[Forbes] While it is natural to use the turn of the calendar as an excuse to take stock of what’s coming, there is additional motivation when it comes to U.S. trade policy in 2018. While a number of trade conflicts were set asimmer during 2017, there was no resolution. Further, in the latter part of the year, President Trump and the Congress set aside their sharp differences over trade in order to unite behind a tax bill; a task that is now complete.
So what to expect in the year ahead? When it comes to U.S. trade policy, there is very little chance that that things will actually go well; optimists may instead hope for a period of quiet neglect. Pessimists have cause to set their imaginations free.
Here, then, are five topics to watch as we plunge into the icy new year:
#2
He is right from a globalist perspective, it is not going to go well for the world. But for America it will be fine, better than fine, it will be great!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/05/2018 8:58
Comments ||
Top||
[PJ] The Detroit area is dealing with a significant Hepatitis A outbreak. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) reports 630 known cases in Southeast Michigan in 2017, twenty of them resulting in death. There were 150 cases diagnosed in the city of Detroit alone last year. Public health officials are especially troubled by the number of food handlers who have been infected with the disease.
The Detroit Health Department has been sending out alerts, warning the public about restaurants with infected food handlers. On October 30 they announced they were investigating two separate cases of Hepatitis A, one at the Firewater Bar and Grill and a second at a Little Caesars restaurant.
"The Detroit Health Department is conducting a thorough investigation of both establishments to ensure appropriate food handing [sic] and cleaning protocols are being followed," the alert said. "The Detroit Health Department has notified both establishments that infected employees are not to return to work until approved by their doctor. Both employees stopped working at the establishments once the diagnosis was confirmed. Both establishments have been cooperative with the investigation."
[Hot Air] With the arrival of the new year, states across the nation are seeing the enactment of a new batch of laws. This annual tradition almost always brings some news of the bizarre sort and what better place to look than Oregon? The home of Keep Portland Weird woke up to a brave new world where people will be allowed (in some limited circumstances) to pull into a service station, get out of their vehicle and, horror of horrors... pump their own gasoline. Needless to say, this news was received with the same level of calm, reasoned discourse that you’d see at the dawn of the zombie apocalypse. (Washington Post)
[Wash Times] The commander of some 30,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea warned Thursday that North Korea may be trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul by making sudden overtures toward diplomacy with the South.
While the Pentagon said Thursday that it will delay joint exercises with South Korea until after next month’s Winter Olympics, Gen. Vincent Brooks, who heads U.S. Forces Korea, said it’s vital for Washington and Seoul to maintain an "ironclad and razor sharp" alliance and joint combat readiness.
The seemingly mixed messages from the U.S. military come amid a wave of peace overtures that Pyongyang has made toward Seoul. The gestures began with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s Day proposal for immediate talks with the South and statement that his country seeks to join the Winter Olympics.
Gen. Brooks took a cautious posture toward the situation Thursday.
"We can be generally pleased by the recent overtures that happened. But we must keep our expectations at the appropriate level," he said at a lecture in Seoul, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
The agency noted that Pyongyang’s sudden openness to direct talks with Seoul could be part of a North Korean strategy to keep apart five countries ‐ South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia ‐ with the goal of weakening their collective power to influence the North’s behavior.
#2
I'll repeat from yesterday. I was there during the Summer Olympics in '88. No exercises, no major movements, basically confined to posts so as not to upset the 'guests' attending the ceremonies and games during a 60 day period. We could attend, but only in civilian clothes. So what's new?
[NYP] A man arrested in California has been charged with impersonating a police officer after pulling over a driver who turned out to be a real off-duty cop, Visalia authorities said.
The off-duty sergeant was driving in Tulare around 11:45 p.m. Monday when the suspect, identified as Brandon Freeman, 29, flashed red lights on his 2008 white Buick sedan and signaled the sergeant to pull over, the Fresno Bee reported.
Instead, the sergeant continued to drive and communicated with on-duty officers to instead stop Freeman’s car, the newspaper reported.
Freeman also faces other unspecified charges, the report said.
A passenger in Freeman’s car was also arrested on outstanding felony warrants.
[Townhall] December 2017 ended on a strong economic note. Besides the economy growing at four percent, President Donald J. Trump signed the most extensive tax reform into law on December 22. Consumer coincidence is at a 17-year high. Unemployment is at a near two-decade low.
A CNBC survey that was released before Christmas found that for the first time in 11 years, a majority of those surveyed were optimistic about the economy. The stock market had at least 70 record closings. And jobs growth has been solid. How solid? A quarter of a million new jobs were created in December, which sent the Dow Jones to break 25,000 for the first time ever. Oh, and 2017 also saw the Dow Jones experience a 5,000-point surge, the largest annual gain in its history (via CNBC):
One of the underappreciated aspects of the crisis in Iran is its linkage with Venezuela. This collapsing Caribbean nation has a geostrategic alliance with embattled Iran. Some aspects are financial. Venezuela is relying on Iran and Syria to pull it out of the economic mire. "Facing potentially debilitating oil sanctions from the Trump administration, the Caracas government is searching desperately for new ways to get its most valuable commodity ‐ oil ‐ to awaiting buyers. ... The Venezuelan government is working with Iran and Syria to start construction this year on a new refinery in Syria that will process up to 140,000 barrels of oil per day, according to an announcement by Iran’s Research Institute of the Petroleum Industry."
Other ties are military. Caracas closely coordinated with Iran's foreign legion, Hezbollah, to create a dual purpose criminal/terror network in the Americas whose primary target was the USA. What happens to this empire if Hezbollah falls from favor at home?
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States, according to a POLITICO investigation. ...
As a result, the U.S. government lost insight into not only drug trafficking and other criminal activity worldwide, but also into Hezbollah’s illicit conspiracies with top officials in the Iranian, Syrian, Venezuelan and Russian governments ‐ all the way up to presidents Nicolas Maduro, Assad and Putin, according to former task force members and other current and former U.S. officials.
These links mean that risks now rising in each nation feed into the other. Like bankrupts who have guaranteed each other's scams as one declines it will pull the other down. Iran's woes increase Venezuela's -- and vice versa. But the chain of causality doesn't end there. North Korea is also suspected to be part of an internationally distributed WMD program, where Iran takes the lead in missile development and North Korea assumes the responsibility for nuclear warhead design and vehicle testing.
...The danger and opportunity for the Trump administration -- it's a two sided coin -- is that the entire Venezuela-Iran-North Korea axis could suddenly take off in an unpredictable direction. Push down in Tehran and Pyongyang may act up. There's enough complexity in the system to make it difficult to manage. The liberal punditry is finally realizing that you can't predict the future. Because GIGO, not because prediction is impossible. People routinely predict the future correctly.
But that is exactly what they based the Obama Iran deal upon in the first place: a scenario that never came true. Now they warn: we don't know anything about Iran!The danger and opportunity for the Trump administration -- it's a two sided coin -- is that the entire Venezuela-Iran-North Korea axis could suddenly take off in an unpredictable direction. Push down in Tehran and Pyongyang may act up. There's enough complexity in the system to make it difficult to manage. The liberal punditry is finally realizing that you can't predict the future. But that is exactly what they based the Obama Iran deal upon in the first place: a scenario that never came true. Now they warn: we don't know anything about Iran!
[Breitbart] The migrant who went on a deadly knife and iron bar rampage in Ireland Thursday was an Egyptian asylum seeker who called himself Mohammed.
Police have said that terrorism is one line of inquiry in their investigation into the attack, which targeted three and left one man dead.
Other facts emerging Thursday morning, reported by the Irish Mirror, include that the man had filed his asylum claim just three days ago, after arriving in Ireland via Northern Ireland and Scotland, and that he had already been refused asylum in the UK.
Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan told the Irish Times,"There will be an international dimension obviously. We will be speaking to the Egyptian authorities."
According to the paper, Sherlocks believe the man was stopped on New Year’s Day by police, who asked for his papers before instructing him to apply for asylum.
The Egyptian national was just 18 years old and the man he killed has been named as Japanese factory worker Yosuke Sasaki, who was knifed as he walked home with headphones in, unaware of the danger.
The attacker went on to target two Irish men at separate locations before being apprehended by police. As Breitbart London reported, the incident began in Dundalk, Co. Louth, around 9 am on Wednesday morning.
The killer was said to be not cooperating with Irish police Wednesday night, who are considering both a terrorism motive as well as assessing the man’s mental health.
[AnNahar] Female French jihadists locked away Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! in Kurdish-held parts of Syria should face justice there so long as they can be guaranteed a fair trial, the French government said on Thursday.
Debate has been swirling in La Belle France over the fate of women who went to Syria to marry Islamist fighters and now find themselves in jug, not least following heavy defeats for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
This week Emilie Konig, a 33-year-old Moslem convert from Brittany who became a notorious jihadist recruiter, became the latest of a string of European women to plead publicly for repatriation.
But French government front man Benjamin Griveaux indicated there are no plans to bring her home.
If "there are legal institutions capable of guaranteeing a fair trial assuring their right to a defence", women arrested in Kurdish-held Syria should be "judged there", Griveaux told RMC radio.
"Whatever crime may have been committed -- even the most despicable -- French citizens abroad must have a guaranteed right to a defense," he added. "We must have confirmation of that."
Konig, who features on U.N. and U.S. blacklists of dangerous holy warriors, was arrested last month and is being held in a Kurdish camp with her three young children along with several other French women.
"They have been arrested, and as far as we know they did not surrender of their own accord," Griveaux said. "They were arrested in combat."
Konig's lawyer Bruno Vinay argued Wednesday that La Belle France must repatriate her under its "international commitments."
A policeman's daughter who converted after meeting her first husband, Konig set off for Syria in 2012, leaving her first two children in La Belle France to join her new partner, who was later killed.
She frequently appeared in propaganda videos and French intelligence intercepted messages to her contacts at home urging them to attack French institutions or the wives of soldiers.
