We must control immigration!' Even Jeremy Corbyn's allies don't agree with him as 'Red' Len McCluskey says UK must END free movement to protect British workers
16/12/16
In a split from his key ally Jeremy Corbyn (right), 'Red' Len McCluskey (left), the general secretary of Unite, said Labour and the unions must 'listen to the concerns of working people'. Ironically Mr McCluskey, 66, called an early leadership election at his Unite union in a plot by the hard-left to cling on to power so they can continue bankrolling Mr Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party. But as he launched his re-election campaign today, one of his three main policies puts him at odds with Mr Corbyn on immigration. The Labour leader has defended freedom of movement despite June's Brexit vote and opposes calls for restrictions on Britain's open borders policy. In an article on Huffington Post today, Mr McCluskey wrote today: 'Unions understand that workers have always done best when the labour supply is controlled and communities are stable.
Britain's migration rules will NOT be part of the Brexit negotiations with Europe and will be set entirely in the UK, David Davis tells MPs
14/12/16
In one of the clearest signals yet on the direction of the talks, the Brexit Secretary said it was vital to respect the referendum demand for lower migration.
Thirteen suspected migrants including three children who were stuck in a refrigerated lorry on the M25 are rescued after calling police and begging for help
14/12/16
Surrey Police said 10 adults and three children were removed from the HGV in Chertsey at around 3.10pm on Tuesday
The Grand Tour is slammed after broadcasting a 'how to guide' for smuggling migrants into Britain in an Audi TT
13/12/16
Jeremy Clarkson introduced the stunt on the Amazon show, which was filmed in Whitby, North Yorkshire. He joked that he was about show 'a better way for immigrants of getting into Britain
'Right on' critics are ignoring problems caused by immigration, government tsar warns after Muslim groups condemn her 'inflammatory call' for newcomers to take a vow of allegiance
12/12/16
Dame Louise Casey says Ghettos have formed in areas like Bradford (pictured) because the pace and scale of immigration has been 'too much'.
[PULSE.NG] The Nigerian Army on Friday dismissed speculations that soldiers of 21 Brigade in Bama shot indiscriminately and turned against their officers.
Brig.-Gen. Victor Ezegwu, the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 7 Division of the army, denied the report in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri.
"I want to assure that nothing like mutiny happened in Bama. Nothing happen. I just came back from Bama and nothing like that happened," Ezegwu said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that some online publications had reported that there was a complete breakdown of order and discipline at the 21 Brigade in Bama where soldiers complained of mistreatment and began to shoot indiscriminately.
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Al Arabiya] Al Arabiya’s correspondent in Iraq said on Friday that ISIS is forcing the residents of the neighborhoods that are near the Iraqi forces and which were not invaded by counter-terrorism forces to flee towards the center of Mosul, to ensure that these families will not go towards areas that are being recovered from ISIS.
Security sources reported to Al Arabiya on Thursday that ISIS is fighting to protect a new defensive line in the archaeological city of Nineveh, in order to prevent Iraqi forces from approaching adjacent areas to the Tigris River.
On another level, regarding the losses of ISIS in Mosul, Al Arabiya correspondent quoted security sources saying that ISIS security leader in Nineveh, Badran Abu Ayyub, was killed in an air strike by the international coalition.
It is worth mentioning that the intensity of the fighting in Mosul has downgraded recently due to heavy rains and bad weather, prompting ISIS to launch counter attacks on Thursday, targeting the counter-terrorism apparatus and civilians.
Posted by: badanov ||
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The United States on Friday more than doubled its previous reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, offering $25 million for information that would help locate, arrest or convict the head of the jihadist group, Reuters reported.
Pikers. Offer $100 million. And two blank, valid, US passports.
The U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program previously offered $10 million for information on Baghdadi, announced in October 2011. The increase was announced in a statement on Friday.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, declared himself the caliph of a huge swath of Iraq and Syria two years ago. His exact location is not clear. Reports have said he may be in the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, Iraq, or in Islamic State-held territory to the west of the city, close to the border with Syria.
Kurdish officials believe that growing pressure resulting from a coalition military assault on Mosul is causing Baghdadi and his top lieutenants to move around and try to hide themselves.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2016
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[NYDAILYNEWS] The sister of a Moslem student who concocted a tale of subway harassment by three white men blamed the NYPD and the media for her sibling’s lies in a Facebook rant.
"I’m not excusing what my sister did," Sara Seweid posted Thursday on her page. "I was horrified yesterday and I’m still trying to grapple with the facts."
"Things snowballed out of our control because of the media ... Reporters made things so much worse for our family."
Yasmin Seweid, 18, finally admitted to police that she spun a phony tale of verbal abuse from three white men shouting "Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... !" because she missed curfew, sources told the Daily News.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"We're Muslims, we don't take responsibility for out acts."
Politico - for all your unbiased journalism needs: President Barack Obama’s administration achieved the platform he ran for president on: hope, according to first lady Michelle Obama, who implied that many Americans no longer have that hope as President-elect Donald Trump transitions into the White House. Real 'hope' is never seeing or hearing from you or your Kenyan master ever again.
“We feel the difference now. See, now, we’re feeling what not having hope feels like, you know,” the first lady told Oprah Winfrey in an interview excerpt broadcast Friday on “CBS This Morning.”
The poor darling.
Trump savaged his rivals with disparaging nicknames and ran a campaign more focused on his celebrity than his policies. He railed against Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, vowing to “make America great again,” but alienated segments of the population with pledges to temporarily ban Muslims, build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Obama ran his campaign more traditionally, running on a platform of hope and progress with the slogan “Yes we can.” Perhaps the quintessential emblem of that campaign is his “Hope” poster, which was designed in a day by Shepard Fairey, who told Esquire in 2015 that Obama failed to live up to his expectations.
“Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept,” the first lady said. “And Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes. I mean, he and I and so many believe that if you — what else do you have if you don’t have hope? What do you give your kids if you can’t give them hope?”
Michelle Obama tore into Trump on the stump campaigning for Clinton, emerging as the most potent surrogate for the Democratic nominee and sparking calls for her to run for office — although President Obama has insisted that his wife won’t run for office.
She appeared to do the same in her interview with Winfrey, suggesting the nation will no longer have a grownup in the Oval Office once the current first family leaves but never mentioning the nation's 45th president by name.
“Our children respond to crises the way they see us respond. You know, it’s like the toddler that bumps his head on the table, and they look up at you to figure out whether it hurts, and if you’re like,” she began, gasping for effect, “‘Oh, my God,’ they’re crying.”
The president, the first lady continued, has been someone who would respond by saying: “You know what? Babe, it’s OK, it’s OK.”
