[ABC] A Republican senator said President Donald Trump did not use the word "s---hole" in reference to immigrants from Haiti and Africa in a meeting at the White House last week.
Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, a close ally of the president, told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" Sunday that reports have misrepresented the president's comments during a meeting on immigration on Thursday.
"I'm telling you he did not use that word, George," said Perdue, who was among the senators at the meeting with Trump. "And I'm telling you it's a gross misrepresentation."
Stephanopoulos pressed Perdue, saying that multiple sources have confirmed the president's language, of whom the most outspoken has been Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois.
"Multiple sources? There were six of us in the room," Perdue responded to Stephanopoulos. "I haven't heard any of those six sources other than Senator Durbin talk about what was said."
In a statement Friday, Sens. Purdue and Tom Cotton had said, "In regards to Senator Durbin's accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically…"
On "This Week" on Sunday, Perdue also seemed to question Sen. Durbin's intentions, saying "it is not the first time" that the Illinois senator has accused someone of inflammatory language.
#5
More info:
The Panama-flagged Sanchi was bringing the condensate from Iran to South Korea when the collision with the Hong Kong-registered freighter CF Crystal, carrying grain from the US, happened in the East China Sea. The crewmen of the Crystal were all rescued.
Condensate is very different from the black crude that is often seen in oil spills. It is toxic, low in density and considerably more explosive than regular crude. Condensate creates products such as jet fuel, petrol, diesel and heating fuel.
ranian officials now say all 32 crew members - 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis - on the tanker are dead.
The tanker was carrying 136,000 tonnes of ultra-light crude but Chinese officials say there is no major slick. China Central Television said that the Sanchi had gone down after "suddenly igniting" around noon (04:00 GMT).
#7
Eritrea. Oddly enough, I have friends from there who assure me I don’t want to visit the country they left as soon as they could. They don’t use the term shithole, but it is strongly implied.
[Baron's] Tightening global supplies and rising demand for crude oil helped prices for the commodity start the year with a bang‐hitting their highest levels in more than three years‐and many analysts believe the market has the fuel it needs to continue the rally to as high as $80 a barrel.
"The reason that oil will soar is the oldest story in the oil world: Low prices created strong demand and growth, and now that demand is leading the way," says Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group.
Oil futures suffered hefty declines in 2014 and 2015, as a global glut in supplies and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' unwillingness to significantly curb production amid fear of market-share loss sliced the per barrel oil price roughly in half.
On Friday, it notched its highest levels since December 2014, with West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, settling at $64.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and global benchmark Brent crude ending at $69.87 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Flynn expects WTI oil prices to average $67 in 2018, and says they will probably spend some time trading over $70. If OPEC keeps its crude production-cut deal till the end of this year, WTI prices could hit $80 a barrel, he says.
Texas is where it all began. Once a popular view in Beaumont’s Dixie Hotel: “Spindletop Viewing Her Gusher,” 1903. Texaco and Gulf got their start in the Beaumont area oilfields. Humble (now ExxonMobil) began at the at the nearby town of Humble.
Also known as the “Lucas Gusher” after Captain Anthony F. Lucas, a mining engineer who drilled on a hill, the oilfield produced 3.59 million barrels in its first year and an incredible 17.4 million barrels the next.
#3
I just looked up the current price, and it's about 64.00/bbl.
It's not doing Louisiana much good, everyone I know is struggling, fracking has proved you can drill on land in lots of places and don't have to beg the feds for permission to drill off Louisiana.
You drill a hole on private ground in N. Texas and you don't have to pay any of Louisiana's de jure or de facto taxes.
#7
1903 US oil boom started in Texas, but there were earlier booms in Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Ontario. Rockefeller's Standard Oil first made it big in Ohio, I believe.
#8
Meanwhile, in the People's Carbon-Free Republic of Washingtonstan. the Longview City Clowncil (composed of mainly idiots and tree-huggers)effectively killed a big job maker when they said the proposed oil terminal would not have its lease renewed if all permits were not in place by 31 March. And the governor, His Highness Jay Inslee has come out opposed to anything that would create jobs.
However, the project has taken the state to court saying they overstepped their bounds and are in violation of the commerce clause.
The terminal would handle up to 4 unit trains of oil from the Midwest. Each train would be 110 or so cars, each car about 30000 gallons of crude.
[AmericanThinker] A hallmark of the Democrats – and the Clintons in particular – is that, with the aid of a complaisant press, they hide their wrongdoings with countless obfuscations and distractions so that the truth of consequential matters is buried in chaff and hard to see. This week, we can look forward to an effort to clear away the chaff and reveal the wheat.
Tomorrow, we expect the Department of Justice's inspector general to release the first part of his report to congressional investigators. The report is expected to cover the alleged bias and malfeasance by the FBI, among other things. Read the rest at the link
[FOX] Former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Friday and took a shot at Fox News viewers, saying they're "living on a different planet" than people who consume mainstream media.
Obama made the remarks on the premiere of the new monthly Netflix series "My next guest needs no introduction with David Letterman," which hit the streaming service on Friday morning. Early in the episode, Obama asked Letterman about his retirement but the veteran talk show host quickly let the former president know who was boss.
"Now here's how this is gonna work. I'm gonna ask you stuff, and then you respond to stuff," Letterman joked.
Letterman then asked Obama what he considers the more dangerous threat to a democracy, the president demeaning the press or a foreign power sabotaging the voting process. Both options are clearly jabs at President Trump and Obama answered without mentioning the current president's name.
"One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don't share a common baseline of facts," Obama said. "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR."
#4
This has been a recurring theme with Baraq. As far as he's concerned that old First Amendment thing is way in the heck out of date. He would have ditched the entire US Constitution if he'd had enough time to tip the balance of the Supreme Court.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/14/2018 10:41
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#5
I do not believe that man is capable of doing anything outside the Seedy Politician category, including breathing. As The Smartest Man in the Room, he knows that the carbon dioxide in his exhalations is more worthy than ours.
#7
This whole thing about the word shithole, really? Everyone there denies he said it, with the exception of one, but its a good reason to derail DACA. Neither side wants DACA fixed, the divisiveness feeds votes and cash. So lets pick an irrelevant, possibly made up, statement and use it to stop this. The only thing Trump has done here is to put congress on the spot to come up with and answer. But they wont. If you ask most republicans, they want resolution as much as anyone, so do the dems. But they don't want to lose a decisive issue that drive voters. If the dems wanted it fixed they could under Obama, but it never was really taken serious. The republican could have driven it as well. Trump is trying to tell both sides to sit down, act like adults and get something done.
And now on to the bigger issue: since when did I become a misogynous bigoted, racist, gay hating bigot??? I have not. Since when has many of my friends that are dems become haters, one step short of fascists? They also have not. This nation is completely divided, and will fall, unless we the people act. There is a fight for this nations soul. It not the right vs the left, as they would like us to believe. It not our corrupt political elites, they have always been corrupt, its human nature. The fight for our soul really took place with the internet and the 24 hour news cycle. The press has sewn this nation into a divisive hate filled shithole that has turned families inside out. Our judicial, executive and representative branches have been undermined by the corporate press.