Some 30 French jihadists, both men and women, are currently in the custody of Kurdish and Iraqi forces, according to a source close to the investigation.
- 'Must face justice for crimes' -
Of some 5,000 EU Islamists believed to have gone to fight, around a third have returned home, according to the Soufan Center, a U.S.-based NGO that conducts research on global security.
So far, La Belle France, Germany and Britannia have tackled returnees on a case-by-case basis.
The Syrian Kurds' representative in La Belle France told AFP that authorities in their territory, covering swathes of north and northeast Syria, were ready to either take the women to court or send them home with their children.
"With La Belle France, an allied country, we can come to an agreement that works out well, bearing in mind that the priority is that these hard boyz are held accountable for their crimes," Issa said.
No foreign national has yet appeared in court in Kurdish-held areas, Issa added, adding that their forces on the ground have some 1,300 "terrorists" in jug including foreigners.
Kurds currently hold just under a third of Syrian territory -- including the Raqa region, IS' former "capital" -- while the regime holds around a half, following the multi-sided civil war which has raged since 2011.
La Belle France is part of the U.S.-led international military coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against IS.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
This is a tough one - if you're a young woman whose development has been somewhat free of accountability for your decisions, I'd go hard up front - prison to discourage others, but freedom after 4-5 years, and by no way let them return to France.
#2
to use an old phrase - they made their bed now lie in it
Suffer the consequences of one's actions. For example, It's unfortunate that it turned out badly, but Sara made her bed and now she must lie in it . The earliest English citation for this oft-repeated proverb is in Gabriel Harvey's Marginalia (c. 1590): "Let them . . . go to their bed, as themselves shall make it."
[AsiaTimes] January 20 will mark the end of the first year of the administration of Donald Trump in Washington. President Trump was nominated for and then elected president contrary to the almost unanimous opinion of the media, the pollsters and the political talking heads that those outcomes were impossible. He was also elected to the office by the Electoral College despite having received almost 3 million fewer votes than his opponent.
Efforts on the part of the conspiratorial opposition to characterize the NSS as incendiary and incoherent are meaningless babble. It is nothing of the kind, and any such descriptions are simply manifestations of political malice
Since taking office on January 20, 2017, he has been the object of the unremitting hostility of all the forces that were arrayed against him in 2016 ‐ the Democratic Party, a substantial minority of Republicans, academia, minority voting blocs, the media, most of the federal bureaucracy, and the commentariat. In the face of this massive counterattack, the president has governed with many turns and tumbles, demonstrating his lack of political experience as well as his personal style, which resembles that of a whirling dervish.
His administration is still far from complete ‐ many important posts remain unfilled, partly because of the obstructionism of congressional Democrats. His lack of political experience and that of a network of congressional supporters have meant that he has suffered serious defeats in attempting to forge his domestic programs. He has also supported and signed into law a budget bill that violates not only his own fiscal promises during the campaign, but also, and massively, the presumed dedication of the Republican Party to fiscal responsibility, adding, as it does, more than a trillion dollars to the federal debt.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Carter was uniquely horrible as a President and the Soviets over-extended themselves taking advantage of him. Reagan arrived and easily toppled them.
Obama was horrible as a President and the North Koreans, Venezuelans, ISIS, and Iranians over-extended themselves...
Er'll see...as my Mom always said
[FreeBeacon] House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes announced late Wednesday night that the panel and the Justice Department had reached a deal to gain access to all the documents and witnesses related to the Russia investigation it has been seeking for months.
The California Republican had threatened to hold top Justice Department and FBI officials in contempt of Congress if they didn't produce documents related to top agents' alleged bias against President Donald Trump by Jan. 3.
As of 5 p.m. the committee still had yet to hear from the Justice Department, according to a knowledgeable congressional source.
Nunes then issued a statement shortly after 10 p.m. that he had spoken to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that evening and he believed the Justice Department "will provide the committee with access to all of the documents and witnesses we have requested."
"The committee looks forward to receiving access to the documents in the coming days," he added.
Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray had spent the late afternoon meeting with Speaker Paul Ryan, (R., Wis.) but declined to disclose the topic of their discussions to reporters afterward.
Nunes has been seeking answers on why FBI agent Peter Strzok was removed from the investigative team working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the Russia investigation of alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Stzrok has served as a lead investigator on the probe into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. He was removed after the Justice Department inspector general uncovered texts between he and another FBI employee, Lisa Page, who was also removed from Mueller's team. They lambasted Trump as a "loathsome man" and mentioned the prospects of an "insurance policy" against a Trump presidency.
That "insurance policy" conversation also referred to the potential of Strzok working for "Andy," a reference some GOP lawmakers believe to be Andrew McCabe, the FBI's deputy director.
McCabe is under scrutiny for playing a key role in the Clinton email investigation even though his wife received $700,000 from Virginia Democrats when she was running for statewide office. That sum includes nearly $500,000 from a political committee affiliated with Virginia's Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of the Clintons who served on the board of the Clinton Global Initiative.
McCabe failed to recuse himself from the Clinton email probe until one week before the presidential election last year.
Another text referenced a second phone Strzok and Page used to "talk about Hillary because it can't be traced."
That text was sent just days before Strzok interviewed Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills in the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server.
The same week, news broke that six of the 15 lawyers working on Mueller's Russia probe and made contributions to political campaigns at the federal level. Of those contributions, a total of $62,043 went to Democrats and $2,750 went to Republicans, according to the special counsel's office.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is also seeking information related to the alleged anti-Trump bias of top Justice and FBI officials.
Rosenstein in mid-December defended Mueller and pushed back at claims that investigators on the Russia probe have acted with bias.
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Rosenstein said he believed Mueller is leading his office "appropriately."
"I think it's important to recognize that when we talk about political affiliation … the issue of bias is something different," he said, adding that he and Mueller "recognize we have employees with political opinions. It's our responsibility to make sure those opinions do not influence their actions."
Earlier that week, Trump tweeted that he believed the FBI's reputation was "in tatters" and the "worst in History."
Rosenstein refuted the statement, noting that he has expressed concern with "certain aspects of certain things done by the FBI," but "in general throughout my experience working with FBI agents over the decades, I found them to be an exceptional group of public servants, very loyal, faithful and dedicated, and I believe some of the finest people that I know are agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Posted by: T. Clunk4051 ||
01/05/2018 8:20
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Trump tweeted that he believed the FBI's reputation was "in tatters" and the "worst in History."
Trump's sense of history is only about himself...and he better understand that things can get worse. "Deep Throat" was the associate director of the FBI - Mark Felt back in the early 70s...and he did initiate and facilitate the silent coup removal of a republican president. He likely used covert intel collection methods on a sitting president and leaked the info to the press. What is going on now is no different. I also fear that POTUS is not learning from the past or his own mistakes.
#5
...cause the Left and their allies in Deep State don't believe a civil war could ensue? All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty together again - welcome to the Disunited States. Look at Cali and others refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of federal laws and players actions undermining the legitimacy of the central government.
[Ynet] A military court of appeals rejected the military prosecutor's appeal and has released Nur Tamimi, cousin of Ahed Tamimi who was filmed hitting and provoking soldiers in Nebi Saleh.
Nur was charged with attacking soldiers and the prosecutor requested that she be remanded for the remainder of the judicial process.
[NYT] WASHINGTON ‐ The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.
The proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental restrictions in an effort to promote energy production.
While the plan puts the administration squarely on the side of the energy industry and against environmental groups, it also puts the White House at odds with a number of coastal states that oppose offshore drilling. Some of those states are led by Republicans, like Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, where the tourism industry was hit hard by the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in 2010 that killed 11 people and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Governor Scott vowed on Thursday to protect his state’s coast from drilling, saying he would raise the issue with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
"I have asked to immediately meet with Secretary Zinke to discuss the concerns I have with this plan and the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration," he said in a statement. "My top priority is to ensure that Florida’s natural resources are protected."
The governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington have all opposed offshore drilling plans. Virginia’s governor-elect, Ralph S. Northam, a Democrat, said in a statement Thursday that expanding drilling would jeopardize his state’s tourism and fishing industries, as well as military installations. Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, also a Democrat, called drilling a "critical threat" to his state’s economy. Drilling and production revenues (royalties) are paid to the land owner. Yes, that would be the U.S. government - MAGA.
[IsraelTimes] In vague statement, army says it targeted 'significant terror infrastructure,' warns it will strike 'above and below ground'
Shortly after 1 a.m. on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that its jets had just struck "significant terror infrastructure" in the Gazoo Strip in retaliation for mortar fire on Wednesday.
According to official Paleostinian media, that "significant terror infrastructure" was farmland in the southern Gazoo Strip.
It’s more likely that the target was, in fact, something beneath the farmland ‐ a tunnel. What is less clear is to whom it belonged.
The IDF strike came after three projectiles were fired at the Eshkol region in southern Israel over the course of a few hours on Wednesday and amid a substantial increase in the number of attacks coming from the Gazoo Strip over the past two months.
The IDF would not elaborate on the nature of the "significant terror infrastructure" it targeted.
Last year, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot responded to criticism that the military was targeting "sand dunes and empty bunkers" in its strikes in Gazoo, telling the Knesset that the IDF is actively thwarting the tunnels and publicly acknowledging for the first time that the army has the technology to do so.
"Every missile or shell we fired was at a valuable target, at underground targets," Eisenkot said in March. "We have developed a capability that allows us to strike them."
On Thursday, the army said it was "prepared for any scenario" and would not allow any breach of Israeli illusory sovereignty.
"The IDF will continue to use all the measures at its disposal, above and below ground, to thwart attacks against Israelis," the military said.
Noticeably missing from the army’s statement about the attack was the nature of the target.
In general, the army names the targets of its retaliatory strikes in Gazoo, which are almost exclusively military positions belonging to the Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbung millipede, terrorist group, the rulers of the Gazoo Strip.
As a matter of policy, Israel holds Hamas responsible for any attacks emanating from the coastal enclave. The understanding is that by targeting Hamas, it will spur the terrorist group to rein in more radical elements in Gazoo.