“I feel that way about the nation. I feel that Barack has been that for the nation in ways that people will come to appreciate,” she said. “Having a grownup in the White House who can say to you in times of crisis and turmoil: ‘Hey, it’s gonna be OK. Let’s remember the good things that we have. Let’s look at the future. Let’s look at all the things that we’re building.’ All of this is important for our kids to stay focused and to feel like their work isn’t in vain, like their lives aren’t in vain. What do we do if we don’t have hope, Oprah?”
#1
Quintessential bookend to "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback."
#6
Now you understand how hundreds of thousands of graduates feel after blowing their time on 'enriching' but worthless college degrees and have to face an indented student loan debt and little prospect in the job market to pay it off.
#7
No - you (Michelle) exploited peoples dreams and you exploited peoples hopes.
What you delivered was anything but. If it wasn't for your fawning media (just look at how this article is written) everyone would know that.
You were the worse racist the White House has seen since Woodrow Wilson. Instead of promoting harmony and unity you pushed, deliberately and with malice, division and hatred.
#13
"Michelle, could we treat you to dinner?"
The ravenous bass hits the spinner:
"Just two tournedos...
Dozen lobsters, to go...
And dessert... send the check to the winner."
[EXPRESS.CO.UK] The street outside the empty embassy in Belgrave Square, London, was closed off as it filled with protestors and Islamic leaders chanting loudly and calling for America to be punished over Aleppo.
The demonstration became an alternative to an official rally calling for an end to the bloodshed in Syria outside Downing Street.
During the speeches which lasted almost an hour the crowd chanted Allahu Akbar 'God is the greatest' and cheered for those calling for a global caliphate.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Round the demonstrators up. Use the military. Process them without the Courts. Martial Law. Deport them on military vessels. Put them ashore in Morocco or anyplace convenient. Somalia perhaps. Leave them a sandwich and a canteen and kiss them goodbye.
Confiscate their property. If they fight, kill them.
The purpose of a country is itself. There can be no competition in , or question of, who defines a Nation. You either are or you aren't. There is no future in a "caliphate". and none is allowed. Step on it like a bug.
[THELOCAL.IT] Married couples in Italy will no longer have to promise to be faithful to each other, if a new bill is approved. Marriage in that case becomes mere cohabitation with a license.
...and tax advantages.
The proposed amendment to Italy's Civil Code would remove the word "fidelity" from Italian marriage contracts. So a married woman may have three children with three different men, none of them her husband.
The promise not to cheat is a "cultural legacy from an outdated and obsolete vision of marriage, family, and the rights and duties of spouses", according to the senators who have signed the bill. At what point were judges authorized to rule on social issues? Who's qualified to judge whether a universal social urge that's been around for thousands and maybe hundred thousands of years is "outdated?"
They cited a previous ruling from Italy's top court, which declared that judges could not legally place the blame for a marriage separation "on the mere failure to observe the duty of fidelity". They used to call men who philandered philanderers. Women who did were called hussies. Or sluts.
Instead, the other party has to prove that their spouse's infidelity led to the irreconcilable breakdown of the marriage. People have survived adulterous marriage by ceasing the activity and forgiveness of the spouse or by ignoring it or by pretending it's not happening, all without a judicial decision.
The bill, which was presented to the Italian Senate last year and has now been passed to its Judiciary Committee, goes on to argue that there is an element of sexism in the current wording. It was originally included to refer to the woman's sexual fidelity, in order to determine whether children were "legitimate", they noted. It would have made more sense just to change the wording to include men.
"Until not long ago, only the fidelity of the woman was sufficient to guarantee the 'legitimacy' of children," the bill notes, saying that since the "hateful" legal distinction between "legitimate" and "natural" children was scrapped in a 2012 ruling, there is no longer a need for the clause. There was a fad of "open marriage," in the 70's, maybe? I recall reading that the couple who started that and wrote ever so elaborate justifications got a divorce. If two people marry they should form what's known as a "couple." They should work together for their common good. I feel strongly, perhaps because I'm not a complete idiot, that you're not gonna make that couple when one or both parties is spreading it around.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
and wymyns wonder why guys don't want to "settle down, get married and have kids with them".
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2016 7:19
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#2
I'm sure that this doesn't hold true anymore but could it have had something to do with the fact that a kids mother was an indisputable fact? I mean the baby didn't crawl in there by mistake did it?
How about mandatory DNA testing of each kid and the purported parents? That would stop any quibbling about who did what to whom.
[al-Manar] The Russian Defense Ministry said that all women and children have been evacuated from militant-controlled districts in Aleppo.
More than 9,500 people have been evacuated from eastern Aleppo, the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation said.
All people who wanted to leave eastern Aleppo did it, the Russian center said. According to the center, the operation to evacuate militants and their families from Aleppo has ended. “The operation of the Russian center for reconciliation on the evacuation of militants and their families from eastern districts of Aleppo has ended.” Over 4,500 militants and 337 wounded people have left eastern Aleppo, according to the Russian military. Groups of militants who shell Syrian troops remain in certain areas of Aleppo, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. “According to evacuees in the last convoy, all those who wanted it have left eastern districts of Aleppo over the past 24 hours. Groups of militants…, which shell the Syrian army, remain in some districts. Syrian army units continue the liberation of districts in Aleppo, where terrorists remain.”
Earlier in the day, a Syrian state-run TV channel reported that militants shelled an evacuation corridor from eastern Aleppo in the Ramouse district and violated an agreement with the Syrian government by attempting to take hostages with them. The Syrian army has been sent to the area.
The withdrawal of the remaining militants and their families from the eastern parts of Aleppo is organized by the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation, in cooperation with the Syrian authorities. According to the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the militants are set to be taken out of the city by buses and ambulances through a special corridor to the city of Idlib. Representatives of international organizations have been invited to monitor the process.
Disclosure: I donated a small amount of money to the Trump campaign in September.
[NYTimes] MILWAUKEE — After nearly 25 years, I’m stepping down from my daily conservative talk radio show at the end of this month. I’m not leaving because of the rise of Donald J. Trump (my reasons are personal), but I have to admit that the campaign has made my decision easier. The conservative media is broken and the conservative movement deeply compromised. Conservative media has been "broken and deeply compromised" for years. A lot of people espoused conservatism as a means of contrasting themselves as iconoclasts, while all the time embracing and advancing ideas and ideals that were anathema to conservatives. They were an act. Clowns and dancing monkeys. Trump's campaign drove most of the posers out in the open including, apparently, Sykes.