I have a friend that recently stated she hated Trump, wished he was dead. This woman is a Christian, from the hills of West Virginia. I cant find another person that lives her Christian values more than her. Yet she is now blasting hate, how did this happen? Its not because Trump is the devil, he's not. He is human, and will make some good and bad decisions, like every president. But how did the information driven to her drive her away from her Christian values? I see it on the right as well. This is not a left right thing, she is just an incredible example of how this constant bombarding of lies and hate can normalize the hate.
Obama say it early, he made nice with the press, supported their narratives. And for that the press put halo's around him in photos like he is the second coming. I believe this issue really took root when the Clintons made strategic decisions based on surveys, and the press controls the methods, Trump win proves the polls are manipulated to try and drive results.
We the people have a real problem. The corporate press is fighting for the very soul of our nation. The politicians blow in the winds, prostituting themselves for votes. The press run 24 hour propaganda shows calling themselves news. But they are not. They drive to audience segments, dividing and spewing hate. They hide behind the 1st amendment, spouting free speech. But we the people drink it up like its true, we are fools listening to pied pipers on both sides leading us off a cliff.
If we are to have a constitution, if we are to have a 1st amendment we e have to figure out how to hold the press accountable for their lies. We have to find a way to stop the propaganda machines cloaked as news. We have to understand that I am no more a bigot now than I was 8 years ago and that my friends are the same as they were. We have to get past this and shut down the corporate news machines that are taking our souls, one person at a time...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/14/2018 20:34
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[Breitbart London] New Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) statistics show the number of white people at British universities is in decline, with minorities surging ahead.
The figures show there were 1,507,815 white students enrolled at all levels in 2012/13, but this fell to 1,459,735 in 2013/14 and 1,418,685 in 2014/15.
Numbers declined slightly again in 2015/16 to 1,417,300, before ticking up slightly in 2016/17 to 1,425,665 ‐ for an overall decline of around 5.5 per cent over a five-year period.
Meanwhile, the number of black, Asian, and other (including mixed race) students are up significantly across the board ‐ despite left-liberal politicians such as Labour's David Lammy continuing to push the narrative that minorities are disadvantaged due to institutional prejudice.
'Real Engineer' in the comment section writes about the transition of scholarships in the United States:
RealEngineer2 • a day ago
In the USA, to get my engineering undergrad and science post grad on scholarship (back when, now valued over $200,000), I had to score top percentile GRE, attain national sales leadership among peers during (private sector) internship (in NYC Financial District, arguably the toughest in the world), earn an undergrad 3.8 GPA or better, take math-intensive electives, and score top percentile in a competitive scholarship exam. Furthermore, if my grad GPA ever fell below 3.8, or if I didn't meet quota during internship… THE SCHOLARSHIP WAS FORFEITED.
Fast-Forward to 2018, THAT SAME SCHOLARSHIP I got is now awarded to any "special snowflake" who can convey a "Tale of Woe" associated in any way with "diversity" (heavily favoring foreigners and females regardless of GPA), all math requirements have been "suspended", GRE scores merely have to be "submitted", recipients now get a "bonus" semester overseas in the country of their choice- instead of proving earning potential in an internship, and are handed options for a "set aside" appointment to a federal career… 2 ended up at NASA. (After scoring PERFECT 100's on federal exams, I was turned down for federal employment, and went to the private sector)…
For every academic "social inconvenience", there's a White male to take down publicly. The 'entitlement sector' tends to vote democratic. What are your questions.
#1
GRE scores merely have to be "submitted", recipients now get a "bonus" semester overseas in the country of their choice- instead of proving earning potential in an internship, and are handed options for a "set aside" appointment to a federal career......
One student ended up going to Pakistan and eventually became president of the United States. His GRE scores and college transcripts are no longer available.
[BBC] The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was interrupted by a group of protesters while speaking at an event for the Fabian Society.
...old style champagne Socialists who were well-established in George Berrnard Shaw’s day. I had no idea they still existed...
The protesters, calling themselves the "White Pendragons", announced they had come to perform a "citizen's arrest" on Mr Khan.
When they were removed from the venue, the mayor said "at least I didn't get given a P45" - a reference to an incident involving Prime Minister Theresa May at the 2017 Conservative Party conference.
An organiser told the BBC the protestors were admitted because they bought tickets, and appeared to be a far-right group.
[Right Scoop] Hawaii's nutty Rep. Tulsi Gabbard blamed Trump for the false missile alert in Hawaii that made millions panic. She says it's his fault because he hasn't done what a handful of presidents before him had not been able to do either – solve North Korea.
If there's one thing you actually CANNOT blame Trump for is the mess in North Korea. Each president before Trump has kicked the can down the road, even as we had more and more signs that they were building up their nuclear and ICBM capabilities. Yes, it falls on Trump's lap, but it's not an easy thing to solve, and he's certainly trying.
In any case, given that some idiot in Hawaii just "pressed the wrong button" and panicked millions, maybe Tulsi should look after her own in the state before casting aspersions on the prezzy.
#1
The Scoop Jackson democrat act wasn't polling well.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/14/2018 8:06
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#2
You know if we sell Hawaii to the Chinese to pay off a damn good portion of the debt, they'd have a degree of protection as the Norks are unlikely to target the Middle Kingdom's property.
[PJ] During his testimony before Congress in August, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson said that the FBI had a source inside the Trump campaign who gave credence to the infamous dossier the company created for the Democrats.
He repeated the claim in a New York Times op-ed on January 2.
But today, Fusion GPS is retracting that statement, saying that Simpson "mischaracterized" the source.
Washington Times:
Then suddenly, as quick as the headlines went up, some one close to Fusion was waving off reporters. Mr. Simpsonhad "mischaracterized" the source. It was not some one on the Trump inside, but apparently an Australian diplomat
He was featured in a Dec. 30 New York Times story as the source who tipped off the FBI. Campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos told him over drinks that a Russian-linked professor knew of "thousands" of Hillary Clinton emails in the hands of Moscow.
How Mr. Simpson knew of the diplomat last August was unclear. He would have known of him in January when he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which he again told of an insider source.
"As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp," he wrote.
Moments after Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, unilaterally released the transcript, the inside-source story spread, especially in London. The city is home base of Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who wrote the dossier.
In his testimony, Mr. Simpson told of Mr. Steele's meeting with FBI agents in Rome in September 2016. Mr. Steele told Mother Jones magazine he was trying to jump-start an investigation into President Trump.
Mr. Simpson testified, "Essentially what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that ‐ that they ‐ my understanding was that they believed Chris at this point ‐ that they believed Chris's information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization."
Simpson did not "mischaracterize" anything in his testimony or his Times op-ed. He stated flatly that the FBI told him they thought the information in the dossier was credible because they had a source in the Trump campaign.
It's impossible to overstate the damage done by Simpson's lies. They can "retract" anything they want, but the fact that they didn't do it for two weeks after the Times op-ed appeared and several days after the actual testimony was leaked by Feinstein shows that their narrative about the dossier is unraveling. The media made a huge deal of the FBI source who, they say, validated what was in the dossier. Now we know there was no FBI source at all -- just an Australian diplomat who spoke to a drunk Trump operative.