On Wednesday, however, it was reported that the military increasingly saw Hamas as unable to control the other terrorist groups in the Strip, notably the Iran-backed Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , which the IDF believes carried out a mortar shell attack last Friday.
The determination by the army indicated that the IDF might be changing its policy and could begin to directly target groups that carry out attacks, rather than only Hamas.
One of the reasons behind the IDF’s assessment that the group was responsible for Friday’s attack is that the same Iranian-made, mass-produced 120mm mortar shells used in the barrage were also launched in the Islamic Jihad’s November 30 attack.
The past month has seen a dramatic increase in the number of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel from the Gazoo Strip, reaching a level not seen since before the 2014 Gazoo war.
[IsraelTimes] In Arabic-subtitled video, Liberman says Israel will do 'anything' it must to prevent future attacks, calls on Gazans to convince terror groups to lay down arms.
[Breitbart] Federal officials stopped the attempted smuggling of two Uzbek nationals who illegally crossed the border from Canada into New York. The effort led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen who officials say was transporting them.
Shortly after midnight on December 30, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers encountered Habib Muhammed, 46, a U.S. citizen, as he crossed the border from Canada at the Mooers Port of Entry in New York, according to information obtained by Breitbart Texas from CBP officials. During a border crossing inspection, officers found two passports issued by Uzbekistan and a Canadian driver’s license application.
Around the same time, Border Patrol officials received a call from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who said they spotted two people who appeared to illegally cross the border in the same area. Agents responded and located Davlat Ahmedov, 29, and Bahodir Rustamov, 38, both Uzbek nationals, in the woods immediately south of the Canadian border.
Border Patrol agents learned that the identity of the two men matched the passports found by CBP officers in Muhammed’s vehicle at the Port of Entry.
In November 2017, Breitbart News National Security news hound Edwin Mora reported that Uzbekistan is "one of two top countries that has produced most of the jihadists currently fighting and killing U.S. troops and their allies in Afghanistan on behalf of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... CBP officers tossed in the calaboose Book 'im, Mahmoud! Muhammed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York will prosecute the man for Criminal Alien Smuggling, a violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324, officials stated. Ahmedov and Rustamov will also be prosecuted for illegally entering the United States, a violation of 8 U.S.C. 1325.
The successful arrest came about due to cooperation between the two U.S. agencies and Canadian law enforcement.
In October 2016, Border Patrol agents from the nearby Swanton Station stopped the smuggling of a Russian and a Georgian from Canada to the U.S., Breitbart Texas reported. Agents also arrested a Mexican woman being smuggled into the U.S. at the Mooers Port of Entry.
Breitbart Texas reported in July 2016 that Canada and Mexico reached an agreement whereby Mexican citizens can travel to Canada without obtaining a visa. Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies told Breitbart Texas, "Canada will now become even more of a launching point for illegal entry into the United States."
Posted by: newc ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
No. But it is an interesting dynamic if you consider what happen to Fascist Italy. Mussolini was involved in a series of costly foreign adventures that soaked up all of the excess capital that could have been used on modernizing home infrastructure and the Italian armed forces.
At some point will Iran just implode under stress?
#4
A factor in Iran is the significant different factions which run the country while not getting along with each other.
The military vs the Republican Guard.
The high mullahs vs the lower mullahs.
The republican guard that controls various business vs the republican guard that is underpaid and resents the former.
every country's story is different and Iran is much different from, say Algeria's situation in 2010 or Romania's in 1989.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/05/2018 9:24
Comments ||
Top||
#5
I have a good feeling about Iran's fall. They have a large number of non-zealots keeping their heads down combined with a generation that went through the meat-grinder of the Iran-Iraq war combined with endless foreign adventures. They also got a good look at how effective American forces can be when motivated.
I wouldn't be surprised to see units stand down rather than fire on the people and if that happens its over.
The current protests started with farmers in a desert city. Their irrigation channels had gone dry due to massive incompetence by the government. The protests spread to other workers and farmers facing hard times across the nation.
Only later did the students in Teheran join in. This makes this revolt more dangerous than the one in 2009.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
01/05/2018 13:27
Comments ||
Top||
#8
@Frozen Al
One of the first Iranian cities to protest was Qoms (12/28/17). Imagine Texans protesting the federal gov't/Trump. Qoms (center of shiite islamic studies) in rebellion is an indicator that this is definitely not a repeat of 2009.
It goes much deeper this time, and much more rural. The below was cribbed from an Arabian News site.
Twenty points to explain the current Iranian protests:
1 On Tuesday, December 19, the Iranian government announced a new austerity plan.
2 The plan imposed a 50% increase in the price of fuel.
3 The government decided to cancel the monetary support of more than 34 million people.
4 Economists close to President Hassan Rouhani warned that the plan would lead to a societal explosion.
5 Hassan Rouhani snubbed the advice and decided to proceed with the austerity plan. Demonstrations began with economic demands, but quickly turned political.
6 In this same austerity plan, the government decided to increase the budget for military armament.
7 Most of the military armament budget goes to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
8 The IRGC operates on foreign lands, supporting the Houthi militia in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Unit in Iraq and supporting the Assad regime in Syria.
9 The number of poverty-stricken individuals under the lifting of subsidies rose from 20 million to 54 million.
10 On Wednesday, December 27, citizens went out on a limited demonstration to demand that the government backtrack on the austerity plans.
11 The demonstration was held in the city of Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan Rizvi province, and security forces treated the protesters with excessive violence.
12 On Thursday morning, thousands of citizens decided to go out in mass demonstrations against the regime in support of the protesters (Qom).
13 Demonstrations began with economic demands such as the restoration of monetary support and the lifting of fuel subsidies.
14 University students and other middle classes joined the demonstrations.
15 Their demands have evolved into political anger related to Iran’s foreign policy.
16 Demonstrators called on the regime to stop supporting terrorist groups abroad and said clearly in the slogans they chanted “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon … my soul is searching for the redemption of Iran.”
17 The massive demonstrations from Khorasan province extended to other provinces including Hamdan, Kermanshah and Tehran.
18 Security forces violently treated demonstrators and tried to disperse them with tear gas and arrested hundreds of them.
19 The clerics in Mashhad specifically called for the suppression of demonstrations by all means.
20 The geographical scope of the demonstrations is expected to expand to include provinces such as Sistan, Baluchistan and Persia, with its capital, Shiraz and Isfahan, which also witnessed massive demonstrations at the weekend (which it has).
[Libya Observer] Madkhalists and turbans have been condemned by the Libyan Fatwa House for their act of exhuming the shrine of Mohammed al-Mahdi al-Sonoussi - the father of the Libyan King Idris al-Sonoussi - in al-Kufra.
"Those acts done by myrmidon groups who are loyal to Rabee al-Madkhali in Saudia Arabia are aimed to abort the Libyan revolution and destabilize the country." The Fatwa House said in a statement on Tuesday.
It added that Saudi authorities unleashed those groups and made them mingle among Libyans so that they turn people against the February revolution in different ways, such as fatwas to kill scholars and holy mans "like they did to sheikh Nadir al-Omrani and tens others in Benghazi."
"Those Saudi-linked groups have killed many of imams in the Benghazi prison of Gernada and in 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... 's jail of Mitiga under torture and without trial." The Fatwa House explained.
"We are stunned to see no action and no statement by the official authorities in Libya regarding the armed attack of the Madkhalist groups on the al-Sonoussi Mosque in al-Kufra. This is against religion and Sharia." It further explained.
It also condemned a similar attack on Abdullah Ben Omar Mosque in Siyaheya area in Tripoli, where the "Madkhalist attackers" changed the locks of the doors of the mosques and hindered the Fajr prayer for the first time in decades.
"We denounce the Madkhalists' behavior towards imams in the mosques, where they dismiss those who disagree with their ideologies and appoint their loyalists instead." The Fatwa House indicated.
An gang believed to be Sobul al-Salam Brigade that is loyal to Dignity Operation led by Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, 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... attacked on Friday the shrine of al-Mahdi al-Sonoussi and took his remains to an unknown location.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout Montefiore's foot was still stuck and the hound had completely soaked his uniform with slobber... former member of the General National Congress for al-Kufra city, al-Tawati al-Ayda said on TV that Salafist Madkhalists were behind the horrendous inhumane act and they were pushed for it by one of their sheikhs - Majdi Hafala - who is in al-Kufra nowadays, coming from Tripoli, to lecture his loyalists.
Al-Ayda blamed Haftar for the incident, saying the cars that attacked the mosque bore his forces' logo and were part of the Sobul al-Salam Brigade that operates under Haftar's command in east Libya.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[ALMASDARNEWS] Iranian security forces have raided and destroyed a foreign terrorist organization that had made its way into the northwest of the country, according to Fars News Agency.
"An armed anti-revolutionary team which had recently penetrated Iran with the mission to conduct blasts and kill people in false flag operations to heighten anti-establishment sentiments for continued unrests was identified by the intelligence forces in Piranshahr (...) They fired at the security forces and used a rural woman as human shield while being nabbed ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... ," an anonymous official told Fars News.
According to the official, the operation and the subsequent shootout also costed the life of three security forces, while three teams of foreign hard boyz were arrested. The city of Piranshahr lies close to the borders of both Iraq and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... The alleged entrance of the foreign terrorist organization into Iran corresponds with the dying down of a wave of protests that swept across Iran in the past week. While originally the demonstrations were intended to protest economic difficulties such as high cost of living and youth unemployment, they quickly spiralled out of control when groups of armed opponents of the Islamic Theocratic Republic launched attacks on security forces, public property and religious sites.
Since Wednesday, the protests have been dying out as authorities called on protesters to allow the security forces to deal with the armed elements. The past two days have also seen massive demonstrations in support of the Islamic Theocratic Republic and in opposition to foreign intervention in Iran’s domestic affairs.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Seems the people don't want that old time religious dictatorship anymore.
