SQUEAL Liberal Piggies!
[NYTimes] Soon after his inauguration next month, President-elect Donald Trump will nominate someone to the Supreme Court, which has been hamstrung by a vacancy since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.
Not hamstrung at all. They've been hearing cases and issuing judgements ever since, though with the risk of an evenly divided court.
There will be public debates about the nominee's credentials, past record, judicial philosophy and temperament. There will be Senate hearings and a vote.
No matter how it plays out, Americans must remember one thing above all: The person who gets confirmed will sit in a stolen seat.
It was stolen from Barack Obama, a twice-elected president who fulfilled his constitutional duty more than nine months ago by nominating Merrick Garland, a highly qualified and widely respected federal appellate judge. I didn't realize it was his personal possession. I thought playing by the rules (especially as warped under Obama, Reid, and Pelosi) was fair play. F&^k off and die,.... with all due respect
It was stolen by top Senate Republicans, who broke with longstanding tradition and refused to consider any nominee Mr. Obama might send them, because they wanted to preserve the court's conservative majority. The main perpetrators of the theft were Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But virtually all Republican senators were accomplices; only two supported holding hearings.
The Senate's duty is advice and consent. They advised President Obama that they would not consent to approving any candidates in the months leading up to the election, following a precedent set by some previous Senates. At the time the Democrats warned that the candidates proposed by President Clinton, and pushed through by the Democrat-dominated Senate, would be much more liberal. Everything that makes you unhappy over the next four to eight years, my dear Times editorialist, is due to Hillary blowing the election.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016
13:00 ||
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OK, the senators broke tradition but not the law. So isn't it libel to accuse them of theft with malice and reckless disregard for the truth?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/25/2016 13:46
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#2
The genius of the founders, checks and balances. For a party whose president circumvented the Congress for years with executive order overreach, and had Harry Reid stymie budgets over and over to now protest, makes irony as a term seem so inadequate! Trump won and saved, at least for a time, the hopes for the Republic. You lost. Man up and own it!
#5
Trump has the chance to stack the SCOTUS with real Constitutionalists, not Affirmative Action Identity Group tokens. That's what this election meant. The NYT is cringing because they helped bring in DJT by their lies and partisanship
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016 15:20
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#6
And here you have the mind of pseudo-homo sinister in all its glory.
#7
"The Senate's duty is advice and consent. They advised President Obama that they would not consent to approving any candidates in the months leading up to the election, following a precedent set by some previous Senates. At the time the Democrats warned that the candidates proposed by President Clinton, and pushed through by the Democrat-dominated Senate, would be much more liberal. Everything that makes you unhappy over the next four to eight years, my dear Times editorialist, is due to Hillary blowing the election"
WHAT TW SAID!
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/25/2016 16:08
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#8
How many of those Electoral votes were delivered by the same-sex marriage decree of the present SCOTUS? Maybe if the likes of the editorial board of the NYT wasn't for a more Peoples Democratic Republic means of coercing via SCOTUS the populous instead of their consent via the states, we may have seen a different outcome.
You hit the nail right on the head. Scalia's seat is open, and Ginsburg's will be soon - I suspect she is more ill than we have been told, and she was holding on so Malificent Hilary could name her replacement. The Democrats must be literally in fear of the idea of a six to three Conservative (or at least nominally so) SCOTUS for years to come.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/25/2016 16:58
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#11
The Dems have been pleading with Ginsburg to retire so that Obola could name her successor for years. They failed and now DJT will, most likely, get to fill the slot.
We need a better word to describe the evil, arrogant, ironic, hypocritical attitude that is embodied in the current Demon party.
#13
#11 The Dems have been pleading with Ginsburg to retire so that Obola could name her successor for years. They failed and now DJT will, most likely, get to fill the slot.
And there is indeed, the irony: Madame Justice Ginsburg KNEW better, she like so many others KNEW Malificent Hilary was going to be President, and she would give the first woman President the opportunity to make her first SCOTUS nomination.
Schadenfreude: It's what's for dinner.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/25/2016 21:00
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[CNBC] Trump aide Kellyanne Conway says she may have fewer distractions to contend with than many people in government.
Though she was reportedly skeptical of her ability to take on a key role at first, given the fact that she has four children at home, she is now confident she will be able to balance work and family.
"I don't play golf, and I don't have a mistress, so I have a lot of time that a lot of these other men don't," Conway told the Fox Business Network on Thursday after President-elect Donald Trump named her White House counselor.
"I see people on the weekend spending an awful lot of time on their golf games," she added, "and that's their right, but the kids will be with me; we live in the same house, and they come first."
Conway has 12-year-old twins, an 8-year-old and a 7-year-old.
Her comments may land awkwardly for her boss, since the president-elect's 10-year-old son, Barron, will not be living in the same house as his father: He and his mother will remain in New York after the inauguration.
#3
When Mr. Wife was transferred back to the U.S., the trailing daughters and I took the option of moving a month ahead of him so the girls would be here for the start of school, while he wrapped up his projects in Europe. It matters for a certain kind of child. I switched schools one week into my own first grade year, and spent the entire year trying to figure out the rules the teacher had laid down those first few days. I still don't know what's wanted for a book report at that level. And Mr. Wife belongs entirely to the job for the first six months in a new role, so being a short commute away would be considerably less of a sacrifice.
48 Hr Rule
A Russian passenger plane with 92 people aboard, including a famed military band on the way to Syria, crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday minutes after takeoff from the resort city of Sochi, the Defense ministry said. On its way to Syria
The Tu-154 that belonged to the Defense Ministry was carrying the famous Alexandrov choir for a concert at the Russian air base in Syria, the ministry said.
A total of 84 passengers and eight crew were on board the plane that dropped off radars minutes after taking off. Emergency services found its fragments about 1.5 kilometers (less than one mile) from shore at a depth of 50-70 meters (165-230 feet), the ministry said. There was no word of survivors.
Nine Russian journalists, including a TV crew from Channel One, were among the passengers.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was personally coordinating the rescue efforts, and President Vladimir Putin has received official reports on the incident.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016
07:21 ||
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60 dead, including members of the Red Army Choir.
#3
No one to sing and play for the troops at Christmas. If we had leadership in Washington, an offer might have been extended to send the Marines. I suspect our bandsmen and women would have gladly volunteered. It is after all, Christmas.
#12
Look at it this way Bllossom. They likely needed to be replaced anyway. Especially the networking.
Personally I would have the entire WH network inspected - visually and electronically - and its key components replaced before I would conduct any government business in there. Who knows what was left behind. Treat the outgoing administration like they deserve - as the enemy.
As I recently edited my Christmas card mailing list, I find another not so very uplifting message on this special day. The meaning of Christmas and of life, something to ponder about our tiny speck of time nonetheless.
#2
Over thirty million dead Facebook users already? What will happen to their accounts when FB finally goes belly up? The information in the accounts is the property of Facebook, not of the users, so the accounts of the living will be a saleable asset, but those of the not recently deceased would only be of interest to a few statisticians and historians, and a few of the friends and relations. The rest will remember their loved ones without the aid of the internet, as people have always done.
I read a science fiction story a while back about a college computer class being given the task to purge the computer files of the dead. Each student was to go through their list, glean what was important from each file, and report back what they had discovered. The story, written before Facebook was a thing, was set several hundred years in the future.
I don't care if it's an 1853 law - a law passed by Congress can be changed by Congress.
Whether Congress will have the cajones to do it is a separate question.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/25/2016 16:17
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#17
And how many of these nitwits voted for obama in 2012?
Look, i'll let you have 2008. but in 2012, you KNEW what you were voting for. You were voting for this. You fools make this, you can now eat it. every last bite of it.
You mean the legacy of flying in a billion dollars in foreign currency, on pallet, to the Islamic Republic of Iran?
In "not a hostage payment" when hostages were kept on the tarmac and only allowed to fly once the plane with the cash landed?
Or the legacy of encouraging race war and BLM by inviting them to the White House instead of prosecuting them for sedition and inciting violence?
Or the legacy of allowing his Secretary of State to sell her public office to Saudi Arabia, and then allowing his foreign policy to be dictated by those donor Saudis?
Or the legacy of destroying stable and secular dictators in the Muslim world to create chaos, failed states run by Islamists?
Or of allowing a Caliphate to form for the first time in a century complete with head-chopping, crucifixions and slave markets?
The most instructive thing about Obama’s Security Council abstention is he didn’t have the guts to do it earlier, when he stood to lose something by doing it. Only after he calculated there was nothing more to squeeze from that particular quarter did he run up the Jolly Roger. Had it cost him it would have meant something, even as a gesture.
But even more interesting was his willingness to damage the Democratic party who he’s leaving with political bill, not to mention the fact that the policy his abstention represents makes little sense.
Israel is likely to emerge as a linchpin in the region, after Obama’s power vacuum bomb reduces the nearby countries to waste. If Turkey and Iran fall apart, which is not inconceivable, then Obama will have antagonized the last man standing.
It was bad timing and pointless, like a punch thrown by a fighter lying on the canvas — at the referee. That would leave his legacy a consistently dysfunctional whole: conceived in delusion, executed in incompetence.
[IsraelTimes] Defense minister in Islamabad reacts to false news item featuring non-existent quote by ex-Israeli defense chief Ya’alon.
How mortifying for him.
Pakistain’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif tweeted a veiled nuclear threat at Israel, apparently after taking affront at a fake news article where Israel purportedly warned Islamabad against meddling in Syria.
"Israeli def min threatens nuclear retaliation presuming pak role in Syria against ISIS. Israel forgets Pakistain is a Nuclear state too," the Pak minister tweeted on Friday.
Israel Radio said Saturday that Asif was responding to a fake news story on the website AWDnews.com, which falsely reported that Israel responded to a Pak promise to send troops to Syria with a threat of nuclear attack.
The unfounded story even mistakenly attributes the threat to Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Ya’alon left the Defense Ministry in May and was replaced by current Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.