In April, after Mr. Trump decisively lost the Wisconsin Republican primary, I had hoped that we here in the Midwest would turn out to be a firewall of rationality. Our political culture was distinctly inhospitable to Mr. Trump’s divisive, pugilistic style; the conservatives who had been successful here had tended to be serious, reform-oriented and able to express their ideas in more than 140 characters. But in November, Wisconsin lined up with the rest of the Rust Belt to give the presidency to Mr. Trump. The problem with reforms is that they do not address the basics: reduced government, eliminating and repealing unjust laws, and taxation. Reducing or eliminating government's incredible strength where it should never have been to begin with. If Mr. Sykes thought that Midwest reformers would lead the Republican party to a presidential victory, he should have been aware that reformers were in the mold of Mitt Romney, who got his ass handed to him four years before.
How on earth did that happen?
Before this year, I thought I had a relatively solid grasp on what conservatism stood for and where it was going. Over the previous decade, I helped advance the careers of conservatives like House Speaker Paul D. Ryan; Gov. Scott Walker; Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Senator Ron Johnson. In 2010, conservatives won big majorities in the Wisconsin State Legislature, and I openly supported many of their reforms, including changes to collective bargaining and expansions of school choice. What commie Daniel DeLeon once said about capitalism applies to reforms: stop washing the trash. Toss it out!
In short, I was under the impression that conservatives actually believed things about free trade, balanced budgets, character and respect for constitutional rights. Then along came this campaign. Here Sykes wants to extol the virtues of ideas, except he fails to address the problem that expressing those ideals is like explaining to a man who has just lost his job the basics of Keyensian economics. But the man doesn't want to be schooled. He doesn't want to hear about economics. He doesn't want to hear about conservative policies. He wants his job.
On the surface, the explanations for Mr. Trump’s improbable win in Wisconsin are simple enough: He won big margins in rural, blue-collar counties and won the pivotal Green Bay area by double digits. But he underperformed Mitt Romney in the vote-rich Milwaukee suburbs and ended up getting fewer votes in victory than Mr. Romney received in his 2012 defeat. Hillary Clinton, however, got about 39,000 fewer votes in heavily Democratic Milwaukee County than President Obama did four years earlier. Democrats simply stayed home, though that is obviously not the whole story. Damn lies and statistics.
That is what I saw, and this is what it might mean for the future of conservatism. When I wrote in August 2015 that Mr. Trump was a cartoon version of every left-wing media stereotype of the reactionary, nativist, misogynist right, I thought that I was well within the mainstream of conservative thought — only to find conservative Trump critics denounced for apostasy by a right that decided that it was comfortable with embracing Trumpism. But in Wisconsin, conservative voters seemed to reject what Mr. Trump was selling, at least until after the convention. Sykes was so concerned about being in the tribe and being in the mainstream that he failed to see the coming flood. That happened to a lot of conservatives. They saw Trump and Trump's refusal to speak in the muted tones associated with a boring conservative campaign, so they mischaracterized what Trump was doing with the same rhetoric the left was using.
To be sure, some of my callers embraced Mr. Trump’s suggestion for a ban on Muslims entering the country and voiced support for a proposal to deport all Muslims — even citizens. One caller compared American Muslims to rabid dogs. But right to the end, relatively few of my listeners bought into the crude nativism Mr. Trump was selling at his rallies. Self assurance. It can be a bear. What they did buy into was the argument that this was a “binary choice.” No matter how bad Mr. Trump was, my listeners argued, he could not possibly be as bad as Mrs. Clinton. You simply cannot overstate this as a factor in the final outcome. As our politics have become more polarized, the essential loyalties shift from ideas, to parties, to tribes, to individuals. Nothing else ultimately matters. Polarized my ass. It was congruent, and if Mr. Sykes had any sense about conservatives he would have seen that Trump sliced effortlessly through the notion that politics in America was polarizing.
In this binary tribal world, where everything is at stake, everything is in play, there is no room for quibbles about character, or truth, or principles. If everything — the Supreme Court, the fate of Western civilization, the survival of the planet — depends on tribal victory, then neither individuals nor ideas can be determinative. I watched this play out in real time, as conservatives who fully understood the threat that Mr. Trump posed succumbed to the argument about the Supreme Court. As even Mr. Ryan discovered, neutrality was not acceptable; if you were not for Mr. Trump, then you were for Mrs. Clinton. Trump was a businessman first. He has never been in a position to pose a threat to anyone on any level except in business. And the idea stood then as it stands now. If you were, after the conventions, going against Trump, that meant that you were a Hillary supporter. I watched this played out several times where a Golden Throat of some kind did not voice support for Trump, yet denied that meant support for Hillary. There is no nuance. There only is a choice.
In this political universe, voters accept that they must tolerate bizarre behavior, dishonesty, crudity and cruelty, because the other side is always worse; the stakes are such that no qualms can get in the way of the greater cause.
For many listeners, nothing was worse than Hillary Clinton. Two decades of vilification had taken their toll: Listeners whom I knew to be decent, thoughtful individuals began forwarding stories with conspiracy theories about President Obama and Mrs. Clinton — that he was a secret Muslim, that she ran a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor. When I tried to point out that such stories were demonstrably false, they generally refused to accept evidence that came from outside their bubble. The echo chamber had morphed into a full-blown alternate reality silo of conspiracy theories, fake news and propaganda. Sykes ignored that even with "two decades of vilification", Hillary's socialist tendencies were getting worse as time went on. This was not group think. It was blatant and visible. How can such an individual be a rational choice?
And this is where it became painful. Even among Republicans who had no illusions about Mr. Trump’s character or judgment, the demands of that tribal loyalty took precedence. To resist was an act of betrayal. It's like this at our local party levels as well. It's galling, but they hold the reins. Don't like it? Become involved. You can change things if you are involved. But if all you can offer is your opinion or your complaints, you won't change a thing.
When it became clear that I was going to remain #NeverTrump, conservatives I had known and worked with for more than two decades organized boycotts of my show. One prominent G.O.P. activist sent out an email blast calling me a “Judas goat,” and calling for postelection retribution. As the summer turned to fall, I knew that I was losing listeners and said so publicly. Sykes had a choice. Watch the oncoming train, or get out of the way. Sykes chose to stay on the track, The train did not stop. Sux to be Sykes.
And then, there was social media. Unless you have experienced it, it’s difficult to describe the virulence of the Twitter storms that were unleashed on Trump skeptics. In my timelines, I found myself called a “cuckservative,” a favorite gibe of white nationalists; and someone Photoshopped my face into a gas chamber. Under the withering fire of the trolls, one conservative commentator and Republican political leader after another fell in line. It takes leather ballz to be famous and on Twitter. How had we gotten here?
One staple of every radio talk show was, of course, the bias of the mainstream media. This was, indeed, a target-rich environment. But as we learned this year, we had succeeded in persuading our audiences to ignore and discount any information from the mainstream media. Over time, we’d succeeded in delegitimizing the media altogether — all the normal guideposts were down, the referees discredited. To use a football metaphor: the media referees were picking off passes intended for conservatives, and catching passes about to be picked off by conservatives. As bad as conservatives such as Sykes were, the mainstream media was an order of magnitude worse.