[Jpost] A strike by the Israeli Air Force on Saturday night destroyed a 180 meter long terror tunnel below the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesperson confirmed on Sunday morning.
Israel denied claims the tunnel was used for smuggling of goods, asserting it was intended by Hamas to bring terrorists and weapons from Egypt into the Gaza Strip for a possible future combined attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing from the Egyptian side.
The target struck was a tunnel that passed below the Kerem Shalom crossing . The tunnel also passed beneath several strategic targets, such as a gas pipe. It was completely destroyed by the strike.
On Saturday night the IDF announced it would be closing the Kerem Shalom crossing after an assessment of the current security situation, but did not provide further details.
"The terrorist organization Hamas is responsible for everything happening in and out of the Gaza Strip," an IDF statement said. So the tunnel is gone but the pipe is OK?
#1
Hopefully the pipe filled the remainder of the tunnel with gas.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/14/2018 6:23
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I had wondered why the Kerem Shalom crossing was suddenly closed. Repairs are going to be interesting — and time consuming, not to mention expensive — if the barrier needs to be extended to that point. That new tunnel-finding technology the Israelis invented must be a doozy.
[Townhall] America is crumbling. The end is near. The apocalypse is upon us, except that it's not. For weeks, Democrats said the GOP tax bill was the worst in history, even worse that the Missouri Compromise or prohibition. Except that it wasn't. Since President Trump signed the tax bill into law on December 22, scores of workers have reaped its benefits. Over 100 companies and over a million workers have received a bonus of at least $1,000, some companies even gave part-timers a $500 check. U.S. investments from these companies were increased, as was their charitable donations. From airlines to the Olive Garden, companies gave their workers a much-welcomed Christmas present. Additionally, entities have decided to increase their wages as well. Walmart and Capital One announced that they would boost workers wages. Oh, and Walmart will give $5,000 to workers who adopt.
#4
Don't recall where I saw it, but someone pointed out that corporate budgeting for 2018 is already done. We will not see the actual impact of the tax cuts until 2019. I expect it to be glorious.
[Breitbart] "I'm happy to have a president that will bluntly speak the truth in negotiations," said Erik Prince of President Donald Trump's alleged description of certain impoverished states as "s***hole countries."
Prince made his remarks on Friday's edition of SiriusXM's Breitbart News Tonight, hosted by Breitbart News's Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour. He is a retired Navy SEAL and founder of Academi (formerly Blackwater USA).
"If the president says some places are shitholes, he's accurate," said Prince, reflecting on time he served in Haiti in 1994 during Operation Uphold Democracy:
I know the president was beaten up even on comments he made about Haiti, and I can speak firsthand about Haiti, because as a young Navy SEAL officer in 1994, Bill Clinton decides to invade Haiti. I was there. My SEAL team ended up sending two platoons, and we actually planned for 100 percent casualties, not from enemy fire, but because of the water quality. We had to swim ashore, and the water was so bad because there were two and a half million people with untreated sewage flowing right into the water that we were going in. We had to get so many shots, so many vaccinations, that none of us could donate blood for six years afterwards. So if the president says some places are shitholes, he's accurate. Literally.
Prince rejected narratives pushed by Democrats and their news media allies framing Trump's alleged "s***hole" comments as racist: "It's a sad characterization of many of these places. It's not based on race. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with corrupt incompetent governments that abuse their citizens, and that results in completely absent infrastructure to include open sewers, and unclean water, and crime. It's everything we don't want in America."
#3
Why would Bill Clinton make those guys swim through sewage? What the fuck kind of president does that when the stakes are no higher than they were in Haiti? I mean, who really cared whether we rescued Haitians from themselves or not? Furthermore, who was going to dare shoot at those guys if they rode to the beach in boats or even helicopters? WTF?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/14/2018 10:47
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#4
Because that's what they do, Abu.
I'd be surprised if the team didn't suggest it themselves as a conditioning exercise.
#5
You may be right, Skidmark. If they thought of it as merely an exercise they could justify it at least to themselves. Maybe I overreacted. I just hate to hear about our guys being treated that way by the likes of Bill Clinton.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/14/2018 14:12
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[Breitbart] According to al-Maqdesi, all of the 16 were killed in the Dir ez-Zor Governorate, most of them in American and Russian Arclight airstrikes. Three of the 16 were killed fighting Kurdish militias in the region.
Nine of the jihadists were said to have come from the city of Rafah in southern Gazoo while others came from Khan Younis, also in the south, and other areas of the Gazoo Strip.
Al-Maqdesi said the most prominent Paleostinian jihadist to be killed was Rassem Abu Jazar, a former official with the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbung millipede,’ so-called military wing. Abu Jazar left Hamas, joined the jihadists in Gazoo, and in 2013 managed to cross into Sinai and make his way to Syria and Iraq, where he fought in the ranks of IS.
Abu Jazar left the Gazoo Strip with his family before arriving in Syria. He was one of the first Paleostinian jihadists to join the ranks of IS and among the first Hamas officials to do so.
Abu Jazar moved up the ranks of IS and became one of the organization’s most senior members in the region of Aleppo. According to al-Maqdesi, Abu Jazar’s family and the families of the other jihadists killed recently were informed of their loved ones’ deaths partly through Paleostinian jihadists who continue to fight with IS in Syria.
Another prominent figure killed recently was Abdullah Kulab from Rafah, the jihadist said. Kulab was a brother of Mustafa Kulab, who went kaboom! last August along with a Hamas patrol that tried to prevent him and another jihadist from crossing into Sinai. A Hamas police officer was killed in the blast.
Those killed also included Imad al-Nahass, Muhamad Abu Shbeika and Muhamad Abdelal. Abu Shbeika and al-Nahass spent some time as operatives for Hamas’ "military wing" before leaving the group and joining IS in Syria and Iraq.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/14/2018
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#2
about 800 palestinians have died fighting against the Syrian Govt side and about the same number of palestinians have died fighting for the Syrian Govt
in addition about 3000 palestinians civilians have been killed in the syrian civil conflict
only about 1000 palestinians died, combining civilian and military, in all the fatah vs hamas violence since 2006
of course this doesn't count palestinians killed by police during 'regular civil law enforcement'
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/14/2018 10:32
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[IsraelTimes] Tel Aviv study says global decrease in 2017 likely due to setbacks suffered by Islamic State; no bombings in Israel and West Bank, but 13 foiled.
The year 2017 holds a dubious record: the largest number of suicide kabooms worldwide carried out by women and girls.
According to a new study by Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, released on Sunday, nearly a fifth of the 348 documented suicide kabooms perpetrated in 2017 were performed by females, the vast majority of them in Africa, by the jihadist group Boko Haram
Continued on Page 49
[DAILYCALLER] Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich ...political has-been current Republican governor of Ohio... , a staunch critic of President Trump, said Friday that the media needs to "move on" Trump’s crude comments about Haiti and African countries and focus on real issues that affect Americans.
Trump ignited a media firestorm on Thursday by reportedly telling politicians in private that America doesn’t need more Haitian immigrants colonists and referring to African countries as "shithole countries." Kasich appeared on CNN’s "The Lead" with Jake Tapper Friday afternoon and grew frustrated with the constant focus on Trump’s comments, which he compared to reality TV.