[Ynet] A Ottoman Turkish court on Thursday sentenced a politician of the main pro-Kurdish opposition party to 16 years and 8 months in prison, courthouse sources said, nearly a year after his arrest on terrorism-related charges.
Idris Baluken, of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), was first tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! pending trial in a terrorism-related investigation in November 2016. He was later released in January 2017 and locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! again one month later.
Baluken and other detained HDP members, including the party's co-leaders, are mostly accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) krazed killer group, which has conducted a decades-old insurgency against the Ottoman Turkish state. All of the accused have denied the charges.
"This sentence reflects anger against democracy and the fight for freedom. Justice is being used as a baton," said HDP co-leader Serpil Kemalbay following the court ruling.
The arrests in the HDP drew international condemnation and former co-leader Figen Yuksekdag has since been stripped of her parliamentary status and replaced as co-chairwoman.
"Devastating sentence and continuation of crackdown on opposition voices," the European Parliament's rapporteur on The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... , Kati Piri, wrote on Twitter.
The third-largest party in the Ottoman Turkish parliament, the HDP has been hammered by a crackdown that followed the July 2016 coup attempt, as several of its members have either been detained, tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! or stripped of their parliamentary status.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[IsraelTimes] Army says troops responded to 'main instigators' in a riot near Bethlehem after being targeted by rocks and Molotov cocktails
Ten Paleostinians were maimed, two critically, in confrontations with Israeli soldiers in the Deheishe refugee camp south of Bethlehem on Thursday morning, according to the Paleostinian Health Ministry.
The Israel army said it was responding to violent attacks by rioters.
According to the Paleostinian Health Ministry, seven of the injured were hit by live fire and three by rubber-coated bullets.
One of the critically injured men was shot in the back, near the spine, and the other was shot in the thigh, puncturing an artery and causing severe bleeding, the ministry said.
The injured were transferred to a hospital in nearby Beit Jala for treatment, according to the ministry.
"During IDF activity in the Deheishe refugee camp, violent riots were instigated as rioters threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at the troops. In response to the immediate threat, IDF troops used riot dispersal means and fired toward the main instigators," an IDF spokesperson said.
[All Africa] Accused of plotting to overthrow President Mugabe's government using Twitter, Martha O'Donovan has been granted bail by the High Court of Zimbabwe. Her arrest was the first since the appointment of a minister for cybersecurity a few weeks ago. The move came under severe criticism from activists who said it was an attempt to gag social media users.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[Bloomberg] A research firm that compiled a dossier of sometimes salacious information about U.S. President Donald Trump's contacts with Russians failed to block a congressional bid to see its banking records.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington agreed on Wednesday that information sought by the House Intelligence Committee is pertinent to its probe of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. The judge rejected Fusion GPS's argument that disclosure of the data could reveal secrets about the firm's clients and devastate its business. that's kinda the point, assh0les
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
[Iraq News] An 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.... senior member was killed in an operation, launched northeast of Diyala province, on Thursday, the security committee of the provincial council said.
"Intelligence of the Counter-Terrorism Service managed to kill the Islamic State’s so-called Diyala State’s head (Wali), known as Abu Ayed, in Hamreen mountains," Sadeq al-Husseini, head of the committee, told AlSumaria News.
The holy warrior group, according to Husseini, "lost one of its main leaders in an operation that showed capabilities of the intelligence."
Last month, Husseini announced murder of IS Wali in Hamreen mountains, along with five other companions, in two air strikes in Hamreen mountains.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Ynet] Egyptian authorities have tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! 75 people including government officials and foreigners over an array of corruption-related charges.
The country's anti-corruption Administrative Control Authority said in a Thursday statement that the arrests come in the wake of a 14-months-long
investigation that revealed the defendants' involvement with several "organized gangs."
The statement, carried by state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... MENA, says the defendants were found to be involved in acts of bribery, profiteering, forging official documents, facilitating illegal migration and human trafficking, as well as misappropriating private and public funds.
The statement didn't name officials or specify the nationalities of the foreigners involved.
It added that the arrests were carried out during raids across several provinces, including Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Kafr el-Sheikh, Gharbiya and Daqahliyah.
[IsraelTimes] Newsweek report on Andrew 'Weev' Auernheimer, who has called to kill the Jews, marks first time a family member has confirmed his background.
The mother of a neo-Nazi who co-runs the white supremacist website Daily Stormer and said Jewish children "deserve to die" has Jewish relatives on both sides of his family.
Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer’s mother, Alyse, confirmed to Newsweek magazine in an article published Wednesday that her son comes from a "large, mixed race family" with Native American heritage, and that he has Jewish lineage "on both sides of his family." His Jewish heritage was first reported by Gawker in 2012 when he volunteered the information to a news hound, but this is the first time a family member has confirmed his background.
Auernheimer, who runs the technical side of the Daily Stormer, with its more well-known editor Andrew Anglin, is believed to be in Ukraine, where he has lived since serving jail time in the United States on a computer hacking charge. He has been estranged from his mother for over a decade, she told Newsweek.
#2
Well George Soros is 'a Jew'. In fact he used to accompany his adopted father to confiscate Jewish property for the Nazi's. He's still so very proud of that time.
#3
"Well George Soros is 'a Jew'. In fact he used to accompany his adopted father to confiscate Jewish property for the Nazi's. He's still so very proud of that time."
Beware of those that call themselves Jews yet are not.
They end up as ravenous wolves.
#6
There's a lot of 'pure' blood in some of those back washes where everyone marries their cousins, nephews and nieces. Keeping it in the family so to speak. The genetic consequences are not healthy.
#7
I'm happy to announce that I'm a pure blooded mongrel and I defy you to prove differently.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/05/2018 8:53
Comments ||
Top||
#8
@ed in texas
I come from a mixed family with VERY little history. My folks did one of those genetic tests... and the results were: NO SURPRISES! The ancient legends were 100% accurate. (Half British, half Ashkenazi, nothing else.) It was very boring and anti-climactic. We were all hoping for some interesting discovery, but no luck.
[Bangkok Post] A man was sentenced to life in prison for killing three soldiers and two others got four years each for inciting unrest and separatism in three separate cases.
Military spokesman Pramote Prom-in held a briefing on the rulings on Thursday. He said the Pattani court on December 28-29 last year sentenced Zufiyan Sni to life in prison after finding him guilty in an attack by several men on security officers and people in Mayo district in late March. Three soldiers died and one civilian was wounded.
When Zufiyan was arrested on March 31, security officials seized from him two pistols and the SIM cards of the dead soldiers. Forensic examinations found the guns had been used in the attack and also in a shooting of a civilian in tambon Palas, Mayo district, earlier.
Two other men were also handed a four-year jail sentence in two separate cases last week. Rooslan Tooyong was found guilty after his DNA was found on a separatist banner put up in Yarang district in March 2013. Akkaradej Sni was found guilty of illegal association as his DNA was found on the documents on terrorism and separatism seized when he was arrested at an Islamic school in Panare district, in March. “The three convicts were under six arrest warrants and had been involved in several fatal incidents,” Pramote said.
[Iraq News] Iraqi troops killed on Thursday four 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.... murderous Moslems and tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! 10 others in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... a military source was quoted as saying.
Speaking to Alghad Press on Thursday, the source said, "Four Islamic State murderous Moslems were killed while 18 others arrested in a military operation that was launched earlier in the day to liberate the southern and western parts of Kirkuk from terrorism."
"The troops also destroyed seven hotbeds that were used by Islamic State in Kirkuk," the source, who preferred to remain unnamed, said.
"The purging operation runs at a slow but accurate pace to eliminate Islamic State sleeper cells that were hiding at remote areas to escape from Iraqi security campaigns," the source pointed out.
Earlier in the day, thirteen Islamic State members were killed and injured in a security operation northeast of Baquba, Diyala.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Iraq News] Thirteen 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.... members were killed and injured in a security operation launched in northeast of Baquba, Diyala, a commander announced.
In remarks on Thursday, Maj. Gen. Mazhar al-Azzawi, commander of Dijla Operations Command, said, "security troops carried out security operation in al-Assyoud region in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baquba."
"The operation left twelve forces of Evil killed and another injured, most of whom from the region. Explosives and weapons were found," he added.
News reports quoted on Wednesday Adnan al-Tamimi, head of Muqdadiyah City Council, as saying that the region is vulnerable to terrorist attacks. He claimed that the Lion of Islam group has hotbeds there and urged security bodies in Diyala province to purge the surrounding areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least two non-combatants were killed and four others were maimed in an kaboom triggered by the roadside kaboomkaboom in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province of Afghanistan.
The officials are saying that the incident took place on Wednesday afternoon in the vicinity of Washir district.
According to a statement released by the governor’s office, a civilian hatchback type vehicle carrying passengers struck with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by the Taliban ...Arabic for students... turbans.
The statement further added that the incident took place at around 2 pm local time and as a result two non-combatants were killed and four others were maimed
The Helmand governor Hayatullah Hayat said he was saddened with the loss of the civilian lives in the kaboom and condemned the use of IEDs by the Taliban on highways and roads.
He also instructed the relevant authorities to assist with the victims of the incident particularly with the treatment of those maimed in the kaboom.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The leader of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... confirmed contacts with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... group in a bid to encourage the group to participate in peace talks.
Hekmatyar informed regarding his party’s contact with the Taliban as he was speaking during a presser in Kabl today.
He said the Hezb-e-Islami strongly supports grinding of the peace processor and will stand with those who are willing to join grinding of the peace processor.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... he did not say if any developments have been made in his efforts to encourage the group to participate in peace talks.
In other parts of his speech, Hekmatyar urged the political figures and parties to participate in talks in a bid to find a solution for the ongoing violence and crisis.
The Hezb-e-Islami leader further added that the political parties should adopt the strategy of political rivalry rather encouraging armed rivlaries.
According to Hekmatyar, his party is not supporting the repeat of the bitter past experiences and the political figures must refrain from provocative remarks.