That left a void that we conservatives failed to fill. For years, we ignored the birthers, the racists, the truthers and other conspiracy theorists who indulged fantasies of Mr. Obama’s secret Muslim plot to subvert Christendom, or who peddled baseless tales of Mrs. Clinton’s murder victims. Rather than confront the purveyors of such disinformation, we changed the channel because, after all, they were our allies, whose quirks could be allowed or at least ignored. "Irish democracy" will carry you only so far.
We destroyed our own immunity to fake news, while empowering the worst and most reckless voices on the right. If by immunity Sykes means credibility, true. Also, you'll notice that Sykes doesn't mention any specific names, likely because for every "reckless voice on the right", the left had ten "reckless voices."
This was not mere naïveté. It was also a moral failure, one that now lies at the heart of the conservative movement even in its moment of apparent electoral triumph. Now that the election is over, don’t expect any profiles in courage from the Republican Party pushing back against those trends; the gravitational pull of our binary politics is too strong. Pulueez. The "binary" notion has been exposed as a fraud. There has been only one side until 2016, and now they have a voice. Sykes and other deposed conservatives media people will have to compete now.
I’m only glad I’m not going to be a part of it anymore. That makes two of us. Charles J. Sykes (@SykesCharlie), a talk-show host in Wisconsin, is working on a book titled “How the Right Lost Its Mind.”
#1
Sykes seems to think that conservatism is all about good manners.
I'd love it if we lived in a world where sweet reason was always the best way to persuade people -- but we don't.
If rude and crude is what it took to stop Hillary, then so be it.
Ultimately, Trump will be judged -- by honest people anyway -- by results, not by how gracious he was to the people who are trying to crap on him and the country.
I had enough of that with the Bushes, Maverick and Romney.
#2
Wars are about disciplined and systematic Violence.
There is no way to be "nice" in a war.
Plus, in the final analysis you have to send in the Infantry and their job is to shoot people and bayonet them.
There isn't ANY other way to win a war. THAT is WHY they call them Wars. In a war there is a winner and a loser. There is NO future in losing a war.
Cultural wars are no different. There WILL be a winner and there will be a loser. The dead don't complain and they don't write the history. Too bad for the dead. Forget what you can. Live with the rest.
#7
Too many 'conservatives' are ideologically locked like their socialist counterparts. I suspect a good number of true believers stayed home on election day only to see their numbers swamped by Reagan democrats at the poles. Both sides of the political party spectrum forgot the contract begins with 'We, the people...'
#8
[Mr. Trump] won big margins in rural, blue-collar counties and won the pivotal Green Bay area by double digits. But he underperformed Mitt Romney in the vote-rich Milwaukee suburbs and ended up getting fewer votes in victory than Mr. Romney received in his 2012 defeat
And it hasn't occurred to Mr. Sykes to figure out the reasons?
#13
Sykes is part of the crowd that decried Reagan as being just an actor and "not very smart" while putting the Bedtime for Bonzo clip on an endless loop.
He's also a fool. This wasn't Reagan Democrats coming home, this was a revolt by a middle and lower-class dangerously angered by the long-running oppression of an overbearing government. VERY bad people come to power in these situations. I shudder to think what message the trump voters might've sent a few years hence had the Hildebeeste been elected.
#14
I find it funny when they call Trump divisive. He was very inclusive towards citizens, it's just that his words were endlessly spun and misquoted by folks that know better and if Sykes believed that nonsense he's a damned fool.
[DeutscheWelle] A fire that broke out at a hostel for 300 migrant workers in a Paris suburb has killed one man and injured at least 14 others. Police have not ruled out arson as they investigate the incident.
‘We Are Losing Control of Our Streets’: Bavaria Minister Calls For Migrant Deportations After Cologne, Murders
15 Dec 2016
After 12 months of migrant attacks which saw mass sex assaults in western city Cologne and the rape-murder of teenager Maria Ladenburger, Bavaria’s finance minister has warned the nation faces a homeland security crisis and is losing control of its streets. Speaking as
Almost 40,000 Migrants Avoided Deportation By Going Into Hiding
15 Dec 2016
The Austrian Court of Auditors has slammed the government’s deportation policy and released figures that show almost 40,000 migrants went into hiding to avoid deportation from 2010 to 2014.
Cologne Sex Attacks One Year On: 1300 Victims, Just 18 Convictions
15 Dec 2016
The mass sex attacks on New Year’s Eve 2015 in the centre of Cologne shocked Germany and the world. A year on and after more than 1,000 criminal charges, there have been few arrests and convictions.
People Smugglers Use Facebook to Lure Migrants to Europe
14 Dec 2016
United Nations refugee agency UNHCR claims they have discovered people smugglers using Facebook to entice migrants to make the trip to Europe.
Film-maker ‘Punched, Kicked, Choked’ in Migrant No-Go Zone
14 Dec 2016
A Jewish American documentary maker has been punched, kicked, and choked by five migrants after entering a “no-go” zone in Stockholm, Sweden.
Youngest Victim Just 14 In Two Separate Migrant Rape Attacks on Sunday
14 Dec 2016
Two young women were brutally raped in separate attacks in Germany on Sunday, both committed by migrants, as public opinion turns against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migrant policies.
Globalist Business Leaders Pile on Pressure For Open Borders
13 Dec 2016
Businesses should “work together in common cause” to spread a “unified message” of welcome and acceptance to refugees and migrants, an organisation co-founded by Richard Branson has said. Refugees and migrants have been dubbed an “opportunity for humanity” in a
Immigrant Children Going Through School System Doubles in Five Years
13 Dec 2016
The number of children from immigrant backgrounds taking Germany’s university entrance exams has doubled in just five years. According to the federal government’s Commission for Immigration, Refugees, and Integration, 17 percent of children from immigrant backgrounds completed the Abitur exam,
Soros Think Tank Claims Russia Could Engineer Migrant Sex Attacks to Boost Right-Wing Parties
13 Dec 2016
An “expert” from the George Soros-funded and founded European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) claims intelligence agencies in Russia and Syria could set migrant sex mobs on German women in order to swing the country’s federal election. Bild, Germany’s largest
Spanish PM: Populism Will Wane in 2017
13 Dec 2016
Spain’s recently re-elected Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has vowed to fight the growing tide of populism across Europe, calling on European leaders do as much as possible to improve their economies and increase employment, but saying little about immigration.
Vienna Threatens To Veto Turkey Joining EU
13 Dec 2016
Austria’s increasingly hard-line Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has made it known that unless Turkey reforms on issues of freedom and human rights, Austria will block any European Union membership negotiations. The Foreign Minister announced his intentions to block Turkish membership talks
Austrian Press Council: Don’t Report Anything that Could ‘Stir Up Prejudices’
12 Dec 2016
In a checklist on “responsible” reporting on migrants, Austria’s Press Council instructs journalists to omit any information that could “stir up prejudices”.