Israel has never publicly confirmed or denied possessing nuclear weapons, nor issued threats to use nuclear weapons. It would be beyond unlikely for it to brazenly threaten Pakistain that "we will destroy them with a nuclear attack," as the report claimed that Ya’alon did on Tuesday. Such ostensible comments by Ya’alon would have caused major headlines worldwide.
Asif’s tweet was roundly criticized on twitter, with many calling on him to act in a more responsible manner.
"Oh Khawaja Saab, It’s a Fake News From Fake News Outlets. Act Like a Defense Minister," wrote one commentator.
It’s not the first time Asif has brandished his country’s nuclear arsenal.
In September he threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons against arch-enemy India.
Moscow (AFP) - A Russian military plane headed to Syria has disappeared from radar after taking off from the southern city of Adler, local news agencies reported the defence ministry as saying Sunday.
The ministry said that there are 91 people onboard and that search and rescue groups had been dispatched to locate the missing Tu-154.
The plane had departed at 5:40 am local time (0240 GMT) from Adler, south of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, and was conducting a routine flight to Russia's Hmeimim airbase outside the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, the ministry said.
The ministry said the plane was carrying Russian servicemen as well as members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, the army's official musical group, who were headed to Syria to participate in New Year celebrations at the base.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/25/2016
00:32 ||
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And the LORD spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."[7]
#4
Indeed! Merry Christmas, and Happy Hannukah to our Jewish R'Burgers
Ditto:
And to give all the advice that I gave my sons and daughters-in-law........Have a Merry Christmas, and don't drink it all at once ;^)
We've had a good First Day of Hanakkah (spelling from my Jewish DiL) and Christmas morning. Much booze was exchanged.
15 yr. Dalwhinnie, Bowmore 12 yr., Elijah Craig small batch, Evan Williams Single Barrel, Glen Morangie Port Cask., Powell & Son Shiraz and all the fixings for Moscow Mules complete with the hand hammered mugs. 8^)
Yes we did go overboard but Nov. 8th so improved the mood.............................
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/25/2016 10:38
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#6
Alan C-
If you can find it, look for Defiant Rye from Catskill Distilling Company in Bethel New York. Outstanding. As the ice melts, every taste is new and delicious.
Also Deanston un-chill filtered single Highland malt, a new addition to my grass seed repertoire.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/25/2016 11:24
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#8
Christmas eve at Mom's with the G clan, and this AM for champagne and breakfast with the Daughter's clan (and even my ex...). Back home in jammies and gonna nap. Life is good
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016 12:47
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Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/25/2016 18:19
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#12
Merry Christmas, everybody!
For what it's worth, every single person I've encountered in the checkout lines over the past fortnight said 'Merry Christmas'. Funny how a Presidential election changes that attitude, especially in Massachusetts.
[Daily Caller] The tall, enigmatic fellow with shocks of white hair and an oil man’s swagger seemed that natural choice for jury foreman, but he told his fellow jurors he wasn’t interested in the spotlight.
He spent lunch breaks thumbing through the newspaper and trading pleasantries with other jurors, while a strapping man with an ear piece looked on. It was several coy answers and many Google searches before anyone learned he was Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, now President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to serve as secretary of State.
Emily Roden, a small business owner in Denton, Texas, served on a jury in Denton County with Tillerson nine years ago, and recounted the experience for The Dallas Morning News.
#2
I don't know anything about the man, but the choices Trump have made for posts so far range from ok to brilliant. So far I like what I see from Mr. Tillerson and will happily give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
#3
I found the comments very telling. More proof that liberals are so divoraced from reality and humanity that they really are a clear and present to all actual human beings.
[Iraq Sun] A few hundred Iraqi Christians flocked on Saturday to Bartella, a northern town recently retaken from ISIS, to celebrate Christmas for the first time since 2013.
Bartella, once home to thousands of Assyrian Christians, emptied in August 2014 when it fell to ISIS's blitz across large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Iraqi forces took it back in the first few days of the offensive that started in October.
'It is a mix of sadness and happiness,' said Bishop Mussa Shemali before a Christmas eve ceremony at Mar Shimoni church, which has been badly damaged, with crosses taken down and statues of saints defaced, Rooters reported.
'We are sad to see what has been done to our holiest places by our own countrymen, but at the same time we are happy to celebrate the first mass in two years.'
The region of Nineveh is one of the most ancient settlements of Christianity, going back nearly 2,000 years.
The front line in the battle to retake djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... - ISIS's last major stronghold in Iraq, has moved a few kilometers to the west, into eastern districts where the murderous Moslems are dug in among civilians, fighting off the advance of elite Iraqi units with suicide boom-mobiles, mortars and snipers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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[Dhaka Tribune] A female hard boy blew herself up during a police raid in a hard boy hideout at Dhaka’s Ashkona, marking the first time a woman acted in the capacity of a jacket wallah in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh’s new wave of violent hard boys, notably the New Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh outfit, are fielding an unprecedented number of female jihadists.
Yesterday’s fatal detonation of an explosive by a female hard boy during a 16-hour police raid on her hideout marked the first time a woman here has acted in the capacity of a suicide bomber.
Police said three women and four children were inside the hard boy hideout in Ashkona, near Uttara and that two women and two children surrendered before the final showdown.
According to Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) chief Monirul Islam, the female hard boy, clad in a burqa, came out of the flat with a seven-year-old girl around 12:20pm yesterday.
CTTC Additional DIG Sanowar added: "The woman came out with a girl and blew herself up chanting ’We will go to heaven.’"
Monirul confirmed the woman died in the kaboom. Police believe her to be the wife of hard boy operative Sumon, whose exact whereabouts and current operational status are unclear.
The blast injured the maiden, who is being treated at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, and two coppers.
The girl has been identified as Sabina. But the police yesterday could not confirm her parents’ identities.
The woman suicide-bomber and a teenage boy died in the raid.
Afif Qadri, the fifteen-year old son of hard boy financier Tanvir Qadri, died inside the apartment. The cause of his death has not been ascertained. Police are not sure whether a bullet took his life or whether he went kaboom! with a grenade.
No longer a man’s job
Terrorism is increasingly becoming an equal opportunity enterprise. Scores of women have been involved in hard boy activities during the recent wave of Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh.
The following is an account of known female jihadists encountered in recent police and law enforcement raids compiled by the Dhaka Tribune.
On May 8, Bogra police nabbed Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! Masuma Akter, wife of JMB’s Chittagong wing commander Raisul Islam Khan alias Fardeen, who was earlier killed while making bombs. Two other women were also caught with her.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
[ALMASDARNEWS] Russian sappers continued mine clearance operations in the recently captured eastern districts of Aleppo, Saturday.
According to the Head of the International Mine Action Centre Igor Mikhailik "a workshop for production of improvised weapons" was found in one of the local schools.
"You saw the improvised missiles, land mines and today we found improvised antipersonnel mines with a direct casualty radius," Mikhailik reported from the site.
SOT, Igor Mikhailik, Head of International Mine Action Centre of the Russian Armed Forces (Russian):
"Russian sappers continue to work in the eastern blocks of the city of Aleppo. First of all, we pay attention to socially important objects. We are in a school that was used as a workshop for the production of improvised weapons by Lion of Islams. You saw the improvised missiles, land mines and today we found improvised antipersonnel mines with a direct casualty radius."
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army discovered the corpses of 100 soldiers inside a local school on Friday after their forces entered the strategic al-Sukkari District of east Aleppo.
The soldiers were reportedly taken hostage by the jihadist rebels of Harakat Nouriddeen al-Zinki and Harakat Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... during their four year rule over the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo City.
With the help of several social media users, al-Masdar News was able to identify some of the corpses of the fallen soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Libya Herald] On the eve of Libya’s Independence Day today, seven leading international supporters of the Presidency Council (PC) ‐ La Belle France, Germany, Italia, Spain, the UK and the US ‐ issued a statement yesterday praising it for its efforts to rebuild prosperity, security and a united governance to Libya, and for defeating the so-called Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Sirte,
The PC, the six said, had their "full support", as did the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). They also spoke of the Government of National Accord produced by the PC as "the sole legitimate government" of Libya and of the need for other countries to cease all contacts with parallel institutions outside the LPA.
The group also condemned threats to use military forces to capture Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... ‐ a pointed reference to the recent announcement by the Libyan National Army that it would take the capital. Differences had to be resolved through dialogue and reconciliation, the six insisted.
Welcoming the PC’s 2017 budget approval, the statement called on all the country’s financial institutions to fully cooperate with the PC so that "the country’s legitimate executive authority" could implement economic policies that would address the most urgent needs of Libya’s people.
The reference to the country’s financial institutions fully cooperating with the PC is seen as referring to the Central Bank of Libya which has been blocking funds to the GNA and the PC.
The six also called on the PC "to strengthen its internal cohesion and tackle with renewed determination the multiple security, economic, and social emergencies facing Libya today, first among them building a secure environment." All military forces, it said, had to be under civilian oversight ‐ a renewed clear rejection of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar ... served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... ’s objectives of the military running the country.
As to the planned Presidential Guard, the PC needed to speed up its plans to create and deploy it.
Despite speaking of the GNA as Libya’s sole legitimate government, it has not yet been approved by the House of Representatives, as required under the LPA, and consequently is not legal in Libyan law.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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[DeutscheWelle] Policy toward 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... may have to change after an intelligence report found that the Saudi government directly supports fundamentalist Islamic groups in Germany. One focus could be arms sales to Riyadh.
.
Berlin's relations with some of its main partners in the Middle East were under critical scrutiny on Tuesday after a leaked intelligence report linked the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... with Salafist movements in Germany.
The intelligence reports named three organizations sending preachers and building schools and mosques: the Shaykh Eid Charity Foundation from Qatar, the Muslim World League from Saudi Arabia, and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) from Kuwait. RIHS was banned in the U.S. in 2008; Germany banned the Salafist "True Religion" group in November.