He also added that certain individuals and circles are attempting to spark religious discrimination and chaos among the people.
Hekmataryar also added that he will prevent the collapse of the current regime and any attempts to bring changes in it, insisting that any changes should be brought through legal ways and with the consent of all parties involved.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Hizb-i-Islami-Hekmatyar
#1
So Hekmatyar is now talking to himself? I suppose that saves a lot of time, since each party knows what the other is about to say before he says it.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] At least eight Taliban ...Arabic for students... turbans were killed or maimed during the Arclight airstrikes in northern Faryab province of Afghanistan.
The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan army said the latest airstrikes were carried out on Taliban hideouts in Pashtun Kot district.
According to the Shaheen Corps, at least five Taliban turbans were killed and three others were maimed during the raids.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[GEO.TV] A 12-year-old girl was married off to a 35-year-old married man in an apparent case of Vani, upon the orders of a panchayat (village council), in Punjab’s Vehari district.
According to police, a man named Farooq from Vehari’s town 97/WB married a girl of his choice, who lived in 101/WB.
The couple married five days ago, following which a village council session was held under Union Council In-charge Nazim Raja Fida.
In the session, it was ordered that Farooq’s 12-year-old sister be married to his wife’s 35-year-old brother Sadiq.
Police said four suspects have been arrested, whereas, a case has been registered against eight suspects.
A search is also underway to arrest the remaining suspects in the case.
Police added that the minor girl’s father was also a part of the village council.
The girl’s father has also been arrested, who claimed that he accepted the decision under duress.
Panchayats formed of local elders are a traditional means of settling disputes in Pakistan's rural areas, where courts and lawyers are not always accessible or trusted.
The legal standing of the decisions taken by these locally formed courts is often considered controversial and disputed.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[GEO.TV] Scores of snuffies were incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in a joint operation conducted by Counter Terrorism Department and paramilitary forces at the Sohrab Goth and Mominabad in the wee hours of Friday, informed Sindh Rangers.
A Sindh Rangers spokesperson said that explosives, grenades and weapons were recovered from the terrorists, adding that the personnel are interrogating the arrested terrorists.
Separately, on November 10, as many as nine suspects were detained following a search operation carried out in the metropolis' Gharbi District, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) said, adding that three of their accomplices managed to escape arrest.
The raids were conducted in different areas, including Orangi Town and Pakistain Bazaar, police stated.
Weapons were recovered from the detainees, who were identified as Ameen, Saddam, Azeem, Jameel, Habib, Rafiq, Latif, Ali, and Shehzad, police added.
Names that mark them as some sort of born evildoers, to be sure. But which sort? The reporter carefully does not say.
One suspect was rubbed out, while his accomplice managed to flee arrest, following an alleged police encounter last night here in Qayyumabad ...a suburb of Korangi Town, if you know where that is... locale, LEAs stated.
The dear departed suspect, according to police, was wanted in various cases of street crimes. He was also involved in a robbery at a battery shop, back on October 24 ‐ CCTV footage of the incident is available with the authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
O joyful Mohammedan yule
When pageants are staged in each school:
The godless in danger
From dogs in the manger,
Nine pupils who'll pull the Rasul!
That’s nice. Don’t you have an invasion back home to attend to?
[AA.TR] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's position on death penalty is universal and the bloc works actively to suppress it everywhere in all circumstances, EU front man said Thursday.
Carlos Martin Ruiz de Gordejuela's remarks came in response to a question posed by Anadolu Agency's Brussels correspondent at a press briefing in the Belgian capital.
"European Union is opposed to death penalty under all circumstances and cases with no exception," Gordejuela said.
The Knesset (Israel's parliament) on Wednesday approved a preliminary reading of a controversial bill that would allow the Israeli authorities to impose the death penalty against Paleostinians involved in "operations against Israeli targets".
Proposed by the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, the bill's first reading was approved by a vote of 52 to 49. A second and third reading, however, must be approved before it becomes law.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"European Union is opposed to death penalty under all circumstances and cases with no exception," Gordejuela said.
#2
Given the level of 'executions' in the streets, stores, the tubes, and neighborhoods from Paris to London, its not like they have willies about the killing of people since they keep importing the executioners. Who has more power? It appears given all the ever increasing 'security' precautions and no-go places for the former native residents, that someone's behavior is being altered by a death penalty.
[AA.TR] More than half of the Conservative Party members support the death penalty for serious crimes, a latest poll revealed.
The study, undertaken by political activists at the Queen Mary University of London, found that members of the Tory party possess a "higher level of authoritarianism" than other party backers, with 54 percent in favor of the death penalty, compared to 23 percent of the SNP supporters, 9 percent of Labour activists and 8 percent of Liberal Democrats backers.
With the issue of education, 84 percent of Tory members believed that children should be taught to obey authority, while 38 percent of Liberal Democrats and the SNP members and 31 percent of Labour members held the same belief.
On Brexit, 25 percent of Conservatives said that the U.K. should remain in the single market, compared to 87 percent of Labour members, 96 percent of Liberal Democrats and 95 percent of the SNP members.
Furthermore, a mere 14 percent of Tory supporters said that there should be a second referendum on the final outcome of the Brexit deal, while the figure for Labour stood at 78 percent, Liberal Democrats at 91 percent and the SNP at 87 percent.
These figures show a stark contrast between members of the Tory party and those in the Labour, Liberal Democrats and the SNP parties.
"Britannia's party members are the lifeblood and the foot soldiers of our democracy. But that doesn't necessarily mean they look like or think like their parties' voters - or, indeed, look or think like each other," Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said.
"The Tory grassroots in particular are something of a "breed apart" from their Labour, Lib Dem and SNP counterparts," he added.
The study also revealed that just 28 percent of Tories believe they have a significant say on policy, compared to three quarters of Liberal Democrats and the SNP members and 61 percent of Labour members.
The study, titled ’Grassroots: Britannia’s Party Members’, polled 4,117 members of the four main parties shortly after the 2017 General Election.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[AA.TR] Greece may try eight dismissed Ottoman Turkish soldiers who had fled to the country after the July 2016 defeated coup attempt, a minister said Thursday.
Speaking at a news conference, Greek Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis said the government will consider holding a trial for them if Ankara files an official request.
He also quoted Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who had said the former soldiers should have a fair trial.
The Greek Penal Code permits foreign nationals to be tried in Greece for offenses they have allegedly committed in another country.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, the partisans of Honorius went for their knives and the partisans of Stilicho went for the doors... a trial in absentia is being held for the ex-soldiers in an Istanbul court.
Regarding their extradition to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Kontonis said: "The issue of the extradition is definitively closed. The Supreme Court's decision is absolutely respected by us. I cannot understand why some legal circles keep bringing it up. Too much fuss for nothing."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[AA.TR] Nigeria will begin on Friday evacuation of its 5,037 citizens, who are believed to be stranded in Libya.
"A total of 5,037 stranded citizens have been identified for the evacuation," Sani Datti, front man of the National Emergency Management Agency, said in a statement on Thursday.
The move came after claims that hundreds of African migrants colonists are being held as slaves in the North African state.
Datti said the "massive evacuation" exercise will begin on Friday morning, two days after a Nigerian delegation led by Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyema visited the Libyan capital 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... "The Nigerian mission in Libya is coordinating with the International Organization for Migration to identify the Nigerian migrants colonists," Datti revealed.
He said a reception center has been established in the southern city of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. The returnees will be received and profiled at the center before being transported to their various regions.
A video detailing many Nigerian youths either kept in detention camps or under forced labor in Libya went viral on the social media in Nigeria.
The video drew outrage, forcing the nation's Senate to pass a resolution for evacuation of Nigerian citizens stranded in the North African country.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[Libya Observer] The Chairman of the Presidential Council, Fayez Sarraj, has denounced the exhumation of the tomb of the leader of the Senussi movement, Mahdi bin Mohammed Senussi in Kufra town, and called on the Attorney-General and relevant security authorities to initiate criminal proceedings to bring the perpetrators to justice.
In a statement to Anadolu Agency, Sarraj described the attack as a crime that violates the sanctity of the grave and one that creates discord in the nation.
He explained that silence on this crime would result in the encouragement for those who carried out to continue similar crimes and create sedition, by provoking fellow Moslems to retaliate, which affects all Libyans.
Sarraj called on all religious scholars, forces and political and social trends to denounce and condemn such criminal acts which drive citizens away from the spirit of Islam.
An gang believed to be Sobol al-Salam Brigade of Dignity Operation attacked on Friday the shrine of Mahdi Senussi, the father of Libya’s former king Idris Senussi, and took his remains to unknown location.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[HotAir] What happens when a North Korean ballistic missile test fails in flight and explodes in a populated area? It goes BOOM.
On April 28, 2017, North Korea launched a single Hwasong-12/KN17 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) from Pukchang Airfield in South Pyongan Province. That missile failed shortly after launch and crashed in the North Korean city of Tokchon, causing considerable damage to a complex of industrial or Tree bark storage area agricultural buildings.
According to a U.S. government source with knowledge of North Korea’s weapons programs who spoke to The Diplomat, the missile’s first stage engines failed after approximately one minute of powered flight, resulting in catastrophic failure. The missile never flew higher than approximately 70 kilometers. The location of the missile’s eventual impact was revealed exclusively to The Diplomat and evidence of the incident can be independently corroborated in commercially available satellite imagery from April and May 2017.
The April 28 failure merits close analysis, especially as North Korea continues to carry out flight-testing of its various ballistic missile platforms from a range of new test sites. In 2017, North Korea has introduced new sites for missile testing, arguably to demonstrate the flexibility of its Strategic Rocket Force. It has even carried out ballistic missile launches from a restricted area at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport, which also serves as the country’s primary civil aviation facility and the entrypoint for most non-Chinese foreign visitors to North Korea. The potential for similar accidents occurring over Pyongyang, the country’s capital, or other populated regions remains high, especially with untested systems.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
Maybe in the future they can NUKE themselves? Would solve a LOT of problems? OR not.