Public Backlash Forces Council To Pull Facebook Campaign for Fostering Child Migrants
12 Dec 2016
A local authority was forced to shut down a Facebook campaign to find foster homes for relocated migrant children after locals took to the page to protest against migration policy. The council said the comments were “racist”. The government has
'Our wives and daughters are afraid of sexual assaults': Minister warns Germany has lost control of its streets and must deport 'hundreds of thousands' of migrants
16/12/16
Markus Söder, finance and home minister in Bavaria, made the comments following the murder of teenager Maria Ladenburger, and nearly a year since hundreds of sex assaults in Cologne
'There is a risk of a war’: Rome is on the verge of violence as deprived Italians react angrily to migrants moving into their neighbourhoods, warns mayor
16/12/16
Virginia Raggi (left), mayor of the Italian capital, has warned a battle between the two groups is imminent and that the city should be doing all it can to welcome refugees from Africa and the Middle East. The situation is particularly fraught in the suburbs where deprived locals are mixing with migrants fleeing Africa and the Middle East. She explained how a Moroccan family were chased away from a flat given to them by the local council as locals hurled racist obscenities towards them. Earlier this month, Rome welcomed 8,074 refugees into the city, sparking protest marches
'No! You cannot touch me!': New footage from Cologne sex attacks reveals how women screamed at their attackers as police realised they are powerless to stop them
15/12/16
More than 500 women were assaulted and robbed by mobs of immigrant, mostly North African men in the German city during last year's New Year's Eve celebrations, captured in a new light by the video.
Jihadis 'hiding in plain sight' among migrants: Armed Forces chief warns that 'combat experienced terrorists' fleeing Iraq and Syria pose 'threat to our way of life'
15/12/16
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chief of the defence staff, said foreign militants were being moved from their shrinking stronghold in Iraq and Syria.
Captain of overloaded migrant ship that flipped over and sank in the Mediterranean killing 700 is jailed for 18 years and fined £7.5million
13/12/16
A judge in Sicily convicted Tunisian Mohammad Ali Malek on multiple manslaugther counts for the Mediterranean's worst-ever disaster in April 2015.
Moroccan asylum seeker 'followed woman into nightclub toilets and raped her after she rejected his advances' in latest migrant sex attack to rock Germany
12/12/16
A Moroccan asylum seeker allegedly followed a woman into the toilet of a nightclub in Germany and raped her when she rejected his advances. The incident happened in the Bar 99 Cent, in Hamburg.
Germany admits Schengen zone nations MUST bring back border check because terrorists pretending to be refugees are moving freely across the continent
12/12/16
Minutes from an internal meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels suggest introducing a 'filter function of the external borders', according to reports in Germany
[Tolo News] The deportation of Commander Zardad Faryadi from the United Kingdom to Afghanistan on December 14, poses a clear danger for witnesses who testified against the former warlord in his 2005 conviction for torture and hostage taking, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Friday.
The watchdog called on the UK government to take immediate measures to protect witnesses, including by expediting asylum procedures and relocation outside Afghanistan.
The organization called on the Afghan government to impose parole restrictions on Zardad and the UK and Afghan authorities should scrupulously monitor his compliance in order to protect those witnesses who remain in Afghanistan.
"Zardad’s trial and conviction in the UK was a landmark case ‐ demonstrating that torturers cannot find safe haven by fleeing to another country," said Patricia Gossman, senior researcher on Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch. "But by failing to take measures to protect witnesses, the UK government risks betraying those who made that conviction possible. They owe it to them to take immediate steps to protect those most at risk."
"Those who testified at Zardad’s trial have expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... s for the safety of witnesses and their families. Some witnesses learned of Zardad’s imminent arrival only days before he returned," she said.
According to the statement, Zardad, who was prosecuted by UK authorities under English law implementing the Convention against Torture, for the crimes of hostage taking and torture committed in Afghanistan in the 1990s, was recently paroled after serving 11 years of a 20-year prison sentence. He arrived in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... on December 14, and was reportedly taken into custody by the National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS). A crowd of supporters, at least one armed, assembled inside the security perimeter of the airport carrying signs welcoming him home as a hero.
"Relocation of witnesses outside the country is likely to be the only way to protect those most at risk of reprisals," Gossman added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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[Rooters] Islamic State fighters have stepped up counterattacks on Iraqi forces in Mosul amid bad weather as the U.S.-backed offensive to capture their last major city stronghold in Iraq enters its third month.
With cloudy skies hampering coalition air surveillance, the militants carried out attacks in three districts of eastern Mosul, al-Quds, Ta'mim and al-Nur, over the past four days, residents and security officials said on Friday.
The campaign that started on Oct. 17 has turned into the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The humanitarian situation of the besieged population is causing alarm amid reports of food, water and fuel shortages, while the fighting is making access to hospitals difficult. Nearly 100,000 people have fled the city, according to the International Organization for Migration.
More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters and Iranian-backed Shi'ite volunteers are taking part in the offensive. The latter are attacking the militants supply lines in a remote and semi-desert area west of Mosul to avoid fanning sectarian tensions with the city's Sunni population. A mainly western coalition is providing air and ground support to the offensive, led by the U.S. with more than 5,000 troops deployed in Iraq.
The Iraqi military estimate the number of militants in the city at 5,000 to 6,000. They are dug in amid the city's remaining population of about one million, moving through tunnels and using suicide car bombs, sharpshooters and mortar fire to slow the advance of the Iraqi forces.
At the current pace of advance, the offensive is likely to extend into next year, beyond the initial forecast of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who pledged to take the city in 2016.
The U.S-trained Counter Terrorism Service, which is spearheading the fighting inside the city, has so far taken about half of its eastern side. Iraqi forces are holding off using field artillery and air bombardments to avoid civilian casualties, hoping to wear down the militants' resistance, depleting their numbers and their stock of car-bombs, two analysts in Baghdad said.
The Iraqi government also hopes that internal uprisings would break out against the militants, facilitating the advance of the army. These haven't happened so far because Islamic State, in the first days of the offensive, killed and detained hundred of ex-members of the security forces it deemed hostile to its harsh rule.
No estimate for civilian casualties has been given by the warring sides. The United Nations last month said the fighting in eastern Mosul was overwhelming the capacity of the government and international aid groups.
The United Nations earlier this month said nearly 2,000 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed across Iraq in November, a figure Iraq denied without indicating the losses among its troops.