It has long been suspected that states in the Middle East support the missionary efforts of Islamic fundamentalists. This report, carried out by Germany's domestic and foreign spy agencies on behalf of the German government, is noteworthy in that it names three Salafist organizations it says are "closely connected with government offices in their home countries." The report added that "global proselytizing" remains part of Saudia Arabia's "reason of state" and an integral part of Saudi foreign policy. The report predicts that Salafist organizations will "continue to expand their activities in Europe and Germany."
Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, declined to confirm the accuracy of the leaked excerpts or give any further details from the report, saying that it only provided information to the government. But experts say that the warning about state-sponsored Salafism should be taken seriously.
"I think these reports are credible," Sebastian Sons from the think tank German Council on Foreign Relations told Deutsche Welle. "It's well known that for decades Saudi Arabia has been launching missionary initiatives throughout the world, both by using private foundations and by sending clergymen abroad. Saudi Arabia wants to present itself as the leader of the Sunni Islamic world."
The report says that it's impossible to distinguish between missionary work and support for jihadist violence in one of the organizations, the Kuwaiti Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. The latest estimates put the number of Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... in Germany at slightly below 10,000 - politicians agree that they represent a potential risk.
"The danger is real and shouldn't be underestimated," says Social Democratic Member of Parliament and Middle East expert Rolf Mutzenich. "For quite some time we've had indications and evidence that German Salafists are getting assistance, which is approved by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, in the form of money, the sending of imams and the building of Koran schools and mosques."
And there's one group some observers fear could be particularly susceptible to radicalization:
Worries about refugees
Germany took in some 900,000 refugees from crisis regions, most prominently Syria, in 2015, and if significant numbers of them grow frustrated, they could represent potentially fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalism. Insiders say that Syrian refugees are sometimes surprised at how conservatively Islam is interpreted by some imams in Germany.
"The danger exists, and we need to vigorously counteract it," Mutzenich told Deutsche Welle. "The best way of preventing refugees from being radicalized is speedy and successful integration. To achieve that we need professional prevention and de-radicalization programs. Concretely that means more money and resources for specialists in schools, government administration, police, youth welfare organizations, prisons and reform schools."
The Saudi Arabian royal family has been allied with Wahhabism, the Saudi form of Salafism, since the late 18th century. But although the German intelligence report concludes that support for missionary movements is part of a long-term foreign policy strategy of Saudi Arabia, Sons doesn't think that Riyadh particularly has its sights set on Germany.
"While we shouldn't underestimate the Saudi influence, I don't believe that Germany is the primary target of Wahhabist proselytizing," the Middle East expert said. "In the past that was always the Islamic world, in Asia, in the Balkans and in Africa. And I think those are the areas where this will prove increasingly relevant in the future."
The BND, however, has been tracking what it calls growing Saudi "interventionism" since the beginning of the year. And the leaked report is increasing pressure on the German government to counteract it.
A well-timed leak
Berlin has never been keen about attempts from within Saudi Arabia to promote Islamic fundamentalism in Germany, and many people object to Germany providing weapons to Middle East allies with questionable records on democracy and human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... Could the two issues become linked in the wake of the leaked report?
"The German government and the Foreign Ministry have called upon the governments in question to stop their support [for German salafist ...also known as Wahhabis, salafists are against innovation in religion or in anything else. They eat the same things every meal of every day and all their children are named Abdullah or Mohammed. Not all salafists are takfiris, but all takfiris are salafists. They are fond of praying five times a day and killing infidels... s]," Mutzenich says. "In this context, the concrete question arises as to whether we should keep supplying arms to these countries and other crisis regions. I think the German government should send a clear signal."
Indeed, sources within the security community, who asked not to be named, think that the timing of the leak may be anything but accidental. Opposition to Germany providing Saudi Arabia with weapons seems to be growing within the intelligence community, and perhaps releasing parts of the report is an attempt to force the hand of politicians in Berlin.
Sons, too, thinks the time may have come for an arms embargo.
"The government has to show that it has a clear strategy for how to deal with a difficult partner like Saudi Arabia," Sons says. "In my eyes, weapons shipments should be off the table. And on state visits, it's important to raise the topics of human rights and Wahhabist proselytizing."
All the same, there is little chance that Berlin will risk complete estrangement from a powerful ally in the Middle East.
"We can't forget that Saudi Arabia is the most important Arab force in the region," Sons added. "There's no way we can do without this country, whether we like it or not."
#1
The knights trace their history to the 11th-century Crusades with the establishment of an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for people of all faiths making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. It now counts 13,500 members and 100,000 staff and volunteers who provide health care in hospitals and clinics around the world and respond to war zones and natural disasters.
Indeed a major crack in the Church with that many dissenters.
#3
They know to keep the church at arms length, the don't want another Friday the 13th in their future...
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12/25/2016 16:07
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From the link: "Francis on Thursday appointed a five-member commission to investigate the Dec. 8 ouster of Albrecht von Boeselager amid evidence that Francis' own envoy to the group, conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, helped engineer it without his blessing.
One charge used against von Boeselager concerned a program that the order's Malteser International aid group had participated in several years ago with other aid groups to help sex slaves in Myanmar, including giving them condoms to protect them from HIV infection.
Church teaching bars the use of artificial contraception. Von Boeselager has said as soon as the order's headquarters in Rome learned of the condom distribution, two of the projects were immediately halted. A third continued, he said, because an abrupt end to the project would have deprived a poor region of Myanmar of all basic medical services. The project eventually ended after the Vatican's doctrine office intervened."
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s Defense Minister Fikri Isik on Dec. 23 said he had information that three Turkish soldiers were kidnapped by Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) faceless myrmidons in northern Syria but added that other "comments" beyond this information were not confirmed.
"Up until now, we have information that three of our soldiers are kidnapped by DAES [ISIS]," said Isik during a meeting in the northwestern province of Kocaeli.
He added that Turkish forces along with Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA) fighters "cleared" the key location of al-Bab, Hospital Height, from ISISfaceless myrmidons but there were "more work to carry out."
Turkey for four months has been carrying out the military operation, Euphrates Shield, in support of FSA fighters in northern Syria, to secure its border from ISIS.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth ordered the entire 614th quadrant searched. The Green Lensman must be found!... 68 ISISfaceless myrmidons were "neutralized" during the ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria's al-Bab since Dec. 23, according to the Turkish military.
According to a statement issued by Turkish General Staff on Dec. 24, a total of 141 ISIS targets including a military headquarters were destroyed within the Operation Euphrates Shield.
The statement said that two FSA fighters were killed and one other was maimed in festivities with ISIS Lion of Islams.
The Turkish military usually uses the term neutralized to refer to dead or injured or captured Lion of Islams.
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12/25/2016
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[Iraq Sun] German authorities have said that the chief suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack had voluntarily served as a jacket wallah.
This has been confirmed by the interceptions made by German authorities in the communication between the suspect and ISIS murderous Moslems.
The suspect, Anis Amri’s ID papers were also obtained about 24 hours after the attack took place.
Authorities said that Anis Amri, a 24 year-old Tunisian man, had arrived in Germany from Italia, in April 2015. He had served a four-year prison sentence in Palmero for arson.
Documents were found on Tuesday afternoon in the truck that was used to carry out the attacks.
Head of the group of Interior ministers from Germany's federal states, Klaus Bouillon, said, "Islamists often leave identity documents at attack sites - as was the case in Gay Paree attacks - to steer public opinion against refugees."
The truck crashed into the Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 and injuring 48. It was the deadliest attack carried out in Germany since 1980.
German authorities came across messages from Anis Amri offering to carry out a suicide kaboom, when they had been intercepting communications of Islamic preachers.
Amri was already on a security watch list, and was also considered a danger to the state. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... intelligence officers didn’t arrest him.
Following the attack, on Wednesday, a 100,000 euros reward was announced by the German police for any information leading to the capture of Amri.
A local newspaper cited an anti-terrorism investigator as saying that it was fairly clear in spring itself that Amri was looking for accomplices for the attack.
The slow performance of intelligence officials and police agencies after this incident has put more pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... , who has been sharply criticised through the year for her liberal immigration policy.
On Wednesday, the German capital witnessed two demonstrations, where protesters demanded a "regime change."
After the attack and ahead of Christmas, security has been tightened across Europe and especially in La Belle France, that has fallen prey to many terrorist attacks through the year.
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#1
However, they are still not sure of his motive...
[Al Jazeera] Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari says the army has seized one 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 last bases in northeastern Borno state.
If confirmed, the claim would mark a key stage in the government's months-long offensive against the gang.
A long campaign in the 1,300sq km forest in Borno led to the "final crushing of Boko Haram snuffies in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest" on Friday, Buhari said in a statement on Saturday.
He congratulated his troops for "finally entering and crushing the remnants of the Boko Haram Death Eaters at 'Camp Zero', which is located deep within the heart of Sambisa Forest".
"The snuffies are on the run, and no longer have a place to hide. I urge you to maintain the tempo by pursuing them and bringing them to justice," he said.
The Nigerian army has defeated Boko Haram in the Sambisa forest, one of the jihadists' last remaining strongholds, President Muhammadu Buhari said Saturday. A campaign lasting for months in the 1,300 square-kilometre forest in northeastern Borno state led to the "final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest" on Friday, Buhari said in a statement.
He congratulated his troops for "finally entering and crushing the remnants of the Boko Haram insurgents at 'Camp Zero', which is located deep within the heart of Sambisa Forest".
"The terrorists are on the run, and no longer have a place to hide. I urge you to maintain the tempo by pursuing them and bringing them to justice," he said.
The statement made no mention of the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram faction based in the forest.
He's fleeing...
The military has said in the last few days that Boko Haram fighters are running away from the forest into surrounding areas and people have been told to be vigilant.
Boko Haram has killed more than 15,000 people, displaced over two million and kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children during a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state.
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12/25/2016
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] ISIS killed 18 Syrian soldiers and allied snuffies in a series of attacks near Tayfur military airport in the eastern countryside of Homs province, the group's Amaq new agency said Saturday.