Tapper asked Kasich several pointed questions about Trump’s comments, at one point running through Trump’s history of racially controversial comments and asking Kasich "what it would take" for him to call Trump racist. Kasich noted that he’s been a fierce critic of the president but declined to call him racist, saying, "I’m not a name-caller. What would it take? I’m not into name-calling."
Tapper asked Kasich if he thought Congress should censure the president for his comments, prompting Kasich to tear into the media’s focus on Trump’s comments
"We need to move on, Jake. Look, I’ll be honest with you, I understand clicks, hits, ratings in television, okay? Everybody’s had their say. Hopefully we’ll see some more out of Republicans. Maybe the president will say something, apologize or whatever. We’ve got to move on. We have big issues out there. We’re facing maybe the closing of the government. We’ve got a situation where we’ve got to take care of these other folks," Kasich said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2018
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[Khaama Press] The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... bully boyz suffered casualties in the latest Arclight airstrikes conducted as part of the ongoing campaign to suppress the Taliban-led insurgency as well as the other turbans who are attempting to expand foothold in this province.
The 209th Shaheen Corps of the Afghan military informed regarding the new airstrikes by releasing a statement covering the operational update of the Afghan national defense and security forces.
The statement further added that the latest airstrikes were carried out in the vicinity of Qaisar district of Faryab province.
According to the Shaheen Corps, at least two Taliban bully boyz were killed and three others were maimed in the airstrikes.
The Shaheen Corps of the Afghan military also added that an air campaign is still underway in parts of the province where the turbans are attempting to conduct insurgency.
The anti-government armed Death Eater groups including the Taliban bully boyz have not commented regarding the report so far.
Faryab is among the relatively volatile provinces in northern parts of the country where the anti-government armed turbans are actively operating in a number of its districts.
Several turbans including key members and commanders of the anti-government armed turbans were killed in similar operations in this province earlier this month.
#1
Hilmand remained the country's major opium poppy cultivating province, followed by Kandahar, Badghis, Faryab, Uruzgan, Nangarhar, Farah, Balkh, Nimroz and Badakhshan.
The poppy province seem to be targeted much more often than previously.
[ABCNEWS.GO] "The anti-Trump book is sweeping all over the world so Trump is being massively humiliated worldwide," crowed Kim’s paper, optimistically adding that strong sales of the book "foretells Trump’s political demise."
While Kim has been on the receiving end of Trump’s most colorful intercontinental insults, which have ranged from from ’little rocket man’ to 'sick puppy,’ the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran, a ’murderous regime’ according to the president, is a close second.
Apparently they’ve been reading Wolff’s work in Tehran too.
On Wednesday the Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency, Iran’s state media, drew on Wolff’s work to make the case that Trump is unbalanced, and that the world should resist any U.S. effort to tear up the nuclear deal.
"The promises and attempts made by the U.S. president in the first year of his presidency have been increasingly encouraging the idea that he has some sort of mental problem," said the article. "Trump's pledge to rip up the July 2015 Iran nuclear deal is an example."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2018
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#1
So can it be inferred that Li'l Kim is a progressive liberal as well?
[BREITBART] A federal appeals court upheld the state of Tennessee’s 2014 vote in favor of a ballot measure that removed the right to an abortion from the state’s constitution.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the ballot amendment known as Amendment 1 ‐ which won by a 53 percent margin ‐ by a 3-0 opinion.
According to the Tennessean, the measure added language to the state constitution that reads, in part: "Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion."
Eight voters who opposed the measure ‐ including the former chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood ...has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. It is sometimes described as the gynecololgical wing of the Democratic party. ‐ challenged the vote’s results, demanding a recount, and won at the trial court level.
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[IsraelTimes] Arab MK says IDF tried to prevent his attendance at solidarity protest for Ahed Tamimi in Nabi Saleh; army declares area a closed military zone
Hundreds of Paleostinian protesters clashed with Israeli troops on Saturday near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, as a rally was held there in support of a 16-year-old Paleostinian girl nabbed Please don't kill me! for slapping and shoving IDF soldiers.
Aheh Tamimi, along with her mother Nariman and cousin Nour, was arrested in December over a widely shared video in which the three could be seen violently accosting soldiers in Nabi Saleh, in an apparent attempt to provoke them. The mother and daughter were both charged in a military court earlier this month with aggravated assault of soldiers over the incident and remain in Israeli custody.
Nour Tamimi, 21, was also charged with aggravated assault of a soldier, but was ordered released by the court.
On Saturday, a rally was held for the Tamimis, with the Israeli military saying that hundreds of Paleostinians threw rocks at soldiers and shouted slogans inciting violence against Israelis. The IDF said troops responded with riot dispersal means and that there were no reported injuries.
The IDF also declared the area around the village a closed military zone, in light of the violence, the army said. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... it said it allowed Joint (Arab) List head Ayman Odeh to enter the village despite the closure. The army said it didn’t know whether Odeh participated in the festivities.
A spokeswoman for Odeh said soldiers tried to prevent the politician from entering the village and asked to search his car, but eventually let him continue without doing so. Odeh later posted a video of himself at the rally, which he said was attended by "thousands of Paleostinians and Jews who came to call for the release of the heroes Ahed and Nariman Tamimi."
[NJ] The former mayor and councilman of Lawrence Township has admitted to stealing thousands of dollars for unapproved salary increases while serving as the executive director of Asbury Park Housing Authority.
Mark Holmes, 56, pleaded guilty to second-degree theft by unlawful taking and faces five years in state prison when he appears for sentencing before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge John Tassini on April 6, Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni announced in a blurb Wednesday.
Holmes was indicted in December 2015 on 38 counts of official misconduct and other offenses. He was placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! at his Lawrence home in 2013 but was released from jail after posting $70,000 bail.
Holmes admitted Tuesday to stealing more than $90,000 by using state grant money intended to help low-income residents of Asbury Park to give himself a salary increase that wasn't approved by the agency's board between 2008 and 2011.
Before becoming the executive director, Holmes served as the agency's deputy director. Prior to taking over as executive director, Holmes applied for -- and received -- a $99,897 grant from the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The money was intended to be spent on training in computers and other skills for residents who qualified for public housing in Asbury Park.
An investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office's financial crimes and public corruption bureau found that between November 2008 and August 2009 Holmes transferred $75,721 of the grant into the general operating fund for the housing authority and then moved the money into his own accounts, authorities said.
Holmes created the APHA Community Development Corporation, where he funneled $58,000 to give himself a $50,000 salary increase without board approval, Gramiccioni said.
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#1
...Hmm. Started off well by transferring the money into the GOF, but then failed to put a couple more kinda-legal transfers between there and his personal accounts. Sorry, but 4/10. Welcome to Joisey.
Mike
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01/14/2018 7:42
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[WASHINGTONPOST] Chelsea Manning ...formerly Bradley Manning before he decided to become a girl. He, or she or whatever it was, was a misfit Army intel analyst who decided to leak all the secrets he could lay hands on. Sentenced to 35 years in Leavenworth, he was sprung on an Obamapardon in 2017.... , the transgender former Army private who was convicted of passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, has filed to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, according to federal election filings.