Posted by: Pappy ||
12/17/2016
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[DAWN] THE catalogue of errors, mistakes, oversights, criminal wrongdoing, hubris and policy misguidedness is so overwhelming that it is scarcely possible to read the report of the inquiry commission on the Aug 8 Quetta bombing of the legal community. Surely no state apparatus in a country and in a province so wracked by violence for so long can be allowed to be so utterly incompetent in so many ways. Yet, the report of the inquiry commission led by Supreme Court Justice Qazi Faez Isa lays bare such sweeping failures as to call into question the very edifice of the country’s counterterrorism and counter-insurgency strategies. To be sure, there are no easy, readymade solutions to what is destined to be a long war. By its very nature, the fight against militancy is not something a conventionally oriented state security apparatus can do automatically and immediately. But Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... has had a militarised security policy for more than a decade, military campaigns have been waged in every one of the seven agencies of Fata and counterterrorism operations have been conducted for years from Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. . By now, the stunning failures laid bare by Justice Isa should have been addressed to a great extent.
Two things stand out in the panoply of wrongs catalogued in the report. First, a meaningful policy change can only be built on an explicit rejection of past policy. From the Afghan jihad in the 1980s to the state redirecting murderous Moslem energies towards India-held Kashmire in the 1990s, Pakistain’s problem with militancy is rooted in deliberate choices that became self-inflicted wounds, but the state has never acknowledged this. Even today, responsibility for choices made willingly and egregiously is largely deflected towards external factors. The Cold War and Pakistain’s alignment with the US is blamed for the original embrace of armed jihad. The proxy wars between oil-rich Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and Iran are blamed for the rise of violent sectarianism in the country. But through it all, it was the state’s complicity with murderous Moslem groups for parochial agendas that allowed the creation of an infrastructure of jihad that the country is now struggling to dismantle. The denial of the past must end.
Second, the state needs a zero-tolerance approach towards militancy. No more prioritisation of the fight against anti-Pakistain holy warriors while tolerating the growth of other groups. No more treating some banned murderous Moslem groups as more deserving of punitive action than other banned outfits. No more asking the world to be patient while demanding it do more to help Pakistain fight selective battles. Yes, tactics and strategies against different groups will necessarily have to be different, and different regions will need different approaches, but in principle and in philosophy there must be clarity that all murderous Moslem groups will be dismantled and that Pakistain will be cleansed of militancy, terrorism and extremism. Total clarity, total commitment -- there is no other option.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ARA News] The German authorities arrested a suspected Turkish spy that was spying on Kurdish organizations and institutions was arrested, the German Federal Prosecution in Hamburg said on Friday.
The 31-year-old suspect, who was arrested in Hamburg on Thursday, had obtained information about the whereabouts, contact persons and political activities of Kurds living in Germany as well as about Kurdish institutions. The information was passed on to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
The German polices searched the suspects house. He is still under investigation, the German newspaper Tagesschau reported.
The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized Germany and Europe for not doing enough against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
This is not the first time reports emerged that Turkish agents were active in Europe. In late November, German media reported that the state prosecutor’s office in Bremen had initiated an investigation into a Turkish agent conspiring to kill two people active in the Kurdish community outside Turkey.
One of alleged targets of the murder plot was Yüksel Koc, a Kurdish activist based in Bremen. The second was Remzi Kartal, who lives in Brussels and is the chair of the Kurdish organization Kongra-Gel, reported The Local newspaper.
Furthermore, French investigators have found that Turkey’s secret services were probably involved in the murder of three Kurdish women activists in Paris in 2013.
The Turkish suspect Omer Guney was believed to have murdered Sakine Cansiz, 54, a high-ranking PKK member, along with Fidan Dogan, 29, and Leyla Seylemez, 25, at a Kurdish cultural centre in Paris in 2013.
European Kurdish Democratic Societies Congress (KCDK-E) in a statement on 9 November, 2016, called on European governments, and especially Germany to do more to prevent the assassination and the spying activists by the Turkish government against Kurdish organizations.
“Such persons may have the status of a Consul General, an official, a clergymen, but are actually charged with spreading terrorism in Europe together with ISIS to kill Kurdish people and intimidate them should be deported,” the organization said.
According to the Kurdish organization, the Turkish president and government have sent agents to Europe “as part of the consulates and embassies in European countries” to kill Kurdish activists and collect information about Kurdish organizations.
The KCDK-E pointed out that the German press confirmed there are around 6,000 informers working for the Turkish intelligence in EU countries.
[ABC7] Two feisty employees of a San Bernardino sex shop fought off an armed robber, yelling at him and throwing sex toys to chase him out of the store with no money. "Gimme yer dough!"
"No! Piss off!"
The attempted robbery, caught on surveillance video, happened Wednesday around 9:45 p.m. just before closing at Lotions & Lace. "Attention Lotions and Lace shoppers! The store is closing in five minutes!"
"Ahah! Here's my chance!"
A man walked in with his face covered pointing what appeared to be a gun. "It had a hole in the end of it anyway!"
Store employee "Amy" said she wasn't scared. She was convinced the gun was a fake and she was having none of it. "With the gun, he walked in. I just thought he was trying to be funny, to scare us," she said. "But then I saw the gun and it was like, really? I don't have time for this." "That ain't a real gun, is it? Why's it got that orange plastic thing on the end?"
She started yelling at him, "Beat it, jerk! Store's closed!"
and at one point he grabbed her. "Harrr! C'mere, baby!"
[SLAP!]
That's when a coworker at the store started throwing sex toys at him. Eventually he fled the store empty-handed. [BONK! CONK! BZZZZ! THUMP!]
"I think he was a coward," said the store's other employee. "Coming in and trying to get over on two females and not realizing that were pretty feisty."
Police released surveillance video of the robbery, including images of the suspect outside the store with his face uncovered.
San Bernardino police also said they generally recommend people don't confront armed robbers. But Amy and Whatsername can...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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#1
A story that will not be told in the Three Cripples pub.
At least one civilian was killed when a group of Taliban fighters attacked part of Baghlan-Kunduz Highway and opened fire on passengers’ vehicles, local officials said on Friday.
According to the officials, the incident took place in Shash Sarak area in Baghlan-e-Markazi district of the province on Friday morning.
The victim was a driver, the official said, adding that the Taliban took away a Surf vehicle with its passengers following the attack.
Interesting gun parts for modifying the SKS rifle can be found here. I have not looked into this, but what I have read is this seller offers adapter kits that can use standard AR parts for SKS rifles. Dunno how much this helps SKS owners.
The US Special Operations Command has selected a new cartridge for snipers, the .300 Norma Magnum. I have read in discussions on line about how the .308 is not a very good sniper round, but I also have read how a smaller caliber, the .264 Win Magnum is a flatter trajectory round that moves through the barrel very quickly, enough so the barrel is quickly worn out. Commercial versions of the .300 Norma Magnum run about $4.50 per round.