Saturday's corpse count come after 27 more fighters loyal to Bashar al-Asssad were killed in a series of ISIS attacks near Palmyra in the past 24 hours, activists said.
in the battleground of the eastern countryside of Homs.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS began launching attacks on regime forces and their allies Thursday night and that festivities were ongoing.
ISIS targeted several villages with a majority population from al-Assad's Alawite clan, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, said Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman.
One of the attacks on al-Masoudiya village, the hometown of al-Assad’s first advisor, Bouthaina Shaaban, has also left 13 people killed and 15 more maimed, sources said.
The radical group that seizes swaths of territory in eastern Homs, including the historic city f Palmyra and gas-rich fields, has annoyed regime cerebration over Aleppo capture. Pro-regime activists said the risk of new ISIS advances may cause more causalities as ISIS shows stubborn.
The murderous Moslems were trying to "totally surround" the Tayfur military airport and "cut its supply route," said Abdel-Rahman.
ISIS took advantage of bad weather that halted regime’s air strikes by pressing more gains especially near the strategic military air base.
The opposition-aligned, Britannia-based Observatory said the base is located between the cities of Palmyra and Homs in central Syria.
The snuffies retook Palmyra in central Syria on Dec. 11, just eight months after the army backed by Russia drove them out.
Since then festivities have rattled the region and Monday attacks by ISIS on the Tayfur base killed at least 20 regime force members, according to the Observatory.
Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and its recapture by ISIS gave the murderous Moslems a propaganda boost as they face assaults on two of their key strongholds ‐ Raqqa in Syria and Iraq's second city djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn....
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemen’s armed and resistance forces were able to recapture several key areas within a district in the capital Sanaa.
Several areas including Telti al-Hamra, al-Madfoun and al-Talal from the Nihm district of Sanaa were liberated after more than a year of being held by Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... militias and forces loyal to ousted former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... Nihm has been subjected to fierce fighting from both sides attempting to control the district located east of the capital.
Meanwhile in Taiz, armed forces of the legitimate government of Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi were able to recapture a military hospital in a battle where Houthi militias incurred losses. Among them was key militia leader named Abu Assem.
The advancements come a day after Saudi forces were able to carry out a night-time operation in Jizan and Najran, after spotting Houthi and Saleh militias near the Saudi border, leading to the death of 30 Houthis.
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12/25/2016
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[RUDAW.NET] The Iraqi force tasked with liberating the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... from ISIS is overstretched, suffered great loss and exhausted and is putting a few hundred new recruits through a crash course for battle. That is the elite Golden Division.
The defeat of ISIS and its expulsion from the second largest city was entrusted to this force of 10,000 trained soldiers from Iraq’s different ethnic backgrounds. And they have been on the forefront since the offensive was launched on October 17.
Continued on Page 49
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Russian jets stepped up strikes on several towns in rebel-held Idlib province and rural Aleppo two days after the evacuation of rebels from their last pocket in the northern city of Aleppo, rebels and residents said on Saturday.
They said at least eight strikes targeted Binish, Saraqeb and Jisr al Shaqour - main towns in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. There were reports of several casualties, mainly among civilians.
Idlib province for months has been a target of Russia's heavy bombing campaign against rebel-held areas. It came even while the former eastern part of Aleppo under Lion of Islam control faced an escalation in aerial raids and shelling until its defenses collapsed and the rebels were forced to agree to an evacuation deal.
The regime army has hinted the next major campaign after its victory in Aleppo was to rout murderous Moslems in their stronghold of Idlib province, where mainly Islamist brigades operating under a coalition known as Jaish al Fateh are in control.
Residents and rebels said Russian and Syrian jets also staged heavy strikes on rebel-held parts of western and southern parts of rural Aleppo for the second day since the last rebels left their remaining pocket of territory in Aleppo city.
They raided the town of Khan al Asal, about 14 km (9 miles) west of Aleppo, with cluster bombs while several strikes hit Hreitan and Andan, according to a rebel fighter from Jaish al Mujahdeen. The nearby town of Atareb was also hit.
Although the Syrian army, with the help of Iranian-backed militias, was able to take full control of Aleppo city after Russia conducted hundreds of raids that pulverized rebel-held parts, large swathes of western and southern Aleppo countryside remain in rebel hands.
Rebels said they repelled an Iranian-backed militia assault on Saturday to gain ground in the Rashideen area, west of Aleppo city.
The Syrian army continued to comb areas in eastern Aleppo that fell under its control on Thursday. The Lebanese Hizbollah- run military news service said weapons caches left by murderous Moslems went kaboom!, causing two deaths and wounding scores.
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12/25/2016
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[DAWN] The slaughtering of a goat at the Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... International Airport hanger before an ATR flight on Sunday has raised concerns among security officials about how a butcher’s knife was brought into the restricted zone.
Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) has also begun an investigation into how the butcher’s knife and a goat were brought to the airport’s hanger, a bigwig, requesting anonymity, said.
As news of the animal sacrifice before a PIA ATR-42 flight on Dec 18 went viral on social media, BBIA security personnel were also surprised that a knife was brought into the restricted area, where the entry of any individual and weapon is subject to security clearance.
A security bigshot said an investigation has been launched to ascertain how the black goat and the knife were brought to the airport hanger and security personnel who were on duty at the time will be questioned.
A goat was sacrificed for sadaqah was sacrificed close to the ATR-42 by PIA workers to offer prayers for the safety of the passengers on one of the airline’s planes given clearance to take off on Sunday. The first ATR-42 flight since the shakedown tests of the entire fleet later took off from Multan.
The management of the PIA has distanced itself from the goat’s slaughter, and spokesperson Danyal Gillani said the act was done by local employees as a gesture of gratitude after the first ATR plane was cleared. He added that the animal was killed several hours before the flight was operated.
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12/25/2016
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#1
Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) has also begun an investigation into how the butcher’s knife and a goat were brought to the airport’s hanger
"The goat? Oh, that's my date"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016 7:27
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#2
"And the butcher knife? You'll see, INFIDEL!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/25/2016 9:44
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[DAWN] WHEN the Sindh Assembly passed the law against forced conversion, it was hailed as a landmark piece of legislation for the protection of Sindh’s minorities. In rural Sindh, Hindu girls and women are sometimes forced by local landlords and petty thugs to ’convert’ to Islam and get married (pretty much a euphemism for kidnapping and rape). Their families complain they have no legal recourse for registering, let alone prosecuting, these crimes.
On the other hand, there are Hindu girls and women who decide to marry a Moslem and convert of their own free choice. Their angry parents will register an FIR and file a case of kidnapping against the groom and his family. Women in these circumstances place advertisements in local newspapers declaring they have converted and married of their own free will.
In both cases, the rights of the girls and women get trampled on by families, by authorities and by criminals. In the first instance, criminals use physical force and intimidation to harm vulnerable minorities and under-aged children; in the second, a woman’s right to choose her religion and her marriage is endangered by her own family. Both cases are egregious violations of the rights of female Pak citizens, and there has been no legal way to protect them so far.
Continued on Page 49
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Zionist entity lashed out at US President Barack Obama That’s just how white folks will do you.... over a UN Security Council resolution passed Friday demanding it halt settlements in Paleostinian territory, while vowing it would not abide by it.
"Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms," a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
"The B.O. regime not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes," it said.
"Israel looks forward to working with President-elect (Donald) Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution."
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12/25/2016
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#1
Settlements WORK. Somebody wins and somebody loses. There is NO future in your losing so it has to be the other guy.
There is another OLD saying: all is fair in Love and war.
Settlements WORK. Let's have more of them. Take all you can, give nothing back. Settlements will end the War or at least end the Moslems in the West Bank.
In America we put the Indians on Reservations and today the Indians are on reservations. And we don't have to worry anymore about the Indians attacking OUR settlements. It wasn't fair? It worked didn't it? Screw fair, it solved the problem about who owns the United States. And we are NOT giving it back....are we? Israeli Settlements work, and they will win using it. Screw Mohammed. That's right, rump in the air bye bye.
[Al Jazeera] Hopes of a deal to end DR Congo's dangerous political crisis before Christmas were fast dissipating on Saturday after fruitless all-night talks over President Joseph Kabila's refusal to quit power.
Kabila's second and final five-year term ended on December 20, but he has shown no intention of leaving office soon, sparking violent protests that have left at least 40 people dead this week, according to the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... The influential Catholic Church has been brokering talks between the government and opposition and hopes rose this week of an imminent deal, with a draft seen by AFP news agency outlining plans for fresh elections at the end of next year, when Kabila would step down.
But that optimism has been slipping, and negotiators from the two camps left church offices in Kinshasa just before 5:30am local time without a deal to prevent a fresh descent into a new political crisis.
"The work is practically finished - the final touches are all that is left to do before the deal is signed," insisted Marcel Utembi, president of the Congo National Episcopal Conference (CENCO), who had pushed for a deal before Christmas.
But others indicated there was still a long way to go.
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[Al Jazeera] Syrian government forces have launched a new offensive against rebels on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo.
The fighting comes after claims by Syrian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
of at least three deaths due to opposition shelling of a district, and just two days after the Syrian army gained full control of Aleppo city.
At least six civilians were also killed on Saturday in air strikes on the rebel-held town of Atareb, west of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The SOHR, a UK-based information office that has been documenting human-rights abuses in Syria, said at least two children were among the dead.
The SOHR could not immediately specify who had carried out the air raids, but Russian and government warplanes typically carry out raids in Aleppo province.
An AFP correspondent in Atareb said military aircraft could be seen circling above the town and a nearby village throughout the day.
Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's Gazientep near the border with Syria, said the new wave of air strikes were concentrated on eastern, southern and northern outskirts of Aleppo, appearing to be aimed at keeping rebel forces away from the recaptured city.
"People are concerned because there are thousands of civilians who are still trapped on the outskirts of Aleppo, particularly those who have been evacuated from eastern Aleppo," he said.
"If the fighting continues, that could further exacerbate the situation."
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12/25/2016
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[ALMASDARNEWS] A new video of Bana, a child made famous from a twitter account controlled by her mother Fatemah, has emerged of her giving an interview in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to a news news hound, with her mother scripting the responses.