[Libya Observer] Amazigh human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... activist, Rabea Jayash, was kidnapped on December 27 in Benghazi by an gang affiliated with Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, 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 self-styled army.
Jayash, from the western town of Yefren, was invited by a friend to visit Benghazi to attend a celebration of the Independence Day at the Kids’ Theatre.
Local sources from Yefren said Jayash was kidnapped by button men outside the theatre after speaking over the telephone using his Amazigh language.
"The button menjugged Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! him immediately, searched his bag and found a book written in Tamazight language. They accused him of espionage." The sources added.
Jayash was kidnapped together with his Benghazi host, Jamal Fellah, who was later released after interrogation over his links to Jayash.
Jayash’s fate is still unknown.
The National Commission for Human Rights in Libya (NCHRL) has strongly condemned what it called the arbitrary detention of cultural and human rights activist Rabea Jayash.
The NCHRL disclosed that Jayash was kidnapped by an gang led by Ali al-Amrouni called "The Districts Operations Room of Libyan Army in Benghazi."
The human rights group demanded bigwigs of so-called "Libyan Army" to intervene and secure Jayash’s release.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
Stuff like this happens in a failed state. Thanks Obama! Thanks Hillary!
[Iraq News] Thousands of victims’ bodies are still under the rubble in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , an MP of Nineveh said on Thursday, urging the government to help the refugees return back to their homes.
In televised remarks, MP Farah al-Siraj said, "4,000 bodies are still under the debris in the Old City of Mosul."
"So far, the government did not remove the debris from the city, which was highly destroyed," Siraj added.
"The city is in disastrous situation, especially the Old City, whose population reaches around 700,000," she said.
According to the MP, "only 20 percent of the displaced returned back homes." She attributed the delay in the return on the shortage of capabilities for them to return.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Chalk up another consequence to the Obama doctrine. Before zero, Mosul had 4K+ still breathing.
Posted by: F. Theremble9645 ||
01/05/2018 19:56
Comments ||
Top||
[Technology.Inquirer.net] An Australian expert in the field of euthanasia, who lives in the Netherlands, has developed a special machine designed for a painless suicide.
Nicknamed "Dr. Death," 70-year-old Dr. Philip Nitschke developed the Sarco suicide machine together with engineer Alexander Bannick, reports Daily Mail.
Dr. Nitschke says the Sarco offers a "peaceful and I would even say an elegant death."
Once fully tested, plans for the Sarco will be placed online through Dr. Nitschke’s non-profit organization Exit International. Through these plans, people around the world would be able to 3D-print and assemble their own suicide machine.
However, potential users would first be asked to complete an online mental questionnaire. This will assess their mental competency before being provided with a four-digit access code to activate the Sarco capsule.
Inside, the procedure could be started through a button press or voice commands for paralyzed individuals. Happy Anniversary, Babe!
The process begins when liquid nitrogen starts to fill the Sarco capsule. Death comes in minutes as oxygen within the capsule drops and users quietly fall unconscious.
While assisted suicide has been made legal in some parts of the world including certain states in the US, the Netherland, Germany and Japan, pro-life groups and individuals fear that the Sarco could lead to an increase in the number of suicides.
One nurse said that Dr. Nitschke’s Sarco was "glamorizing and normalizing suicide."
Dr. Nitschke insists suicide is a human right and believes "any rational adult should have the right to die." I suspect my last words in using this device would be "To Infinity...and Beyond!"
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sitting in a capsule as it fills with liquid Nitrogen at -195C might not be as peaceful or elegant as Dr Nitchke imagines.
[AA.TR] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's presidential front man on Thursday described the U.S. verdict on Ottoman Turkish banker Hakan Atilla as a "scandalous decision of a scandalous case".
Speaking at a news conference at the presidential complex, Ibrahim Kalin said the U.S. court aimed to intervene in Turkey’s internal affairs through the case.
"This [verdict] is a scandalous decision of a scandalous case. Moreover, it is loud and clear that this case is a conspiracy aimed at complicating Turkey’s internal politics and intervening in Turkey’s internal affairs," he said.
On Wednesday, a jury in New York found Atilla guilty on five counts related to conspiracy and bank fraud but acquitted him of a money laundering charge.
The verdict by a panel of six men and six women against Atilla, the 47-year-old former deputy chief executive officer of Turkey’s Halkbank, came after more than three weeks of testimonies and four days of deliberation.
The counts on which Atilla was declared guilty included violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, crimes to deceive the U.S. and defrauding U.S. banks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
[GEO.TV] Security forces in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... killed two holy warriors in an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Kulachi Tehsil of Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on Thursday.
Terrorist Zahir Shah and his accomplice and banned terrorist organization Tehrik-e-Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... Pakistain (TTP) member were involved in an attack on Major Ishaq.
Major Ishaq embraced martyrdom in an exchange of fire during a search operation at a terrorist hideout in Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan on November 22, 2017.
The security forces managed to apprehend four terrorists, who were on a mission of planting improvised bomb (IED) in the area, said the ISPR statement.
15 apprehended in IBOs in Balochistan
FC Balochistan also conducted IBOs in Zhob, Sibbi, Dera Murad Jamali, Mach, and Killi Ismail. 15 suspects including eight holy warriors involved in an attack on police were apprehended.
Weapons, ammunition, 70 kilograms of explosives, and communication equipment were recovered.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Salafist tough guys of Faylaq al-Rahman published a statement on Thursday mourning the death of several fighters and their field commander, Hassan al-Boshi, during the fierce battle for the Harasta suburb of east Damascus.
According to the statement released by Faylaq al-Rahman, at least 16 of their fighters were killed when an Arclight airstrike hit a building they were positioned at near the vehicle base in Harasta.
In addition to the Faylaq al-Rahman casualties, their allies from Harakat Ahar al-Sham and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham also suffered heavy losses from this airstrike, with corpse count estimated to be between 20 to 25 hard boyz for the aforementioned jihadist groups.
On Thursday, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched a massive counter-offensive to recapture the territory around the vehicle base and to lift the siege around this imperative military installation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: al-Nusra
#1
Said it before: The question of how we or our allies knew these clowns were there at that time must be making the terrs nuts. With any luck, they're executing one another as spies.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
01/05/2018 0:14
Comments ||
Top||
[AA.TR] Pakistain on Thursday said it would duly respond to any U.S dronezap on its soil.
"Pakistain army has made it clear that any [U.S] dronezap will be responded accordingly," Foreign Ministry front man, Dr Muhammad Faisal said during a weekly press briefing in capital Islamabad while responding to a question.
The rare reaction follows recent statements from top U.S. officials, including President 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... , accusing Islamabad of "playing a double-game" and providing safe havens to murderous Moslems fighting in war-torn Afghanistan.
Drone strikes have been a frequent tactic by the U.S forces since 2004 to target suspected Taliban ...Arabic for students... and al-Qaeda murderous Moslems in Pakistain’s northwestern tribal region, mainly North and South Wazoo, which border Afghanistan.
There has been a significant decrease in dronezaps on Pak soil in recent years after the Pakistain army launched a full-scale onslaught on North Waziristan --a former stronghold of Pak Taliban-- forcing murderous Moslems to flee toward Afghanistan in June 2104.
According to local media, more than 3,450 people have been killed in 417 dronezaps in Pakistain since 2004. According to international think tanks and human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... groups, including Amnesty international and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 70 percent of drone victims were unarmed civilians.
Despite Pakistain's public objections to the U.S. dronezaps, it is rumored to have given tacit approval to the ongoing controversial operations. Pakistain has also developed its own drone to use in the Death Eater-hit northwestern tribal belt.
Already frosty relations between the U.S. and Pakistain --the two allies in the so-called war against terrorism-- have further nosedived since President Trump assumed office in January last year, mainly due to a clash of interests in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
The old rule is still valid when flying aircraft:
AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE. [TIMESOFINDIA.INDIATIMES] Jet Airways has grounded two of its senior commanders for fighting inside the cockpit of a London-Mumbai flight on January 1. We seen dis movie...
The commander flying as co-pilot allegedly slapped the lady commander mid-flight after which she left the cockpit in tears. Shirley you jest...
After great persuation, the lady pilot went back to the cockpit but reportedly came out in a huff shortly afterwards. This time, a frightened cabin crew, fearing for everyone's safety, requested her to go back to the controls and operate the flight to its destination. Luckily, the plane landed safely.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended the licence of the male co-pilot and ordered a probe into the entire episode.
This unprecedented cockpit fight happened on 9W 119 soon after Jet's Boeing 777 took off for its 9-hour journey to Mumbai with 324 passengers and 14 crew members on board on New Year's Day at 10am (UK time).
Both the pilots of this flight were commanders and the lady was captaining 9W 119 while the other was the co-pilot for this sector.
"Shortly after the plane took off, the two pilots had a fight. The co-pilot slapped the lady commander and she left the cockpit in tears. She stood in the galley sobbing. The cabin crew tried to comfort her and send her back to the cockpit, but in vain. The co-pilot also kept buzzing (calling from the intercom in the cockpit) the crew, asking them to send the second pilot back," said sources.
When the cabin crew could not do so, the co-pilot reportedly came out of the cockpit, leaving the cockpit unmanned in gross violation of safety rules; and persuaded the commander to return with him to the controls.
"However, they had a fight for the second time following which she came out again. This time, the cabin crew was quite afraid of the fight happening in the cockpit. They requested her to go to the cockpit and fly the plane safely to its destination," said sources. Realizing the fear factor among everyone, she returned to the cockpit and the plane landed safely in Mumbai just after midnight of January 1-2.
Confirming this fight, a Jet Airways spokesman said: "A misunderstanding occurred between the cockpit crew of Jet Airways flight 9W 119, London - Mumbai of January 01, 2018. However, the same was quickly resolved amicably and the flight with 324 guests including 2 infants and 14 crew continued its journey to Mumbai, landing safely. The airline has reported the incident to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the concerned crew have been derostered pending an internal investigation that has since been initiated. At Jet Airways, safety of guests, crew and assets is of paramount importance and the airline has zero tolerance for any action of its employees that compromises safety."'