Manning, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, would be challenging Democrat Ben Cardin, who has served two terms in the Senate and is up for re-election in November. Cardin is Maryland’s senior senator and is considered an overwhelming favorite to win a third term.
Manning, 30, who is formerly known as Bradley Manning, was convicted in 2013 of the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Last year, then President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence to time served and she was released from a military prison in Kansas.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2018
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#1
Being mentally ill is a prerequisite for political office in Maryland, right?
#7
I'd say hers chances in the Peeeholes Dumbocrapic Regluglic of Maryland are even money or better...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/14/2018 8:45
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#8
Cindy Sheehan 2.0.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/14/2018 9:39
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#9
We need start an operation chaos and get this guy/gal nominated by the Donks. I'm thinking it wouldn't take much unless MD doesn't allow cross-party voting in primaries.
#15
Personally, I think of this as a military/male supremacist plot against feminism. The military prepared a male agent - disguised as a woman - to steal female votes.
[EN.RFI.FR] An affiliate 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.... (IS) gang has grabbed credit for attacks in the Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... , including one that injured three French soldiers in Mali on Thursday and an attack in October that killed four US soldiers and three from Niger.
One of the three French soldiers was maimed and flown to La Belle France for treatment after a suicide kaboom on a convoy travelling between Menaka and Indelamine regions.
The attack took place on Thursday, the fifth anniversary of the start of La Belle France's military intervention against armed Islamists and Tuareg separatists in Mali.
"A vehicle approached the convoy and went kaboom! near a VAB [armoured vehicle]," French army front man Patrick Steiger told the AFP news agency.
Three Malian soldiers were also injured on Thursday in an ambush in the northern town of Hombori and a policeman was kidnapped and a cop shoppe looted and set on fire in the north-western town of Lere, the Malian army said.
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[ARABNEWS] Tough new sanctions imposed by 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... on 14 Iranian individuals and organizations are a political blow and a warning to the regime in Tehran, a leading analyst told Arab News on Saturday.
Among those targeted are the powerful politician Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, the head of Iran’s judiciary and a close ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Groups facing sanctions include the cyber unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The US move is a significant move and "a critical victory for human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... defenders and the Iranian people," said Majid Rafizadeh, a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
The sanctions on the IRGC cyber unit were also a step toward peace and stability by combating the Iranian regime’s attempts to hack other governments’ systems and organizations, he said.
Announcing the new action on Friday, Trump said he would continue the suspension of US sanctions on Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal ‐ but only for 120 days. In the intervening time, he has demanded a separate agreement to restrict Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is not explicitly covered by the nuclear deal, and to make the 10-year curb on Iran’s nuclear program permanent. If he sees no progress on such an agreement, the president will withdraw from the nuclear deal.
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[Ynet] Gazoo's Interior Ministry calls on Cairo to investigate the incident, in which 33-year-old Abdullah Zeidan from the Shati refugee camp was shot in the chest by Egyptian forces; Paleostinians claim he did not cross naval border.
A fisherman from the Gazoo Strip was rubbed out by the Egyptian army overnight for unclear reasons, Paleostinian officials said Saturday, calling for an immediate investigation into the incident.
Medical sources in Gazoo said that Abdullah Zeidan, 33, from the Shati refugee camp, was shot in the chest by Egyptian forces near the naval border with Egypt in the south of the coastal enclave.
He was taken to hospital but died early Saturday morning.
Gazoo's interior ministry said an initial investigation indicated "the Paleostinian fishing boat did not cross the Egyptian (maritime) border" and remained in the Paleostinian waters of the town of Rafah.
"We call on the Egyptian authorities to open an urgent investigation into this incident," front man Iyad al-Bozum said in a statement.
The Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, terror group, which dominates Gazoo, condemned the "unjustified" attack.
Egyptian officials did not immediately comment.
The head of the fishing union in Gazoo announced a halt in fishing until Sunday evening in protest at the killing.
Fishermen from Gazoo have often brought in catch from Egyptian territory to sidestep restrictions imposed by Israel's naval blockade of the enclave.
Gazoo fishermen say that the limited fishing zone imposed by Israel is not big enough to meet demand of the coastal strip's 2 million people.
Egyptian forces, meanwhile, have in the past shot up Paleostinians trying to smuggle weapons and other items from the Sinai Peninsula into the strip.
[Ynet] Iran on Saturday lifted restrictions on the messaging app Telegram, the state news agency IRNA said, after blocking the popular service as security forces sought to contain the most widespread public protests in the country since 2009.
"An informed source announced that the filtering of the Telegram messenger has been ended and it is being used by users," IRNA reported.
Many Iranians access Telegram using virtual private networks (VPNs) and other tools to bypass government filtering of the Internet, residents said.
[REUTERS] The leader of 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.... ’s affiliate in West Africa has grabbed credit for an attack that killed four U.S. special forces and four soldiers from Niger in October, Mauritania’s independent Nouakchott News Agency (ANI) reported on Saturday.
The troops were killed when their joint patrol was attacked near the village of Tongo Tongo, on the Mali-Niger border, on Oct. 4 by dozens of forces of Evil armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The incident drew attention to the little-known U.S. military presence in Niger -- it has 800 troops stationed there -- and became a major publicity headache for 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... ’s administration.
Security officials had identified the perpetrators as Islamist forces of Evil loyal to Adnan Abu Waleed al-Sahrawi, the leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara operating along Mali’s border with Niger and Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , but there had previously been no confirmation from al-Sahrawi himself.
This article starring:
ADNAN ABU WALID AL SAHRAWI
Islamic State in the Greater Sahara
Posted by: Fred ||
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[IsraelTimes] Figures released by security service show 249 incidents in December, most of them Molotov cocktailings, compared to 84 in November
The number of security incidents in Israel and the West Bank tripled following 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... ’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to new statistics released by the Shin Bet security service.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Oh, I rather think the cause is the fine line of 'tiptoe' retribution Israel has developed over several decades. In part, of course, due to the US model of permissiveness.
#5
It would have been much, much worse had not so many Palestinians and Arabs Israelis been arrested for rioting, etc. since the last Hamas eruption, it seems to me. Israel has been very aggressively going after weapons and weapons manufacturers, funding, and those who join the groups of yoots stoning soldiers. Often enough reports about knife attackers and other arrestees report that the miscreant had previously been involved in rioting, so clearly it is a gateway behaviour.
[DAWN] Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Saturday that meeting US President Donald Trump would be a “bitter pill” to swallow should he become the prime minister in elections later this year, but added, “I would meet him.”
In a press briefing, Khan said he has been a staunch opponent of Pakistan's participation in the war on terror since it began in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks on the US.
“Pakistan had nothing to do with it,” he said, adding that he supported co-operation with the US but not co-opting Pakistan's military into a ground battle with its own people in the tribal regions that border Afghanistan.
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#3
The difference being that President Trump can make it a gigantic brontosaurus pill, and the prime minister of Pakistan will have to smile, swallow hard until he gets it all down, and say thank you while President Trump watches.