The video shows her mum directly telling Bana how to respond on the allegations of the shortage of food in Aleppo and to supposed government atrocities on the people of the city.
The innocent child was one of the thousands of people, including her father who is a holy warrior fighter, that beat feet from East Aleppo after an agreement with the Syrian government.
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12/25/2016
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#1
Did mom have a green helmet to wear during the interview?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/25/2016 9:52
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Jaish al-Islam ...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful... , alongside Faylaq al-Rahman, launched a Christmas offensive today that targeted the Syrian Arab Army's positions near the Hazrama Farms of the East Ghouta.
Following the mass mobilization of their forces yesterday, Jaish al-Islam chose to quickly strike the Syrian Arab Army's positions in the East Ghouta this morning.
Despite their best efforts to infiltrate the government's positions near the Hazrama Farms, Jaish al-Islam and their allies were ultimately repelled after a two hour long battle on Christmas Eve.
According to a military source in Damascus, at least ten Jaish al-Islam turbans were killed on Saturday, while the Syrian Arab Army claimed three of their own soldiers were KIA (killed-in-action).
The Syrian Arab Army's 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard is expected to launch a massive offensive in the coming weeks, as they attempt to recapture positions along the Harasta Highway.
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12/25/2016
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[Iraq Sun] Raghad, the daughter of deposed Iraqi dictator , has said that U.S. President-elect 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... has a 'high level of political sensibility' and hopes that he will be different from his predecessors.
Raghad, who blames the United States for the chaos in Iraq, said in an interview to CNN, "This man (Donald Trump) has just arrived to the leadership ... But from what is apparent, this man has a high level of political sensibility that is vastly different than the one who preceded him.
Praising Trump for his outspoken attitude, Raghad said, "He exposed the mistakes of the others, specifically in terms of Iraq, which means he is very aware of the mistakes made in Iraq and what happened to my father."
During his presidential campaign, Trump said he opposed the war on Iraq, however, he was publicly supportive of the invasion in interviews before and after the war.
And while saying that Saddam Hussein "was a bad guy," Trump has praised the former Iraqi leader's efficient killing of "terrorists".
Raghad said she has not been involved in politics and supports no groups or parties on the ground. However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... the present Iraqi Government has accused her of supporting her father's Baath party, now outlawed, and has called on Jordan to repatriate her.
More recently it has accused her of supporting ISIS, an allegation that she vehemently denies.
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[Dhaka Tribune] Police’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit conducted Operation Ripple 24 at a house in Ashkona Purba Para area of Dhaka’s Dakkhinkhan yesterday which led to the capture of two female bully boyz and rescue of three children. Two others were killed in the raid ‐ a woman killing herself by detonating a boom jacket and a teenage boy whose cause of death remains unclear.
12am: CTTC teams arrive in Ashkona following a tip-off that wanted Lion of Islam Musa was staying in the house.
2am: The den on the ground floor of a three-storey building is identified by the CTTC.
A team of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) arrives at the spot.
Continued on Page 49
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12/25/2016
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#1
Operation Ripple was conducted by the Fred G. Sanford SWAT team and collection agency.
[North Africa Post] On the backdrop of the liquidation of the Russian Ambassador in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and the praise such a terrorist attack received from some activists on social media, the Interior Ministry launched a campaign to crackdown on condoning terrorism and take legal action in this regard.
Condoning terrorism is a crime under the Moroccan penal code, said Morocco’s Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Justice and Liberties in a joint statement.
Investigations have been launched to identify those who praise terrorist acts and legal action will be taken against them under the supervision of the General Prosecutor, the statement says.
Condoning terrorism is against the lofty values of Islam and the moderation and tolerance of the Moroccan society, adds the statement.
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12/25/2016
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[North Africa Post] The Berlin attack could have been averted had the German authorities taken seriously the warning issued by Morocco’s intelligence services about the danger posed by the radical Tunisian Anis Amri, the main suspect in the terrorist attack, Moroccan local media said.
Several Moroccan media outlets quoted officials, who requested not to be named, saying that Morocco’s domestic intelligence alerted German counterparts on September 19, 2016 that Amiri was about to perpetrate a terrorist attack on German soil.
Moroccan intelligence services also warned Germany on October 11, 2016, of the potential threat posed by Amri who had been living illegally in Germany for 14 months and meeting illegally with Death Eaters, Moroccan media said.
According to media reports, the suspect was killed in a shoot-out in a suburb of the northern Italian city of Milan on Friday. Italia’s interior minister confirmed the death of the suspect.
The Tunisian national has been monitored by Morocco’s intelligence services since his attempt to join bandidosbully boyz in Syria and Iraq in 2011. Amri was then jugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! by Italian authorities and served a four-year prison term.
Morocco’s intelligence services have shown professionalism and vigilance while adopting an anticipatory approach that helps avert terrorist attacks and bust terrorist cells before they move to action.
They also led joint operations notably with Spanish counterparts enabling the dismantling of international terrorist networks.
The information provided by Morocco’s intelligence services has been vital in preventing several attacks across Europe. Morocco provided the tip-off that enabled French police to locate the whereabouts of the criminal mastermind of Gay Paree attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud.
Morocco’s counter terrorism strategy is led by the Bureau Central d’Investigations Judiciaires (BCIJ,) also dubbed "Morocco’s FBI."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Syrian regime forces on Saturday have intensified its aerial and ground shelling on Wadi Barada valley northwest of the capital, causing cut in water supply after targeting al-Fija spring, activists said.
The heavy aerial bombing on an array of villages in a mountainous area near the Lebanese border seeks new forced displacement, local activists said as regime forces aim to have a rebel-free zone around the capital.
Regime helicopters dropped at least 26 barrel bombs on the valley where the al-Fija spring which supplies Damascus with water.
The Damascus water authority claimed Friday that it had been forced to cut water supplies coming into the capital and use reserves instead after rebels polluted the water with diesel.
The regime controls much of the surrounding territory and on Friday carried out aerial attacks and shelled the rebel-held area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A military news outlet run by Syrian government ally Hezbollah said the rebels in the Wadi Barada valley had refused to leave the area and as a result the Syrian Arab Army began an offensive against them on Friday morning.
Through a series of so-called settlement agreements and army offensives, the Syrian regime, backed by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, has been steadily suppressing armed opposition around the capital.
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12/25/2016
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[DeutscheWelle] The EU wants to cut off terrorists' finances more quickly. And money laundering is to be criminalized throughout the EU. What took so long?
Another question Europe's voters will be answering in the next round of elections, because personnel is policy.
If you want to fill out a bank transfer or send money to the so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... " (IS), it's not particularly difficult. The Raqqa branch of the "Commercial Bank of Syria," which is controlled by "IS," is still part of the international banking system's SWIFT code registry. One can find it on the homepage of the SWIFT payment service provider, which operates its database from La Hulpe, south of Brussels. According to the SWIFT website, the bank's current status is active.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Turkish newspaper Zaman announced the preliminary investigations revealed that the Russian envoy’s killer fought for Nusra Front terrorist group in Aleppo in 2015, adding that he, with the knowledge of the Turkish leadership, ferociously contributed to the murderous Moslems’ operations in the city.
Turkish police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas’ psychological background indicates that he murdered a number of Syrian soldiers and that some of his colleagues were also killed, according to the paper which added that since then he had lived in a bloody quagmire and desired the act of killing.
"He also used to reiterate his intention to kill without revealing the identity of his target."
Last week, Altintas asked his commander to let him join the Russian embassy security apparatus and started monitoring the envoy and preparing for his crime, Zaman newspaper pointed out.
"No one could predict that the Russian embassy guard from the Turkish security agencies would be preparing to kill the Russian envoy to Ankara."
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12/25/2016
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Dec. 24 that Turkey will never allow the formation of a new state in northern Syria.
"We will never allow the founding of this kind of state,” despite efforts to do so, Erdoğan told Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) in Istanbul.
Erdoğan also reiterated Turkey’s wish to see a “terror-free safe zone” in northern Syria for the safety of its southeastern border provinces.
"We have been saying this from the beginning. If this [issue] isn’t dealt with, Gaziantep is always hanging by a thread, Kilis is always hanging by a thread, Şanlıurfa is hanging by a thread," he added, mentioning three border provinces.
The Turkish army is currently active in northern Syria, assisting Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters under Operation Euphrates Shield, which began in late August to improve security, support coalition forces, and eliminate the terror threat along Turkey’s border.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/25/2016
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"The Nation of Islam has deep ties to the Black Panthers, a domestic terrorist organization which openly admits its interest in murdering whites.
To remember the march, they are organizing "Justice... Or Else!" in Washington, D.C. And famous actor Will Smith, along with his wife, donated $150,000 to offset the costs of the rally.
You may love Will Smith from his famous role on the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and his countless box-office movie successes.
Farrakhan posted on his Facebook page, "the couple happily donated $150,000 to offset the cost of hosting the upcoming historic gathering!" He reminded his radical followers that Smith also attended the original march in 1995. He announced the donation at Tindley Temple United Methodist Church in Will Smith’s hometown of Philadelphia. He’s using the massive donation to attract other celebrity donations, as he needs approximately $2 million to make the bigoted pro-Islam rally happen this October.
Supposedly, Smith is a former Scientology member who opposes all organized religion, but that hasn’t stopped him from using his deep pockets to promote radicalized Islam.
Farrakhan has an extensive record of insane comments and racist rants about police officers. He supports violence and the type of hate that should be shunned in any civilized society."
#2
Will offers a spoon as the other will supply the fork. Economic decision. He is looking forward to playing parts that portray his people as part of an eternal resistance. He is very similar to O. Both are expert con men. I would rather call him BEANO, Black in name only. He goes where the money is.
[RUDAW.NET] Leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-I or HDK) of Iran say they are convinced Iran was behind a recent attack on their headquarters in the Kurdistan Region that killed seven people and maimed a number of others.