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Don’t call me Shirley.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/05/2018 10:53
Comments ||
Top||
#2
It's a good thing they didn't have three seats in the cockpit. They already had Moe and Curly up there... Luckily, the plane landed safely. Wooo.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/05/2018 11:25
Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Look, we're lost. Let's stop and ask for directions"
"Absolutely not!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/05/2018 12:05
Comments ||
Top||
#4
"AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE."
Well, I guess a whack across the mush is a form of communication.
[GEO.TV] The US State Department has placed Pakistain on a Special Watch List for what it claims are "severe violations of religious freedom".
In a press statement on Thursday, the State Department said it has also re-designated 10 countries as "countries of particular concern" under the country's International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in or tolerated egregious violations of religious freedom.
"Today, the Department of State announces that the Secretary of State re-designated Burma, China, 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... , Iran, North Korea, Sudan, 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... , Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as Countries of Particular Concern on December 22, 2017," said the State Department.
"The Secretary also placed Pakistain on a Special Watch List for severe violations of religious freedom," it added.
The move against Pakistain comes amid a period of heightened tensions between the two nations, after US president 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... said that Washington had foolishly given Pakistain more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
BLUF:
[BBC] The investigative reporter Julian Rademeyer spotted a news report about the arrests and started delving deeper, eventually publishing the landmark study Diplomats and Deceit.
When I visited Rademeyer in Johannesburg, I was shocked to hear about the extent of North Korea’s involvement in the trade as he had detailed in his report.
"A number of North Korea’s African embassies form a nexus of illicit trade in rhino horn, cigarettes and minerals," he wrote.
Rademeyer explains further "that the diplomats are working under the auspices of Bureau 38, a shadowy government department whose sole purpose is to accrue hard currency".
He also predicted that: "Increasingly stringent economic sanctions designed to cripple North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities will likely fuel the expansion of the regime’s illicit activities and state-sponsored criminal networks."
Moving down a bit:
South Africa’s Kruger National Park and the private game reserves that surround it have militarised their anti-poaching units - equipping them with aircraft, drones and sophisticated weaponry.
You can follow them on Twitter. Burly, heavily armed men in baseball caps, sunglasses and army fatigues post pictures of their captives with captions like “Gotcha!”. Some experts now fear an arms race is developing between poachers and gamekeepers.
[IsraelTimes] Opposition party, women's rights groups force religious affairs directorate to remove post on Islamic law apparently giving green light to child marriage.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s religious affairs state agency came under heavy criticism on Thursday from the main opposition party after it said girls as young as nine could marry under Islamic law.
The Diyanet religious affairs directorate said on Tuesday the minimum age for girls to marry was nine, while for boys it was 12, according to Ottoman Turkish media including the Hurriyet daily quoting the agency’s official website.
The post, which took the form of an explanatory statement on Islamic law, has since been taken down, after a backlash from the opposition and women’s rights groups.
The head of the High Commission of Religious Affairs Ekrem Keles on Thursday told Hurriyet that the earliest age for a girl to marry is 17 and 18 for a boy.
"Forget a nine or a 10 year old child marrying, a child at 15 should not marry and should not be married," he said.
The legal age to get married in Turkey is 18.
But Ottoman Turkish law says that in an extraordinary circumstance, a judge can give permission for a male and female aged 16 to marry.
The controversy touched a nerve in Turkey, where child marriages are not uncommon and the fight continues to raise girls’ level of education.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) politician Gaye Usluer accused the government of being "more interested in how to marry children at a young age when there needs to be talk on children’s education, health."
Meanwhile CHP politician Murat Bakan on Twitter said child marriages "violates children’s rights, women’s rights and human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... ." adding that the party had called for a parliamentary investigation into child marriages.
Women’s rights groups also criticized the agency, which is similar to a religious affairs ministry, accusing it of trying to legitimize child abuse and urging Diyanet to "get their hands off our children."
The ministry said it had "never and will never approve early marriages" in a statement, saying it was only defining Islamic law.
"Forcing girls to marry before psychological and biological maturity, and before they obtain the responsibility to become a mother and form a family is not compatible with Islam which says will and consent are conditions for marriage," it added.
Women’s groups as well as Usluer raised concern over Diyanet’s move coming after Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... approved a controversial law in November allowing state-approved holy mans to conduct marriage ceremonies.
"When we said ’if you give muftis [holy mans employed by Diyanet] the power to conduct marriages, the issue of child brides will increase,’ this is what we meant," she said, according to CHP’s website.
Opponents often claim that Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party are attacking the republic’s secular foundations, claims dismissed by the government.
In 2016, the government was forced to throw out a bill that could have pardoned men convicted of child-sex assault after a public outcry.
#1
Would it be too harsh to say that anyone practicing Islam is an idiot in many ways???
I have never seen a religion that was more backward, odious, or wanting to live in the past than Islam.
I've spent a lot of time in the ME and other Moslem heavy areas and although the people seem like genuinely nice people, they can turn on a dime and do some of the most backward and logic defying things.
[Townhall] Although the Trump administration and Congress have struggled to fully repeal Obamacare, while putting a good dent in the law by repealing the individual mandate through tax reform, officials are finding new ways to lower costs and expand coverage to consumers.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor announced a new rule proposal that opens the door to allowing insurance companies to sell plans and coverage across state lines. From Insurance News Net:
#1
They will have to repeal McCarran-Ferguson first, that's the legislation that took insurance out of interstate commerce and gave it over to the states.
#2
They will have to repeal McCarran-Ferguson first
Maybe they're going the DACA route, which is essentially to use executive orders to override legislation. Obama really opened up a can of worms there. At this rate, the president will pretty much make law until judges get hold of it. The problem is that judges are by default liberal, which means a liberal president will get most anything he wants from the court, and a conservative president will get peanuts.
#3
This should have been done on day one of the "Republican Majority".
It should have been step one of any reform and it should have been Executive Order #1
[ArabNews] CAIRO: ISIS Sinai branch said it executed one of its members for collaborating with the Palestinian Hamas movement, and called for the killing of all Hamas members and anyone cooperating with it.
The "judge" of the Sinai Province terrorist organization described Hamas as an "apostate" group because of its security cooperation with Egypt, its prevention of fighters from moving from Gaza to the Sinai, and its arrests of many Daesh members in Gaza....Al-Maqdisi [the 'judge' in this case] described Palestinian movement Fatah as "secular" and "infidel," and called for the killing of all its members.
Sinai Province said in a video posted on its Telegram account that Mohammed Al-Sa’idi, its second in command, sentenced Moussa Abu Zmat, a Daesh “soldier” from Gaza, to death because he smuggled weapons and equipment for Hamas to and from the territory.
The judge, known as Abu Kazem Al-Maqdisi, announced the death sentence in a video broadcast on Jan. 3.
He said the executioner, Mohammed Al-Dujani from Gaza, is considered a “repentant.” Al-Dujani is the son of Anwar Al-Dujani, a prominent Hamas member.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
ISIS Sinai branch said it executed one of its members for collaborating with the Palestinian Hamas movement, and called for the killing of all Hamas members and anyone cooperating with it.
[IsraelTimes] With tens of thousands either out of work, not receiving salaries or getting paid less, economic conditions in the Strip are deteriorating fast
Thousands of Paleostinians protested Thursday evening against the deteriorating humanitarian and economic conditions in the Gazoo Strip, local media reported, demanding that the Paleostinian leadership provide them with solutions.
Al Ahram claims it was only hundreds, but they are farther away from the situation.
The demonstrators rallying in the Jabaliya refugee camp vented their anger against both the Paleostinian Authority of President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and the Islamist Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, terror group, which runs Gazoo.
Video from the protest by the Quds New Network showed protesters shouting "We want unity," in reference to the reconciliation process, which both Hamas and Fatah have said recently is in danger of failing.
"Where is the future," "We want electricity," proclaimed two signs held by two of the protesters, according to pictures of the event posted on social media.
"Our requests are justice, living freely and social justice," read another sign held by protesters.
Others held banners with the slogan "open the crossings." The Rafah Border Crossing out of the Strip and into Egypt has rarely been opened in recent years, and exiting through Israel for cases other than medical are complex, leaving many Gazooks unable to leave the enclave.
The demands mirror those echoed in recent protests against economic conditions that have swept Iran in recent days. They also come at a time when the US has threatened to cut its aid to the Paleostinians and the UN agency that deals with Paleostinian refugees, many of them in Gazoo
Gazoo residents have experienced harsher economic and living conditions in recent months due to a series of sanctions placed on the enclave by Abbas. The sanctions, which were aimed at forcing the Hamas terror group to cede control of the territory, included cutting electricity to anywhere between two to six hours daily, the slashing of tens of thousands of government worker salaries and thousands more workers being forced into early retirement.
The electricity cuts are a result of a dispute between the Paleostinian Authority and Hamas. The PA announced on Wednesday that it had agreed to restore payments for electricity in Gazoo, six months after halting them. The electricity payments have been a key issue in ongoing efforts at reconciliation between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah, but they have yet to take effect.
Additionally, two months have passed since 45,000 Hamas employees received their last salaries, as Hamas hands control of the Strip to the Paleostinian Authority amid the reconciliation.
An Egyptian-brokered agreement in early October originally set a December 1 deadline for the terror group to fully transfer power in the Gazoo Strip back to the PA, though that was later pushed back to December 10.
In Gazoo, the situation has remained essentially unchanged despite the deadline, with Hamas police still patrolling the streets, while crippling electricity shortages endure.
On Wednesday the PA announced it was ready resume paying Israel to provide Gazoo with the same electricity supply it did before Abbas began the sanctions, but the measure has yet to take place.
Hamas claimed earlier in December that it had handed over control of all government ministries, but Fatah’s top negotiator later said "obstacles" remained. One sticking point is the terror group’s insistence that it hold on to its weapons and military hardware.