As you can see at the link, the powder charge behind the bullet is much, much larger than the .308 and the reason it is so much more expensive.
One shot, one kill. Any more and you'll be nursing a bruised shoulder.
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol ammunition were mostly steady. Prices for rifle ammunition were steady across the board.
Prices for used pistols were mixed. Prices for used rifles were mixed.
New Lows:
None
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .24 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (7 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: +.02 Each
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Mart, Legendary, FNFP, Brass Casing, reloads .19 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .15 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: FedArm, FedArm, TPMJ, Brass Casing, Reloads, .15 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: J&G Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel casing, .25 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (7 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .34 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Unlimited, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .34 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
7.62x39mm AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammo King, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, Steel Case, FMJ, .22 per round (From Last Week: -.03 Each)
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds (10 Box Limit): Ammomen, Federal, RNL, .06 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds: Ammomen Federal, RNL, .06 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
Venezuela withdrew its 100-bolivar notes on Thursday, promising to introduce new banknotes to replace the bill that makes up almost half of the country’s circulating bank notes, just 72 hours after the policy was announced by President Nicolas Maduro. The switch is an attempt by Mr. Maduro’s government to tamp down inflation rates, estimated at around 500 percent, by targeting smugglers who traffic state-subsidized goods on the black market, which has mushroomed as the rest of the oil-based economy has fallen. Maduro accuses Colombia-based smugglers of hoarding bolivars outside of the country in order to buoy the black market, part of a larger effort he describes as an “economic war.”
Critics say the government’s longstanding price and currency controls are the real root of the economic crisis, and call the campaign against black marketeers a distraction. The campaign has aggravated Venezuela’s own version of an ongoing border drama with Colombia, one that has flared at times into xenophobia and put the spotlight on the cross-border trade of household goods by criminal mafias.
The conflict has played out most acutely in the border state of Tachira, where ties with Colombia have historically been stronger than with Caracas, as The Christian Science Monitor reported in 2014. Since an August 2015 attack that wounded three Venezuelan soldiers – an attack that Maduro blamed on right-wing paramilitary groups – the border with Colombia periodically been mostly closed, with restrictions lifted to allow locals to stock up on basic supplies, as Al Jazeera noted in September.
In announcing the currency swap this week, Maduro also extended the closure of the Colombian and Brazilian borders for another 72 hours to keep hoarded cash from re-entering the country. And he announced the discovery of a warehouse near the Colombian border that was being used by an unidentified NGO to store contraband bills, according to Univision.
The change has so far proven chaotic for many Venezuelans, who lined up at banks to deposit bills that would soon become worthless but were unable to take out new bills that haven’t yet been received by many banks.
"Many countries in the world have changed their currencies but afforded enough time to exchange the old notes with new ones," said a Caracas man identified as Carlos by the Guardian, in an interview with the site. "Think of Europe and the euro. And when [late ex-president Hugo] Chávez changed the Venezuelan bolivar to Strong bolivars both currencies could be used for several years."
[Al Arabiya] Yemeni armed forces have captured large number of militants including Iranian experts and Hezbollah members in al Jawf Governorate, northwest Yemen, according to a Yemeni official.
Amin al Ikamai, Governor of the Jawf said in a press conference, Thursday: “During the recent military clashes in the governorate we have managed to capture a large number of militias including Iranian experts and others from Hezbollah, they were providing them with information and support.”
He asserted that army have cleared and recaptured large swathes of the governorates where the militias have extensively rigged the streets, farms and residential areas with over 130,000 bobby traps and bombs.
“Militias have implanted mines, in some locations we have found large amount of explosives weighing up to 100 kilograms, enough to cause fatalities among large number of civilians.”
Posted by: badanov ||
12/17/2016
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[THELOCAL.DE] A few weeks ago an Afghan man flew into Frankfurt Airport with his family and applied for asylum. An investigation revealed he was in fact a senior member of the Taliban, Spiegel reports.
The man flew to Germany from Riad, the capital of Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and tried to pass through customs on a fake passport. But when federal police realized he wasn't who he said he was, the man applied for asylum for himself and his family.
When the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) checked his identity they realized he was none other than Abdul Rauf Mohammed, health minister when the fundamentalist Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.
This isn’t the first time that Mohammed, who reportedly met the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... on several occasions, has arrived in Europe seeking asylum.
In the year 2000 he travelled to Norway with his family where he obtained asylum after claiming he had come into conflict with other members of the Taliban leadership. At the time he also said he was critical of the regime in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... But in 2014 he was kicked out of the Scandinavian country on suspicion of trying to radicalize Moslem youth there.
In Germany he faced a similar fate. After forbidding him from leaving Frankfurt Airport, BAMF rejected his application and sent him back to Saudi Arabia. From there he reportedly travelled on to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile more and more refugees from Afghanistan are claiming to have once fought for the Taliban in order to prevent authorities from deporting them, according to a report set to appear in Die Welt on Sunday.
A spokesperson for the interior ministry told the paper that increasing numbers of asylum seekers are claiming that either they or a family member fought for the Taliban, sometimes involuntarily.
On Thursday a plane carrying 35 rejected Afghan asylum seekers landed in Kabul after taking off from Frankfurt Airport.
It was the first in a contested new government programme of "collective deportations" to the war-torn country.
The government has claimed that the security situation in Afghanistan has not changed despite the first six months of 2016 being the mostly costly in terms of civilian casualties since 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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Top|| File under: Taliban
[Dhaka Tribune] On a PIA flight from Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to Lahore years ago, I became acquainted with a retired Pak brigadier named A.R. Siddiqi. He seemed to be a proper gentleman and explained to me that back in 1971 he had been in charge of Pakistain’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). Siddik Salik, he told me, was his subordinate in Dhaka. Brigadier Siddiqi told me of the shock he went through when the Pakistain army launched its genocide, for he had been in Dhaka when Operation Searchlight was launched. "I am writing my account of the war," Siddiqi told me. I asked him if he meant to reveal everything in his book. He promised he would. I am glad to report that when the book, East Pakistain: The Endgame: An Onlooker’s Journal 1969-1971, appeared some years later, Siddiqi kept his promise. His account of the crisis, especially of the early days of Operation Searchlight, was riveting. It is one of the few objective books to have come out of Pakistain from a Pak who was part of the military establishment in 1971.
I have not met Brigadier Siddiqi after that conversation on the Karachi-Lahore flight. But years earlier, I did have an opportunity to come across Brigadier Siddik Salik, the writer of the acclaimed Witness to Surrender, when he accompanied General Zia ul Haq
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ARA News] Homs – Aircraft of the US-led coalition has destroyed 14 ISIS tanks and other equipment captured near Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, which was recently taken from regime forces by ISIS.