The group said in a statement on Saturday that based on recent threats made by Iranian military leaders and past assasination of their leaders they are certain that all the fingers point towards Iran for the latest twin bombing.
"To accuse the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran of carrying out this terror attack, the Kurdistan Democratic Party has relied on a number of clues and information," read the statement. "This regime has carried out tens of terror attacks against political parties and eastern Kurdistan strivers and their families within the Kurdistan Region, claiming hundreds of victims."
The HDK said that recent threats by Iranian military leaders against their party left no doubt as to Iran's involvement's in the attack in Koya that killed five HDK fighters and two security guards.
"Over the past months, Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders have openly and persistently threatened that they would inflict harm on the democrats and their bases and shelters anywhere if necessary," the group said.
The twin bombing targeted the HDK offices as members of the group were marking the birth day of Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, a former HDK leader who was assasinated while negotiating with Iranian agents in Vienna in 1989.
The place and timing of the bombing, said HDK, was to ensure it killed as many members of the group as possible in that gathering.
"As they appear to have been unable to bring in the bombs inside the auditorium, they placed the bombs in a nearby place to target the people where they would gather after the ceremonies," read the HDK statement. "Within moments of the attacks we had little doubt about Iran’s involvement behind this terror attack."
"The [Iranian] Itlaat and revolutionary guards have been trying for a long time to carry out evil and kabooms against our party institutions and shelters and against our leaders and party members." HDK said.
In fact, to renew terror plots in the Kurdistan Region against the Democratic Party and other political parties of Rojhalat [eastern Kurdistan], they have rejoined some of their 1990’s [friends] and asked them to help them on this regard."
The statement continued: "over the past two years, several other terror plots against several other bases and political organizations of Rojhalat have been foiled in the Kurdistan Region and the perpetrators returned to the hug of Iranian espionage agencies."
At the burial ceremony for those killed in the bombing, HDK leader Khalid Azizi said his party was not going to "respond to the enemy with terrorism,"
"The Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran wants to create an atmosphere of instability," he told news hounds at the burial ceremony. "Terrorism is sewn into Iran, but terrorism does not scare the HDK,"
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[IsraelTimes] Three Israeli soldiers were lightly injured Saturday morning during riots in the West Bank village of Bayt Umar.
The unrest broke out during the funeral of a Palestinian terrorist whose body was returned to his family after being held by Israel for several months following an attack in October. Hundreds of Palestinians burned tires and threw stones at an IDF detachment during the funeral of Khaled Ahmed Alian Khalili. Khalili, 23, plowed his car into a group of Israeli police officers on October 31, injuring three. He was shot dead at the scene.
Israeli security forces responded to Saturday’s stone-throwing with riot control measures. A Border Police officer, IDF officer and soldier suffered minor injuries, Ynet reported.
Khalili’s was one of nine bodies of Palestinians killed carrying out attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians that Israel returned to Palestinian authorities on Friday. Five of the bodies were those of Palestinians from the flashpoint city of Hebron in the West Bank, an army spokeswoman said. They were returned a week after Israel handed Palestinian authorities the bodies of seven other Palestinians.
[Ynet] An Arab women in her thirties from east Jerusalem has been tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! , after raising the suspicion of security forces near the city's Hospice intersection. The woman was discovered to be in possession of a knife, after security forces noticed that she had her hand in her purse and was seemingly holding on to something that appeared to be a knife.
The woman admitted during questioning that she was planning on executing a terrorist attack
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli man was lightly-to-moderately maimed Friday evening after being stabbed in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem. Channel 2 News reported that the terrorist attacked the man as he walked with his wife outside their home inside Efrat, stabbing him twice in the back before escaping.
Paramedics treated the man at the scene and evacuated him to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Israeli security forces were conducting searches in the area for the perpetrator, and surrounded a nearby village where they believed he could be hiding.
An Israeli soldier was injured in a firefight that broke out in a Paleostinian refugee camp during an operation overnight Friday. The soldier, hurt during a raid in Nablus, suffered moderate wounds in his leg, according to the Walla news site. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, the army said. His identity was not immediately released for publication.
Israeli soldiers carry out nightly raids across the West Bank, routinely arresting suspects sought for low-level terror attacks and confiscating weapons and other contraband.
[DAWN] The Karakoram Highway was opened for traffic on Saturday after an hours long suspension following protests by locals over the alleged murder of a local by a Frontier Constabulary (FC) official.
As per the demand of the protesters, the accused FC official was handed over to the local police and an FIR was registered against him.
Negotiations between a senior FC official and the Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... assistant commissioner as well as the area deputy superintendent led to the arrest of the accused.
Earlier, one person was rubbed out in Kohistan following an argument between FC personnel and locals over the alleged assault of a taxi driver by FC men on Saturday.
Station House Officer (SHO) Dasu Muhammad Haq Hashmi had told Dawn an argument erupted between FC personnel and a taxi driver when the taxi hit a passing FC convoy conducting a routine patrol on the Karakoram Highway.
According to the SHO, FC men got out of their car and beat up the taxi driver, after which locals gathered at the spot and engaged in a heated exchange with the FC personnel.
The FC men began gun sex in order to disperse the crowd, the police official said. When they were unsuccessful in doing so, they opened fire on the crowd, he claimed. As a result of the firing, a 23-year-old local, Farooq, received bullet injuries and died.
A resident of the area, Alam Zeb, while speaking to Dawn alleged that the FC personnel had opened fire on civilians who were demanding the arrest of the FC constables involved in the alleged assault.
Another resident, trader Gul Shahzada, told Dawn that Farooq was employed in a bank as an office boy. Shahzada said he himself was not among the protesters, but ran to save his life when the firing began.
Locals had blocked the Karakoram Highway to protest the killing of Farooq and were chanting slogans against FC personnel.
The Karakoram Highway is a major trade route which is part of the China-Pakistain Economic Corridor and the protest has impacted the flow of traffic.
A photo of bullet shells at the site of the protest. ─ Photo by author.
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[RUDAW.NET] A Christian movement that has forces engaged in the fight against ISIS threatened to withdraw its "heroes" from the battle zones if Baghdad fails to reveal information about the perpetrators of a deadly attack on Christians and Yazidis in the Iraqi capital late Friday night, killing 9 people.
"We strongly condemn the attack," said Rian Chaldean, Secretary General for the Babylon Movement, in a statement published on his Facebook account on Saturday. "Killing 8 Christians and one Yazidi resident was one of the most horrible terror crimes."
"We ask security in charge of Baghdad and police to disclose who’s behind the crime, and also arrest the criminals," Rian added in the statement, threatening to withdraw a number of its forces who are fighting ISIS in the country.
"If security officials failed to disclose the ones who committed the crime... we will withdraw some of our heroes from the battle zones against ISIS," Rian said, using an alternate acronym for ISIS.
The head of Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Foreign Relations Department condemned the attack.
"I strongly condemn killing of 8 Christians and one Ezidi(Yazidi) on Christmas Eve," Falah Mustafa, tweeted on Saturday. "My heart goes out to their families and loved ones."
The attack in Baghdad comes as Christians across Iraq were preparing for Christmas celebrations.
"We appreciate your gifts of Christmas at a time when terror acts are escalating, displacing Christians, making them evacuate from Babylon, Assyria and Hammurabi," Rian said in his statement.
The Babylon Movement is a Christian Chaldean group of fighters mostly embedded with Shiite forces, fighting ISIS south and west of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn....
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#1
Muslim Gratitude™
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/25/2016 9:36
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[AlAhram] The Islamist group now has two advisory councils for the first time since its founding in 1928, a move opposed by leaders based in London The other one's in Avignon?
The Moslem Brüderbund group has been hit by another internal dispute between two key factions, with rival members of the region's oldest political-Islam movement engaging in a war of statements via the media. Bet they're being careful starting their cars.
The latest crisis erupted on Tuesday, after the Cairo-based Administrative Committee announced on one of the group's Facebook pages that it had created a new "Shoura Advisory Council", deciding by a majority vote on a separation of powers between the organization's legislative and executive branches. The move leaves the organization with two advisory councils for the first time since its foundation in 1928.
Continued on Page 49
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[DAWN] THE government has been going around in circles where madressah reform is concerned. Its weak attempt at getting these religious schools to agree to uniform control by the state bore little fruit, and the emphasis is now on another old favourite of the authorities: curriculum reform. On Friday, the federal minister for religious affairs stressed the necessity of educational standards at seminaries matching mainstream trends, but there has been little discussion on how to implement such recommendations. This, more or less, sums up the government’s indecision regarding the subject of madressahs.
It is a case of officials not wanting to take the risks entailed. Like the Musharraf regime and the PPP set-up before it, the PML-N government has been reluctant, to the point of being afraid, to deal with the problem. Even though the NAP consensus was expected to empower the PML-N to undertake reform, the campaign to do so has been helter-skelter. There have been several slogans and words about the need to upgrade the seminaries and about the basic principle of streamlining the sources of their finances and ideally creating a system where the state itself allocates the funds. And the talk about curriculum reform has been unending. Nevertheless, there has been growing realisation in this debate that madressahs are not simply the result of the failure of the ’secular’ education system. Growing conservatism in society is a big factor in the mushrooming of madressahs across the country.
There have been so many assessments of the reasons why the reform campaign has failed to take off. Let us add to it a fundamental assertion. Pakistain is still some distance away from understanding a basic fact about these religious schools. The country seeks to deal with -- albeit half-heartedly -- the seminaries through the five boards that represent five schools of thought or sects in Islam. What is still not accepted is that underneath there are so many divisions. There are a large number of seminaries that work as satellites without any outside control and aided by their own sources of finances. They consider themselves as not answerable administratively to the board they might be linked to in theory on the basis of schools or sects. This is against the old norm where seminaries belonging to a school of thought or sect would be under the administrative influence of an order or individual. Authorities wanting change will have to find a direct route to the madressah down the road before it can be brought under a chain of command. As far as the question of sources of funding for the madressahs is concerned, there is no group more capable of keeping an eye on this and on seminaries in general than the state’s own people at the grass roots: the local governments.