Since the start of the reconciliation process between rival Paleostinian factions ‐ several others have failed in the past ‐ the question over the fate of Hamas’s 25,000-strong military wing has been a thorny issue between the sides.
Abbas wants the PA to be in full control of all weapons and security in the Gazoo Strip, but Hamas is refusing to give up its arsenal. Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Israel, has fought three rounds of fighting with Israel since seizing power from Fatah in the enclave in 2007.
[AA.TR] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... has issued an extradition request to the U.S. for an alleged FETO-linked runaway Huseyin Korkmaz,
...who fears he would be tortured if he were returned to Turkey, where he led an investigation involving Turkish officials...
a judicial source said on Thursday.
Istanbul’s Prosecutor Office issued an arrest warrant for Korkmaz, demanding his extradition from the U.S., said the source, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
The extradition request has been submitted to the Justice Ministry, which will send it to the U.S. judicial authorities, it added.
Korkmaz is a central figure of an investigation into Dec. 17-25, 2013 cases pertaining to the "FETO judicial coup attempt of Dec. 17-25." The attempt led to the detention of prominent figures.
The extradition request came after Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul called for bringing back Korkmaz, a former Ottoman Turkish police supervisor who fled to the U.S. after being released in February 2016 to testify before the U.S. court in a case involving former Ottoman Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla. That high-pitched whine you hear in the background is just the corpse of Kemal Ataturk spinning in his grave.
Korkmaz faces several charges including "being member of an armed terror group" and "attempting to overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey."
On Wednesday, a jury in New York found Atilla guilty on five counts related to conspiracy and bank fraud but acquitted him of a money laundering charge.
The verdict by a panel of six men and six women against Atilla, the 47-year-old former deputy chief executive officer of Turkey’s Halkbank, came after more than three weeks of testimonies and four days of deliberation.
The counts on which the banker was declared guilty included violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, crimes to deceive the U.S. and defrauding U.S. banks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
"Let's feast, for the time is auspicious!
Those kafir kebabs look delicious."
Was Erdogan's dinner,
Though ghoulish, a winner?
"Like Turkish delight, but nutritious!"
#2
Why would you expect people to be treated for their destructive behaviors? We don't treat war as war anymore. If an enemy attacked your infrastructure as late as the mid-20th century, you'd hammer them back or surrender. Today we all make excuses not to act accordingly.
[AsiaTimes] Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ended 2017 on a self-satisfied note, openly contemplating and promoting his successor after his six-year term ends in 2022.
In the country's tempestuous and often volatile politics, where leaders have historically been overthrown in angry street protests, only a confident and powerful president would talk about succession so early in his tenure.
In less than two years, Duterte has chipped away at the country’s democratic institutions with temerity and contempt. He has not only exposed the hollow nature of Philippine democracy, but also placed the country on what seems to be an ineluctable path towards full-blown authoritarian rule.
Continued on Page 49
#1
You expect democracy to survive a sea of corruption? Just look south. They keep it going by dumping millions upon their northern neighbor to avoid reform or revolution at home.
#2
I think it's within the realm of possibility that the PI become a Chinese province, sometime in the 21st century. The country has no shortage of natural resources, but a profound shortage of good leaders. Duterte appears to be shepherding the process along, with his repeated territorial concessions to the Chinese. The strange thing is that Chinese rule might improve the lives of the hoi polloi in the Philippines. Of course, American rule would provide an even bigger boost. But that bridge was crossed over 70 years ago.
#3
What's the opinion of the Hoi Polloi about the Chinese in their other colonies, like Laos, Cambodia and the borderline cases like Nepal, Myanmar and Mongolia?
#4
What's the opinion of the Hoi Polloi about the Chinese in their other colonies, like Laos, Cambodia and the borderline cases like Nepal, Myanmar and Mongolia?
I get the impression there's a lot of envy, but no real pogroms, thanks to growing fear of China's economic (given that China is, for the most part, the biggest market for their natural resources and agricultural output) and military power.
Frankly, Indonesia, the Philippines and Burma would all benefit economically from Chinese rule. Not because the CPC is any great shakes, governance-wise, but because the Chinese market would immediately be wide open to them without any tariffs and other trade barriers, and Chinese administration, while imperfect, is far less corrupt than local management. Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad is reputed to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (and some say billions). That's roughly the net worth of Xi Jinping's extended family, despite the fact that graft-wise, Xi has a much bigger country's economy to draw upon.
The entrenched local elites would suffer from unfettered competition with Chinese interlopers. However, the people below them would benefit greatly from the massive Chinese government infrastructure projects. And these projects have always been a part of expanding the empire's economy for thousands of years, going back to the days of the 1,100 mile long Grand Canal 1400 years ago. What prevents those countries from catching China is a combination of inferior human resources at the managerial (and above) level, and poor infrastructure. Both are fixed with the infusion of Chinese managers and Chinese infrastructure. It would work as well with Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean or white rule. But the West has cast off the white man's burden and those other Far Eastern countries simply aren't in the business of empire-building, with the massive military expenditures and the mass killings of local elites tied to the ancien regime that empire-building entails.
Having said that, Chinese expansion would be terrible for American interests. We'd lose some access to the economies of these countries. Then there's the strategic implications of having all of the Far East under China's thumb. We went to war with Japan to prevent it from adding all of China to its holdings. Why would we stand by as the Chinese empire became even bigger?
#6
Nope. Waterway control. Access to natural resources. The danger to the down under members (i.e. Australia and New Zealand) of ABCA Armies, which might also be thought of as the empire upon which the sun never set (given that it includes Diego Garcia and Hawaii).
[Dhaka Tribune] A counsel for BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... has handed over the copy of a letter to a Dhaka court that he had received from Kuwaiti foreign ministry in 2016 regarding the donation made to Zia Orphanage Trust.
Advocate AJ Mohammad Ali delivered the document on Thursday while placing his closing argument in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case at Dhaka Special Judge’s Court 5 in the capital’s Bakshibazar area.
As Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman of the makeshift court asked him whether the fund was deposited to the trust, to which Ali responded he had written to the Kuwaiti foreign ministry asking it to give him details about the grants provided and information related to it.
The ministry, in its reply, informed him that the then Kuwaiti Emir made a donation for the trust, and also to help preserve the memories of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman, the lawyer said.
In the letter, the ministry wrote that the trust was a private one and that the fund was sent to the trust through a 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... n bank, he further said, adding, the copy of the letter was notarised in Dhaka.
Ali, the third defence lawyer to place closing argument, alleged that the case docket was prepared on fabricated and false information.
He also said the prosecution failed to produce any document related to the fund carrying Khaleda’s signature, before the court.
After the seventh day of closing argument by the defence, the court adjourned the hearing in the case till January 10 after Ali presented his argument between 11:55am and 3:10pm.
Earlier in the day, Khaleda appeared before the court around 11:50am, amid tight security.
The Anti-Corruption Commission had filed the case on July 3, 2008, accusing Khaleda, her son Tarique Rahman ...the elder son of former President of Bangladesh Ziaur Rahman Bir Uttam, and Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh. He is the Senior Vice Chairperson of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). His nickname is Pino. There are allegations that Pino took a rakeoff from every foreign investment into the country while Mom was in office... , and four others of embezzling more than Tk 2.1 crore through forming the trust.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/05/2018
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies
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.
[PJ] The Detroit area is dealing with a significant Hepatitis A outbreak. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) reports 630 known cases in Southeast Michigan in 2017, twenty of them resulting in death. There were 150 cases diagnosed in the city of Detroit alone last year. Public health officials are especially troubled by the number of food handlers who have been infected with the disease.
[Hot Air] With the arrival of the new year, states across the nation are seeing the enactment of a new batch of laws. This annual tradition almost always brings some news of the bizarre sort and what better place to look than Oregon? The home of Keep Portland Weird woke up to a brave new world where people will be allowed (in some limited circumstances) to pull into a service station, get out of their vehicle and, horror of horrors... pump their own gasoline. Needless to say, this news was received with the same level of calm, reasoned discourse that you’d see at the dawn of the zombie apocalypse.
[Wash Times] The commander of some 30,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea warned Thursday that North Korea may be trying to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul by making sudden overtures toward diplomacy with the South.
[NYT] WASHINGTON ‐ The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.
[IsraelTimes] In vague statement, army says it targeted 'significant terror infrastructure,' warns it will strike 'above and below ground'
[Breitbart] Federal officials stopped the attempted smuggling of two Uzbek nationals who illegally crossed the border from Canada into New York. The effort led to the arrest of a U.S. citizen who officials say was transporting them.
...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, 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...
[Ynet] A 
[IsraelTimes] Army says troops responded to 'main instigators' in a riot near Bethlehem after being targeted by rocks and 
[Bloomberg] A research firm that compiled a dossier of sometimes salacious information about U.S. President Donald Trump's contacts with Russians failed to block a congressional bid to see its banking records.
[Iraq News] An 
[IsraelTimes] Newsweek report on Andrew 'Weev' Auernheimer, who has called to kill the Jews, marks first time a family member has confirmed his background.
[Bangkok Post] A man was sentenced to life in prison for killing three soldiers and two others got four years each for inciting unrest and separatism in three separate cases. 
[Iraq News] Iraqi troops killed on Thursday four 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
[GEO.TV] A 12-year-old girl was married off to a 35-year-old married man in an apparent case of Vani, upon the orders of a panchayat (village council), in Punjab’s Vehari district.
Wazoo
[TIMESOFINDIA.INDIATIMES] Jet Airways has grounded two of its senior commanders for fighting inside the cockpit of a London-Mumbai flight on January 1.
[GEO.TV] The US State Department has placed Pakistain on a Special Watch List for what it claims are "severe violations of religious freedom".
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
[ArabNews] CAIRO: ISIS Sinai branch said it executed one of its members for collaborating with the Palestinian Hamas movement, and called for the killing of all Hamas members and anyone cooperating with it.
[AA.TR] 