ISIS seized the tanks and other military hardware from Tiyas Military Airfield near Palmyra, Syria, between 11-13 Dec after the withdrawal of the Syrian regime forces. The US-led coalition doesn’t want these tanks to pose a threat to the coalition forces.
“The [coalition’s] commanding general Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend made it clear during his Dec.14th press conference that we would strike the equipment before it posed a threat to counter-ISIS operations,” said Col. John Dorrian, a spokesperson for the US-led coalition. “We will not allow ISIS to maintain capabilities that threaten Coalition or partner forces.”
“The attacks occurred during daylight hours from late morning to early evening on Thursday. In addition to the 14 tanks, three artillery systems, two ISIS-held buildings, two tactical vehicles, and an air defense artillery system were also destroyed in the strike. The equipment was destroyed in the vicinity of the airfield, northeast of the city along a highway,” the coalition said.
During the operation, 16 Coalition aircraft fired 22 munitions destroying 22 targets.
“Regarding ISIS retaking Palmyra… if the Russians and the regime don’t strike it, we will,” LTG Townsend said, fearing that the equipment taken by ISIS could be used against the US-led coalition.
The Syrian president Bashar al-Assad blamed in an interview with the Russian state channel RT the United States last Wednesday. “They came with different machineguns, cannons, artillery, everything is different. So, it could only happen when they come in this desert with the supervision of the American alliance that’s supposed to attack them in al-Raqqa and Mosul and Deir Ezzor, but it didn’t happen; they either turned a blind eye on what ISIS is going to do, or -and that’s what I believe– they pushed toward Palmyra,” he said.
“So, it’s not about Mosul. We don’t have to fall in that trap. It’s about al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. They are very close, only a few hundred kilometers, they could come under the supervision of the American satellites and the American drones and the American support,” Assad stated.
However, Western analysts suggest the Syrian Army and Russia were not well-prepared for an ISIS offensive on Palmyra, and focused all their resources on retaking the city of Aleppo from the Syrian rebels, this while ISIS needed a victory after facing several defeats at the hands of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi Army in Iraq, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Manbij and near Raqqa.
Last Sunday, the ISIS hardline group recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra in Homs Governorate. Activists and military sources confirmed the rout, reporting that the army had been forced to withdraw under fire. “The army withdrew after the clashes reached the city center and it became impossible for them to push ISIS back,” local media activist Abas al-Omar told ARA News.
Russia had supported the Syrian Army in Palmyra, with airstrikes and logistical support but their efforts were apparently insufficient to save the city.
ISIS first took over Palmyra in May 2015, following a protracted battle with regime forces. The Islamic State’s occupation was exceptionally brutal, even by the standards of Syria’s 5-year-long conflict.
From From Arab News:
WASHINGTON: US-led coalition aircraft have destroyed heavy weaponry seized by Daesh terrorists when they retook the Syrian city of Palmyra from regime forces over the weekend, officials said Friday.
The strikes on Thursday destroyed an air defense artillery system, 14 tanks, three artillery systems, two Daesh-held buildings and two tactical vehicles, the coalition said in a statement.
Among the Russian weaponry the Daesh group captured around Palmyra were thought to be modern surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, giving terrorists the potential capability to shoot down coalition jets, a coalition official told AFP.
Earlier on Wednesday, the commander of the coalition forces conducting airstrikes against the Daesh group in Iraq and Syria, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, had said that “anything they (Daesh) seize poses a threat to the coalition, but we can manage those threats and we will.”
Thursday’s attack took place near the Tiyas military airfield near Palmyra, northeast of the fabled city along a highway.
The Daesh group overran Palmyra on Sunday, nine months after its fighters were expelled by Russian airstrikes and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
The radicals had initially seized Palmyra in May 2015 and went on to blow up UNESCO-listed Roman-era temples and loot ancient relics.
Before the Daesh group retook the city, it had been the focus of Russian and Syrian counter-Daesh operations and not an area were the US coalition was particularly active.
The White House has been withering in its criticism of Russia for losing control of the desert town, accusing Moscow of focusing more on helping the Assad regime retake Aleppo than its claim of fighting the Daesh group.
“(Russia) has only had one operational gain on the ground inside of Syria against Daesh. It has had that — that gain rolled back,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
“In fact, the threat that is posed by Daesh is now worse because of Russia’s failed strategy inside of Syria, because Daesh didn’t just retake Palmyra, they retook Palmyra and all of the military equipment that the Assad regime, backed by Russia, had moved in there.”
Despite the rhetorical clashes and arguments over Syria, the United States and Russia have established military back channels to ensure operations outside their usual zones of interest do not result in direct confrontation.
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12/17/2016
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Wash Times] The FBI and the Director of National Intelligence agree with a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks on the U.S. election were intended in part to help President-elect Donald Trump win office, according to news reports.
[THELOCAL.DE] A young boy tried to set off a nail bomb at a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen, but the device failed to detonate, prosecutors have confirmed.
The Cleveland Browns are inching closer to a 0-16 season and one devoted fan is moving forward with his idea to celebrate the feat.
From die Blombos cave, 70k to 100k years before the modern era. Still struggling with the concept of civilization. €170 million will accomplish what again ? 
[POLITICO] Republicans should realize they have a problem, President Barack Obama said over and over on Friday, when they’re agreeing with the Kremlin so much.
The United States on Friday more than doubled its previous reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, offering $25 million for information that would help locate, arrest or convict the head of the jihadist group, Reuters reported.
President Barack Obama’s administration achieved the platform he ran for president on: hope, according to first lady Michelle Obama, who implied that many Americans no longer have that hope as President-elect Donald Trump transitions into the White House.
[Tolo News] The deportation of Commander Zardad Faryadi from the United Kingdom to Afghanistan on December 14, poses a clear danger for witnesses who testified against the former warlord in his 2005 conviction for torture and hostage taking, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement on Friday. 
[DAWN] THE catalogue of errors, mistakes, oversights, criminal wrongdoing, hubris and policy misguidedness is so overwhelming that it is scarcely possible to read the report of the inquiry commission on the Aug 8 Quetta bombing of the legal community. Surely no state apparatus in a country and in a province so wracked by violence for so long can be allowed to be so utterly incompetent in so many ways. Yet, the report of the inquiry commission led by Supreme Court Justice Qazi Faez Isa lays bare such sweeping failures as to call into question the very edifice of the country’s counterterrorism and counter-insurgency strategies. To be sure, there are no easy, readymade solutions to what is destined to be a long war. By its very nature, the fight against militancy is not something a conventionally oriented state security apparatus can do automatically and immediately. But 
[THELOCAL.DE] A few weeks ago an Afghan man flew into Frankfurt Airport with his family and applied for asylum. An investigation revealed he was in fact a senior member of the Taliban, Spiegel reports.