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] At least eight civilians died in an Arclight airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in the central Yemeni province of Ibb.
The Arclight airstrike hit a village in the western part of the province, Sputnik quoted a local source as saying.
All the victims are members of one family, the source added.
Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... has been since March 26, 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition.
Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to runaway ex-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
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[IsraelTimes] Two posts on consecutive days highlight ’outstanding operations’ in history of Abbas’s movement and during Second Intifada
Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... ’s Fatah movement used social media this month to celebrate numerous attacks by its members that killed over 100 Israelis.
Israeli monitoring group Paleostinian Media Watch found that the Fatah used Facebook on two consecutive days to highlight its "most outstanding" terror attacks, in which a total of 116 Israelis -- 100 civilians, including 22 children, and 16 soldiers -- were killed.
According to PMW, the first post lauded Fatah’s "10 most outstanding operations" in the group’s 52 year history. The second post highlighted the "10 most outstanding operations in the al-Aqsa [Second] Intifada" -- a reference to the wave of violence and terrorism that lasted from 2000 to 2005 and claimed over a thousand Israeli lives.
The attacks were classed as "outstanding" in some cases due to the high corpse count they incurred, such as a 1978 bus hijacking that killed 37 people. Others were included for their historical significance to Fatah, such as the first terrorist attack to target civilians -- a 1965 bombing in which no one was actually hurt.
PMW said the post praising the attacks since Fatah’s creation was to taken down shortly after it was published, and showed a map of Paleostine that included the whole of Israel as well as the Paleostinian territories. It also depicted Fatah’s logo, which contains images of a grenade and guns, and a list of the so-called "outstanding operations."
Abbas has renounced the use of violence in the Paleostinian cause,
...in English, at any rate. In English he prefers outbreeding the juices, and pushing them off the land by sheer weight of bodies. He clearly does not understand the concept of highrise apartment buildings, and carefully ignores what despair has done to Palestinian birth rates...
although in January one of his aides caused outrage when he called for gruesome attacks against Israelis.
Sultan Abu al-Einein, an adviser to Abbas on civil society organizations and a Fatah Central Committee member, said during an interview with the Paleostinian news site Donia al-Watan: "Wherever you find an Israeli, slit his throat."
...by which we can estimate what President Abbas says in his native tongue.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and al-Sham" (ISIS) transferred a large number of fighters from al-Bab City in eastern Aleppo to the Deir Ezzor Governorate, a military source informed al-Masdar on Saturday morning.
ISIS is expected to launch a massive offensive in the Deir Ezzor Governorate to kick-off the new year and close the gap on the remaining Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers that are besieged inside this province located in eastern Syria.
For the Syrian Arab Army units in Deir Ezzor, this Islamic State offensive could not come at a worse time, due to the fact that they are still trying to recover the territory they lost to the terrorist forces in the eastern countryside of the Homs Governorate.
While the Syrian Arab Army is not experiencing any manpower shortages in Deir Ezzor, they are still full encircled without any outlet to retreat or receive necessary provisions.
If the Syrian Arab Army can manage to repel this offensive in Deir Ezzor, they will alleviate a lot of pressure on their forces operating in eastern Homs.
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[Libya Herald] Concern is rising for more than 120 women and kiddies, some of them maimed, held for weeks in Misrata after they were found among IS bully boyz in the final stages of the Sirte siege.
An official at the city’s al-Jawiyyah prison has told Human Rights Watch that there is insufficient medical care for the group within the jail. Public hospitals were refusing to admit those needing treatment for fear of attacks by locals angered at the 700-plus corpse count among Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... in the Sirte operation.
Once they were inside BM lines the injured were given first aid at field hospitals. But prison officials say some of them have shrapnel and bullet wounds that need urgent hospital attention. There are also cases of dehydration and malnourishment and some of the women are pregnant. The prison clinic is not equipped to deal with pregnancies and children. An official said that the jail could not afford to pay for outside care
Human Rights Watch today urged action. "The Libyan authorities should do everything possible to ensure that the women and kiddies who fled Sirte do not suffer from any association they may have with ISIS fighters," said Bill Van Esveld, an HRW children’s rights researcher, "The authorities should urgently work with the UN and aid groups to get these civilians to a safe place where they can receive necessary medical care and other assistance."
UN officials who visited al-Jawiyyah four times since November had told HRW that there were 35 women and 88 children, including 15 who are unaccompanied, held in the jail. None was said to have identification documents. Although the majority of the detainees is Libyan, others are said to be from Chad, Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , Iraq, Niger Syria and Tunisia.
A prison official said that with the exception of four Filipina medical staff trapped in Srte when IS took over, the group was made up of wives and children of IS fighters. There have have been many reports suggesting that some at least of these IS "wives" were seized and given to the terrorists.
In the last days of the fighting in Sirte, BM broadcast regular surrender appeals, aimed particularly at women urging them to escape the conflict. The numbers rose slowly from an initial trickle. The early caring welcome given to the women and the children changed at the start of this month, when at least one woman blew herself up amidst the men who thought they had rescued her.
The change of mood among BM forces led to extreme wariness as black garbed women and kiddies approached. The woman who blew up four BM fighters along with herself had arrived with a number of children. Footage of some of the subsequent civilian surrenders recorded shouted insults that they were infidels and scum. Yet there were also examples of BM fighters ignoring the risks of jacket wallahs and still dangerous terrorist snipers to carry terrified children to safety.
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[Iraq Sun] Yet another example of intolerance has taken place in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa (Urfa) - the historic Assyrian Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the city is now being used as a municipality-owned cultural center and the foundation of the Islamic school of Harran University, The Armenian Weekly reports.
According to sources, the church was used actively until 1924, when Assyrians (Syriac Christians) left for Aleppo.
Locals call the church "the Regie Church", because Tekel, the Turkish tobacco and alcoholic beverage company, had once used it as a tobacco factory. This tobacco factory had been known as the Regie Tobacco Company in Ottoman times, and was nationalized in 1925.
It was also used as a grape storehouse for decades. After its restoration in 1998, it hosted a carpet-making class. In 2002, it became the "Kemalettin Gazezoglu Cultural Center," named after the governor of the city. Today, a part of it has been given to a foundation that runs the Islamic school at the city's university.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has used the historic church for many different purposes - except for its intended purpose: a church.
Called Edessa in ancient times, Urfa has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The modern city was founded in 304 B.C by Seleucus I Nicator.
In the late 2nd century, as the Seleucid dynasty disintegrated, it successively became a Parthian, Armenian, and Roman state, and eventually an Eastern Roman (Byzantine) province. It was frequently conquered during periods when the Byzantine central government was weak, due to its location on the eastern frontier of the Empire. It fell to the Moslem conquest in 639 but was briefly retaken by Byzantium in 1031. It then fell to the Turkic Zengid dynasty in 1144, and was eventually absorbed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517.
Edessa was an important early center of Syriac Christianity. For Armenians, too, the city is significant since it is believed that the Armenian alphabet was invented there.
But the traces of Assyrian, Armenian, and Greek Christians have been systematically erased from the city by Moslem governments and residents throughout centuries.
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Powerful Kurdish PYD militia attacked headquarters and houses of leaders belong to Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa to force the mostly rustics group to comply by PYD policies before the start of Raqqa battle against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , sources said.
A military source talked to Zaman al-Wasl on condition of anonymity reported that gangs led by Abo Saleh Ahfad, Fayad al-Ghanim, Abo Haidar al-Naeemi, with help of military intelligence security of People’s Protection Units (YPG) and members of PYD have attacked houses of leaders and members of Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa in villages of Karmazah, al-Tiba, Jahjah, Midlij, Khirbat al-Jahsha, al-Faris and barriers Northern and Western of Ain al-Essa town. They placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! 5 leaders, 9 members and took them to unknown place. The source mentioned that festivities are still since Thursday evening till the time of preparing the news.
The source added that YPG, affiliate of PYD aim from the attack to dissolve Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, and force its leaders to comply to their orders by forcing it into a bone-breaking battle in order to turn it into a small battalion like those they formed to benefit of their Arabic names in the battle of Raqqa.
The source mentioned that the operation was sudden and surprising, the brigade’s members tried to avoid causing any losses, he mentioned that PYD’s militias are still seizing houses and headquarters, while the brigade’s fighters have stayed in alert status around the headquarter of Abo Issa and the security office and military council.
The military source mentioned that the act has been planed to for a while, when a prominent leader of PYD said in a meeting of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said: "we will push Arabs fight with each other and we will get out safely."
The first betray of PYD for its Arab allies was in 2015 when they ended al-Bakir battalion in Tal Tamer and Abo Rasin in Hasaka, while the second was in September 2016 when PYD attacked the headquarters of Liwa al-Tahrir in the village of Gunaitra in the town of Soluk northern of Raqqa.
Mahmood al-Hadi, head of political office of Thuwar al-Raqqa Front, confirmed to Zaman al-Wasl that Liwa thuwar al-Raqqa will launch a battle against the Islamic State to liberate the city after controlling it by the Islamic State since January 2014.
Democratic union party (PYD) leads the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces since 2015. It consists different military arms: people’s Protection Units (YPG), Women Protection Units (YPJ) , Sanadid forces, Syriac Military Council, Operation room of Borkan al-Furat, beside the collection of al-Jazeera brigades and Jaish al-Thuwar with al-Akrad front.
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[RUDAW.NET] ISIS in the besieged Iraqi town of Hawija obtained food and fuel through illicit trade deals with individual soldiers from the Hashd al-Shaabi, some of whom have been tossed in the calaboose ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... , according to Shiite commanders.
Hawija, 55 kilometres west of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... has now been under siege from four sides for over two months, entrapping ISIS in the town.
There are no open travel routes between Hawija and djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... . However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... ISIS in the town was able to obtain food and fuel supplies through business deals with some individual soldiers of the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi, commander of the force said.