How fortunate for the comfort and peaceof mind of Mr. Imran Khan, former famous sportsman, that he needn’t develop his swallowing muscles because he won’t win.
[IsraelTimes] Amid US president's push to incorporate Tehran's ballistic capabilities into nuke accord, Iranian official says missile program is 'only deterrent against enemy threats'
An Iranian government official on Saturday said that Iran would pursue its ballistic missile program despite US pressure, and slammed 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... for his "irrational behavior," calling him the "most hated president in American history."
In an interview on Saturday with the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), an operation partly funded by the Iranian government, the chairman of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said Iran makes decisions based on national interests and that its ballistic capabilities served as a deterrent.
"Ballistic capability is the only deterrent against enemy threats," Boroujerdi was quoted by ISNA as saying, "after Iran has agreed to have no nuclear weapons and to use no weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons, because it is totally against the use of weapons of mass destruction."
The remark comes on the heels of Trump’s decision on Friday to sign a waiver on Iranian sanctions, suspending punitive measures for another 120 days and keeping the Iran nuclear deal alive. The US president warned that this would be the last time he does so unless Congress and European countries fix the nuclear deal’s "terrible flaws," and heed his call to strengthen it, including incorporating Iran’s missile program into the accord.
The US president has to sign sanctions waivers every four months, while the American intelligence services monitor the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s compliance with the nuclear deal, signed in 2015, which rolled back crippling sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
In a statement following the signing of the waivers, Trump laid out four conditions that must be met, including increased inspections, ensuring "Iran never even comes close to possessing a nuclear weapon," and that there be no expiry date to the nuke deal. The current one expires after a decade.
His last condition required Capitol Hill politicians to pass a bill unilaterally incorporating Iran’s missile program into the nuclear deal.
"The legislation must explicitly state in United States law ‐ for the first time ‐ that long-range missile and nuclear weapons programs are inseparable, and that Iran’s development and testing of missiles should be subject to severe sanctions," the president’s written statement said.
Iran has repeatedly said that the nuclear accord could not be renegotiated, including earlier Saturday when the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Tehran would "accept no changes" to the deal and will not allow the accord to be linked to any non-nuclear issue.
"The Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran stresses clearly that it will take no measures beyond its commitments under the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ‐ the deal’s official name] and will accept no changes to this agreement now or in the future, and will not allow that the JCPOA be linked to any other issue [than the nuclear issue]," said Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
The ministry added that, "The internal solidity of and international support for the agreement have blocked attempts by Mr. Trump, the Zionist regime and the ominous alliance of hard-line warmongers to terminate this agreement or make changes to it."
In the interview with ISNA Saturday, Boroujerdi said that "while many European countries and the signatories of the nuclear deal have repeatedly protested [against] the irrational behavior of Trump, he is still considered as a serious violator of JCPOA."
But "Trump was forced once again to extend Iran’s nuclear sanctions waiver despite all the boasts," he added.
Boroujerdi said Trump was "the most hated president [in] the American history, whose hatred has crossed US geological boundaries and [has] become a global phenomenon."
[ALMASDARNEWS] al-Qaeda-linked militias are preparing for a major operation to halt the advance of Syrian pro-government forces throughout southwest Aleppo province by making a determined stand at a strategic town in the region.
As the Syrian Arab Army and allied paramilitary groups sweep across the southwestern countryside of Aleppo province en-route to friendly forces in eastern Idlib encountering little to no resistance (so far), al-Qaeda-affiliated bully boyz are nonetheless readying for a major engagement in southwest Aleppo at the town of Tal ad-Daman.
Tal ad-Daman is by no means a large town (not even to Syrian rural standards), however it does happen to command all the main roads leading from southwestern Aleppo into eastern Idlib and northeast Hama.
Several days ago, fighters of the Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... , the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) myrmidon group filmed themselves inside the town, claiming to have repelled an army advance.
Whilst the claim was an outright lie because the Syrian Army was tens of kilometers away from the Tal ad-Daman at the time, government troops are now in fact closing on the town via the al-Hass plateau and Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham has made clear its intention to fight for the it.
The end game of Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham is clear, the myrmidon group wants to hold Tal ad-Daman in order to prevent a secure link-up between Syrian forces in southwest Aleppo and those in eastern Idlib.
If the Syrian Army intends to properly connect the southwest Aleppo front with eastern Idlib, the control of Tal ad-Daman is crucial. By not holding it, Syrian troops leave themselves open to constant counter-attacks by armed rebel groups from the north, who will use the town as a major mobilizing point.
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[Khaama Press] The Frontier Corps ...a provincial paramilitary force. Total manpower is about 80,000. They are tasked to help local law enforcement in the maintenance of law and order, and to carry out border patrol and a..the Antwerp-based Salafist organization that had campaigned to introduce Sharia law to Belgium before single-handedly making Belgium the highest per capita supplier of jihadis to Syria in Europe. There was a big trial in Antwerp in 2015, but most of those convicted were in absentia...nti-smuggling operations.... personnel of the Pak military have tossed in the slammer Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! at least eight Afghan nationals during an operation in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province.
According to the Pak military, the Afghan nationals were among at least sixteen suspects held during the intelligence-based operations.
The Inter Services Public Relations, media wing of the Pak military, said the Afghan nationals were held for illegal stay and several weapons and ammunition were also recovered during the same operations.
"FC Balochistan conducted IBOs in Sambaza, Sibbi, Hazar Ganji areas. 16 suspects arrested including 8 illegal Afghan refugees. Weapons and ammunition including grenades, IEDs, rockets, explosive recovered," a statement by ISPR said.
The Pak officials are saying that counter-terrorism operations are underway in Balochistan and other parts of the tribal regions of the country to suppress the murderous Moslem groups.
This comes as a suicide kaboom rocked Quetta city, the quiet provincial capital of Balochistan, last week that left at least eight dead and several others maimed.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... Pakistain (TTP) had reportedly grabbed credit behind the attack.
[AlAhram] A UN-sponsored reconciliation plan may allow Saddam Hussein loyalists to make a comeback in Iraq
Nearly 15 years after the ouster of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, his loyalists are showing signs that they are abandoning their endeavours to topple the country’s Shia-led government and are following a softly-softly approach to get involved once more in the country’s politics.
#2
So, as I have asked before, why does BLM have snipers, SWAT units, armored vehicles, and no due process or probable cause in front of a magistrate or judge before the hounds of war are loosed on a citizen?
Dang, seems as if I remember the IRS, BLM, ATF and a couple of other agencies were militarized with the full blessings of the Zerobama regime, er, administration.
Taken into combination with the abortive coup still being engineered by the FBI, one would think that the Zerobama Antichrist was thinking of a Soviet styled paradise with him and his thugs in the IRS and BLM as a new national police.
#3
Deep state loses this one. Unfortunately the federally sanctioned murder of ranchers, police officers, sheriffs deputies and the jailing of the Arizona sheriff by feds with guns by the Obama's regime's (BLM Beaureau of Land Management) or federally supported entitlement (BLM Black Lives Matters) or a black activist president (BLM Black Liberation Movement) cannot be brought back. But I can assure you this dude will rub their face in their sh*t hole politics every chance I get.