"Unfortunately, some undisciplined soldiers in collaboration with some local people had exploited a vacuum to transport food and other essential items on boats across the Tigris River to the east of Shirqat where Hawija, Riaz, and Rashad lie, selling them there for a very high price," Yazin Mashaan, commander of the Hashd al-Shaabi’s 55th brigade, told Rudaw.
Shirqat is some 50 kilometres northwest of Hawija, on the opposite side of the Tigris River.
Mashaan said that 25 people were arrested in connection with these illicit dealings in one operation alone.
"We confiscated a large amount of sugar, flour, and cooking oil when we arrested them. ISIS had paid them large amounts of money to get these items. These large sums of money had lured local people and some Hashd al-Shaabi fighters to jointly engage in these dealings," Mashaan detailed.
According to information obtained by Rudaw, two militia fighters from Hashd al-Shaabi’s special operation unit were involved in these business dealings with ISIS. The two have been arrested.
"My soldiers have committed treachery. They should therefore pay a heavy price," Wahida Mohammed, a Sunni woman commander of Hashd al-Shaabi’s special operation unit, told Rudaw.
She also said that some other soldiers are complicit in this, warning that the business is ongoing and a blind eye has been turned to it.
Living conditions are becoming increasingly difficult in the Hawija region where food prices are high. The cost of leaving is also high ‐ those who want to flee Hawija must pay ISIS or risk taking routes booby-trapped with explosives.
Commander of the Hashd al-Ashayeri militia, Sheikh Wasfi Asi, has based his forces in the Alam area south of Tikrit, 80 kilometres south of Hawija. He helps people fleeing the town.
"People wanting to flee from the ISIS rule in Hawija have to do so secretly if they do not want to pay for their escape. They often become victims of unfamiliar roads planted with bombs," he said.
For those who have money, "these people have to make a deal with ISIS to ensure a safe escape from the town. ISIS takes $300 from each person, transporting them to their last post using their own vehicles," Asi detailed. "Many people have reached us using this route."
Hawija people also flee to the Peshmerga fronts in Maktab Khalid and Kharabarut. They are taken to camps by Peshmerga vehicles after being searched and questioned. Most of them claim that they walked to reach the Peshmerga fronts, and some have been killed or injured by bombs planted on the roads.
Those who have made it to safety tell of a very difficult life under ISIS in Hawija.
"One kilo of sugar costs 70,000 Iraqi Dinars (IQD, about $60), and one case of flour costs 250,000 IQD in Hawija. These food items are very rare there," said Mahmud Ramazan, an Iraqi citizen who had given his car and his wife’s jewelry to his cousin who is an ISIS hard boy in return for a safe escape out of ISIS-held territory.
"We lived on the potatoes and the aubergines we harvested from our fields. Medicine is very rare, and it is sold by medical centers. ISIS was regularly taking head-tax from us," Ramazan said. He is from Rashada, southeast of Hawija, and currently lives in Daquq camp.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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[Al Jazeera] Tunisia has jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! the nephew of Anis Amri, the Berlin attack suspect, and two others linked to him, according to the North African nation's interior ministry.
The three suspects - aged between 18 and 27 - were arrested in a police raid on Friday in the central province of Kairouan, where Amri's home town is located, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Amri's nephew has confessed to Tunisian authorities that he had been in contact with his uncle via Telegram, a messaging service, and that Amri had asked him to join the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) group, the statement said.
The nephew has also said that Amri sent him money by post to enable him to travel to Germany, where the Berlin attack suspect was living at the time.
At least 12 people were killed when a truck drove into a Christmas market in the German capital on Monday.
Claims of incompetence
Amri was killed in Italia's Milan on Friday following a Europe-wide manhunt, prompting accusations of incompetence at German officials for allowing Amri to cross borders.
Germany's top security official has denied charges that authorities bungled an investigation into Amri, who had also been watched by security officials previously as he was suspected of terrorism and plotting a robbery to steal arms.
"To speak about a failure by the security authorities would be inappropriate," Thomas de Maiziere, interior minister, told Germany's Bild newspaper on Saturday.
"However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... we will of course analyse the case meticulously and release a corresponding report."
Amri, a 24-year-old, had been living in Germany as an asylum seeker. He was killed after he whipped out a rod and shot an Italian officer in the shoulder during a routine police check.
Hundreds of German Sherlocks are now investigating how Amri managed to flee the country after the attack and whether he may have had accomplices or a support network that helped him escape.
ISIS, also known as ISIS, grabbed credit for the attack.
In a video released by its Amaq website on Friday, a man it claims is Amri pledges allegiance to the head of the group and pledges Dire Revenge for Moslems.
Heightened security
Amri has been linked by German authorities to Abu Walaa, a preacher and the suspected head of an organization that provided logistical and financial support to ISIS from western Germany.
Abu Walaa, an Iraqi national, was arrested in November.
A front man for the Berlin police said Saturday that there would be an increased presence of uniformed and plainclothes officers on the city's streets over the Christmas holidays.
The 12 victims of Monday's attack include seven Germans, as well as an Italian, a Czech, a Ukrainian, an Israeli and a Polish national.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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[DAWN] A FEDERAL republic remains democratically strong if it achieves the professionalisation of its civilian government and maintains balanced civil-military ties. The recent peaceful military transition of power, apart from signalling military professionalism, evinced a move towards achieving the desired equilibrium between military and civilian control. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... while civil-military ties are extensively discussed here, little attention is paid to realising the professionalisation of the civilian government, where there is much room for improvement.
For starters, the government has lately been implicated in scores of diplomatic mistakes. These include the mishandling of Kashmire at the UN in the aftermath of Burhan Wani’s killing and the Uri Camp attack; the inability to highlight the increased levels of LoC transgressions by India in violation of international law; and the recent disclosure of the Sharif-Trump telephone call in breach of diplomatic protocol.
These examples arise in part because Pakistain does not have a foreign minister, a role that has been assumed by the prime minister, who works through a couple of advisers who are not politicians. The prime minister already has his plate full. It is doubtful if he can spare the sort of time required to serve as foreign minister too. Additionally, the conflation of the two posts creates a conflict of interest, because the prime minister loses his objectivity in balancing local and international interests when he is directly involved in both. His office ends up interfering in the working of the foreign affairs ministry, undermining its independence and precipitating diplomatic blunders.
The failure to strengthen the foreign affairs ministry in general, and to appoint a foreign minister in particular, suggests ad hocism in the civilian government. The foreign minister is meant to represent the country at the highest level of international diplomacy and is central to driving state foreign policy. It is a full-time position requiring expertise, intense deliberation, and independence from government branches, because a state’s international interests don’t always align with its domestic imperatives.
The presence of a strong, charismatic foreign minister is essential for Pakistain if it intends to successfully project its diplomatic positions globally. A professional foreign minister has historically been critical to building and maintaining strategic ties, countering the narratives of hostile states, and representing the Global South.
Aside from specialisation, this office also promotes accountability. As a parliamentarian, and mindful of his/ her political career, a foreign minister is acutely aware of the political costs of diplomatic mistakes. Currently, the absence of one is leading to a diffusion of responsibility for diplomatic faux pas.
With India’s diplomatic offence and posturing against Pakistain in full force, the absence of a dedicated foreign minister is felt acutely. In response, the prime minister has appointed a team of parliamentarians to counter the Indian narrative on Kashmire. This is self-defeating. International law and diplomacy are structured in ways that recognise a focal person -- one international face -- to lead foreign relations. A coterie of domestic politicians is hamstrung by its inability to negotiate, compromise or commit in the way a single focal person can.
Finally, the failure to appoint a foreign minister prevents the government from availing itself of crucial privileges and protections provided by international law. The minister of foreign affairs is a recognised position within international law; whoever holds it enjoys special immunities, privileges and powers that enhance his or her ability to conduct foreign relations. For example, the International Court of Justice in the ’Arrest Warrant’ case confirmed that, throughout the duration of his or her office, a foreign minister enjoys full immunity from international criminal jurisdiction. Similarly, under Article 7 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the head of state and foreign minister both are presumed to possess ’full powers’ to enter into treaties and, under Article 67, to invalidate, withdraw from, suspend or terminate treaties. Other state representatives do not enjoy this de facto presumption of authority, and can be called upon to produce evidence of their full powers.
In this vein, India’s recent mistreatment of Pakistain’s adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar can be partly explained by the fact that the adviser is not the foreign minister. Arguably, he does not enjoy the corresponding privileges and immunities that could have dissuaded India from disregarding diplomatic protocol. Pakistain risks further embarrassment and increasing isolation if it continues to ignore the legal and diplomatic advantages offered through the foreign minister’s office under international law and the norms of foreign relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/25/2016
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
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.
[ALMASDARNEWS] Russian sappers continued mine clearance operations in the recently captured eastern districts of Aleppo, Saturday.
An ammunition depot and several 
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army discovered the corpses of 100 soldiers inside a local school on Friday after their forces entered the strategic al-Sukkari District of east Aleppo.
...Liwa al-Islam (Brigade of Islam) was established by Zahran Alloush, the son of Saudi-based religious scholar Abdullah Mohammed Alloush, after Syrian authorities released him from prison in mid-2011 where he had been serving time for his Salafist activism. The group claimed responsibility for carrying out the July 2012 Damascus bombing that killed Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani. It was a driving force behind actions in the Damascus region. It cooperated and conducted joint operations with al-Nusra. In Sptember 2013 Saudi Arabia engineered Liwa al-Islam's merger with fifty other more or less Salafist groups as a counterweight to al-Nusra, which the Learned Elders of Islam considered was growing too powereful...
[Iraq Sun] Raghad, the daughter of deposed Iraqi dictator , has said that U.S. President-elect 
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Turkish newspaper Zaman announced the preliminary investigations revealed that the Russian envoy’s killer fought for Nusra Front terrorist group in Aleppo in 2015, adding that he, with the knowledge of the Turkish leadership, ferociously contributed to the
"The Nation of Islam has deep ties to the Black Panthers, a domestic terrorist organization which openly admits its interest in murdering whites.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The so-called "
...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, 