[ARABNEWS] A counterattack by Syrian opposition groups in northwest Idlib province has recaptured several villages, taken prisoners and liberated more than two-thirds of the territory captured by regime forces.
The push by factions including the radical Levant Liberation Committee slowed an offensive launched two weeks ago by Assad regime troops, Iranian militias and Russian jets toward the Abu Zuhour air base, which has been held by the opposition since 2015.
The regime offensive has displaced about 200,000 people, opposition front man Yahya al-Aridi told Arab News on Saturday. "They are now refugees," he said. "This is a disaster for them."
Nevertheless, the morale of the anti-Assad forces was high, al-Aridi said. He said the pretext for the regime offensive was "a few people classified as al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... , and the brutality perpetrated is horrible. The freedom fighters are just doing a good job and are liberating many of the villages captured by the regime."
Al-Aridi described a recent meeting between an opposition delegation and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as "very fruitful," and said there was an understanding of the rebel view that the conflict should be resolved through UN-sponsored negotiations in Geneva.
Russia is sponsoring what it calls a Syrian national dialogue conference at the end of January in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. "There is no clear picture about the Sochi meeting and the viewpoints on it are quite similar," al-Aridi said. "Guterres is not encouraged toward the Sochi meeting."
In Damascus, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, said he was "deeply worried" about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. He said he was also particularly concerned about the fate of the people of eastern Ghouta, the opposition-held rural suburb of Damascus where more than 400,000 have been trapped under regime siege since 2013.
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[PAJHWOK] Two sons of a former Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) commander have been killed and he injured in a clash with Taliban insurgents in western Ghor province, an official said Saturday. Gunmen loyal to Taliban commander Abdul Hamid... Rest of it's behind the pay wall.
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#1
A very Victorian story
Of mystery and mourning and worry,
Disconsolate widows
And wan, weary kiddos:
Afghanistan, gothic and Ghorey.
#3
HIG is distinct from Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), a legal Afghan political party composed of, among others, some reconciled HIG members. HIG shares most elements of Taliban ideology and HIG insurgents cooperate with the Taliban in some parts of Afghanistan despite some ideological differences. --globalsecurity
Posted by: S. Tenille3210 ||
01/14/2018 10:08
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#4
HIG is distinct from Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), a legal Afghan political party
Why would a legal political party need commanders? Is that not a military title?
[IsraelTimes] IDF says aircraft targeted ’terror infrastructure,’ but won’t confirm on its nature; attack follows Israeli announcement that Kerem Shalom Crossing would be closed Sunday.
Paleostinian media reported that Israeli jets targeted a tunnel between the Gazoo Strip and Egypt late Saturday night.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that its aircraft carried out strikes on "terror infrastructure" in the southern Rafah region of the Gazoo Strip, but would not comment on what exactly was bombed.
In general, tunnels between Gazoo and the Sinai Peninsula are used to transport commercial goods and, in some cases, weaponry into the Strip, as a way to circumvent the Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
In its statement, the army added, "The Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror organization is accountable for all activity in and from the Gazoo strip."
The attack came shortly after the military announced it would not be opening the Kerem Shalom Crossing into the Gazoo Strip on Sunday, following a "situational assessment."
The army said the decision to not open the crossing, which ordinarily sees hundreds of goods-bearing trucks pass through it each day, was made after extensive rioting took place along the security fence surrounding the coastal enclave on Friday.
Once a rare move, this will be the second time Kerem Shalom is punitively closed in under a month, as Israel seeks to force the ruling Hamas terrorist group to return quiet to the Gazoo Strip.
On Friday, approximately 1,000 Paleostinians took part in violent demonstrations in four separate locations along the security fence surrounding Gazoo, rolling burning tires and throwing rocks at the barrier and the soldiers on the other side, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In response, "troops fired live rounds selectively towards three main instigators, who posed a threat to IDF soldiers and the security fence," the army said.
The Hamas-run Gazoo health ministry said dozens of Paleostinians were maimed by live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas during the riots.
On Saturday, the Defense Ministry’s chief liaison to the Paleostinians warned residents of the Gazoo Strip that the Hamas terror organization was using them in its quest for violence against Israel.
"Hamas holy warriors send young people to riot at the [Gazoo border]... while hiding behind them and claiming that these riots are spontaneous and peaceful," Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said on Facebook.
[DAWN] Authorities in northern China have demolished a Christian megachurch in a move denounced by a religious rights group as “Taliban-style persecution”.
China’s officially atheist Communist authorities are wary of any organised movements outside their control, including religious ones.
The huge evangelical Jindengtai (Golden Lampstand) Church, painted grey and surmounted by turrets and a large red cross, was located in Linfen, Shanxi province.
Its demolition began on Tuesday under “a city-wide campaign to remove illegal buildings”, the Global Times newspaper reported, quoting a local government official who wished to remain anonymous.
“A Christian offered his farmland to a local Christian association and they secretly built a church using the cover of building a warehouse,” the official said.
The local housing department had stopped construction of the church in 2009 when it was almost complete, he added. Several members of the Christian group were then jailed, according to the official.
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#1
Guess I really can't find fault when I advocate blowing mosques.
[THEHILL] Rep. Maxine Waters U.S. Representative for California's 43rd congressional district, serving since 1991, a total of 26.121101118050802 years. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the most senior of the 12 black women currently serving in the United States Congress, is a member and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Before becoming a member of Congress she served in the California Assembly, to which she was first elected back when Disco was in flower, in 1976, which would make it 41.11904772996046 years. She has been a politician for virtually all her adult life. If she was brighter she'd be a Communist... '>Comrade Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Friday she will not attend President Trump’s first State of the Union address following his vulgar remarks aimed at Haiti, El Salvador and African nations.
"Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar?" Waters said on MSNBC’s "All In with Chris Hayes." "Someone who lies in the face of facts, someone who can change their tune day in and day out. What does he have to say that I would be interested in?"
"I don’t trust him, I don’t appreciate him and I wouldn’t waste my time ... listening to what he has to say," she continued. "He does not deserve my attention."
Waters is the third Democratic politician to announce they won’t attend Trump’s address, which is scheduled for later this month.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) announced Friday he would skip Trump’s State of the Union over the president's "unbelievable" remarks, in which he referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "shithole countries."
"I cannot in all good conscience be in a room with what he has said about so many Americans. I just cannot do it. I wouldn't be honest with myself," Lewis said.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) announced last week that he too would boycott Trump’s address.
"Rather than listening to yet another destructive and divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... speech by Trump, I will not attend this year’s annual address to Congress," he said in a statement. "Instead, like I did during Trump’s Inauguration, I will be working here at home listening to Oregonians about what they think about the State of the Union."
Members of the Democratic caucus are planning ways to protest during Trump’s speech. Female Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... (D-Calif.), plan to wear all black in solidarity with victims of sexual misconduct and the #MeToo movement.
Some House Democrats are also reportedly planning to invite sexual assault survivors as their guests that evening, and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said she has invited the founder of the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke, to be her guest that evening.
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#1
State of the Union should be a jolly good show.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/14/2018 0:26
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#2
I am secretly hoping that a regiment of US Marines is placed around the capital buildings on 30 January 2018, as an "honor guard", and Trump then uses the speech to announce the arrest for treason of about 60% of the government officials in the room. Thereafter, each perp is led out of the Capitol in handcuffs, by a pair of Marines, to a nearby section of parking lot, that has been transformed into a helipad, where a steady stream of Chinook helicopters ferry the criminals to a nearby airport. At the airport, C141's are standing by, to airlift the traitorous scum to Guantanamo.
[Khaama Press] Pakistain’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa has said the return of the refugees is prerequisite in a bid to help the Pak forces deny safe havens to the Afghan Death Eaters.
Speaking to the US CENTCOM commander Gen. Joseph Votel, the Pak Army Chief said "Pakistain is fully aware of US concerns on activities of Afghan nationals in Pakistain and we are already undertaking multiple actions through Operation ’Radd ul Fasaad’ to deny any residual capacity to holy warriors of all hue and colour for which return of Afghan Refugees is an essential prerequisite. Pakistain is also strengthening border controls unilaterally but if Afghanistan genuinely feels affected from Pakistain, bilateral border management must be Kabul’s top priority as well."
The Pak military in a statement said Gen. Votel apprised COAS about the US decision regarding Security Assistance and Coalition Support Fund and said that US values Pakistain’s role towards war on terror and expected that on-going turbulence remains a temporary phase.
The statement further added that the top US General also conveyed COAS that US is not contemplating any unilateral action inside Pakistain but is seeking cooperation to tackle Afghan nationals who, in US view, use Pakistain’s soil against Afghanistan.
"This view, he felt, was undermining in Washington, Pakistain’s contributions in war against terrorism. COAS said that entire Pak nation felt betrayed over US recent statements despite decades of cooperation. Accordingly unanimous national response reflected the same sentiments. COAS said that Pakistain shall continue its sincere counter terrorism efforts even without US financial support in accordance with our national interest and shall remain committed to bring it to its logical conclusion along with other stake holders. COAS said that Pakistain has suffered hugely due to great power contestation in the region," he added.
According to the Pak military, the Chief of the Army Staff reiterated that Pakistain will not seek resumption of aid but expect honourable recognition of our contributions, sacrifices and unwavering resolve in fight against terrorism for peace and stability in the region. COAS further said that Pakistain will keep supporting all initiatives for peace in Afghanistan despite the tendency to scapegoat Pakistain, as peace in Afghanistan is the only way to move towards enduring peace and stability in the region.
[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's president vowed to oust Kurdish bully boyz from Afrin, northern Syria, on Saturday as Syrian rebels also said they are bracing for such an operation.
Speaking in the eastern province of Elazig, 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... warned the People's Protection Units, or YPG, that Turkey will intervene if the "bandidosLions of Islam in Afrin do not surrender."
His remarks came as Turkey's military shelled Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled enclave along Syria's frontier with Turkey, saying it was responding to harassment by the YPG, according to the Ottoman Turkish station NTV.
Turkey regularly shells Afrin but Saturday's assault was particularly intensive and lasted more than two hours, said YPG front man Rojhat Roj.
"We are seeing preparations" for a Ottoman Turkish push into Afrin, said Roj.
"The YPG will defend itself against any aggression," he added.
Turkey considers the YPG a terror group and an extension of the Kurdish insurgency within its own borders.
The YPG and its political counterpart, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, say they want regional autonomy within a federalized Syria.
They control nearly 25 percent of Syrian territory, shrewdly striking alliances with the U.S. and Russia to establish the Kurds as a powerful force on the ground in Syria's civil war.
But the Afrin region is detached from the bulk of Kurdish-controlled territory in northeast Syria. It's surrounded on three sides by Ottoman Turkish forces and Syrian rebels backed by Ankara. And while the U.S. military maintains bases in the Kurdish territory in northeast Syria, it is not believed to be present in Afrin.
A Syrian opposition news site, Baladi News, quoted a rebel commander on Thursday as saying that joint Ottoman Turkish military and Syrian rebel operations to attack Afrin could begin "at any moment."
Moaz Abu Omar of the Failaq al-Sham rebel faction said ground operations would likely be backed by Ottoman Turkish air power.
Turkey has already stationed troops and armored vehicles in rebel-held territory on either side of Afrin in northern Syria. The Ottoman Turkish military entered rebel-held Idlib in October to monitor "de-escalation zones" between rebels and the Syria government, following an agreement with Russia and Iran to restore order in Syria.
Kurdish officials say the Ottoman Turkish deployment is a cover for operations against them.
"The Ottoman Turkish government needs to realize a military operation will not succeed," said Kurdish political official Rezan Hiddo. The YPG is reporting artillery strikes to Russian military observer units stationed in Afrin, he added.
Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey will not allow Kurdish bully boyz to form a "terror corridor" in northern Syria.
"They will see how we will mess them up in not even a week," said Erdogan on Saturday.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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#1
At some point Russia will hurt Turkey. The drone attack from a Turkish associated rebel group in a Turkish protected zone really upset them.
#4
It was in some Twitter posts from Russia. The actual jihadist groups name didn’t translate well with google . It was a group in an area of Turkish control
#5
badanov reads Russian, as does Fred. Perhaps they could help, if you can find the tweets again, 3dc. Though jihadi groups change names and personnel as quickly as minor rock groups, as far sa I can tell, so the name may not matter as much as the area of operation.
[SUNSTAR.PH] THE police have locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! two alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... Group (ASG) in downtown Zamboanga City, the police said Saturday, January 13.
Chief Inspector Helen Galvez, Police Regional Office-Zamboanga Peninsula information officer, identified them as Emran Ismael, who carries the aliases of Bantong Basinti and Bantong Basiri; and, Bryan Mohammad alias Pojong Attiun. Galvez said they were arrested at 9:15 p. m. Friday at a shopping mall along La Purisima Street in the village of Zone III, Zamboanga City.
She said the suspects have standing warrants of arrest for the crime of seven-count kidnapping and serious illegal detention penalized under Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines with no recommended bail.
She said the suspects were involved in the kidnapping of seven workers of the Golden Harvest Plantation on June 11, 2001 in the village of Tairan, Lantawan, Basilan ...Basilan is a rugged, jungle-covered island in the southern Philippines. It is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, bandidos, and maybe even orcs. Most people with any sense travel with armed escorts... . She said they were positively identified by two witnesses who are under the witness protection and security benefit program of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The Abu Sayyaf bandidos executed by beheading some of the hostages while the others have either escaped or rescued by pursuing military troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
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In which the head of Shurat HaDin influences covert international events. Herewith a taste:
[Ynet] In a new book published in the US, Israeli lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner reveals how she was entangled in operations with members of the Harpoon unit, a covert financial counterterrorism taskforce that has dealt heavy blows to Hezbollah, Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... , Yasser Arafat and Leb’s banks.
He is known in the world as "the Lebanese Madoff," but 10 years ago he was still called Salah Ezz al-Din: A rich businessman closely associated with Hezbollah. How close? He owned the publishing house of textbooks used in the organization’s schools. The publishing house was named Hadi Nasrallah after the Hezbollah secretary-general’s son, who was killed in a battle with IDF soldier. He wasn’t a person Hezbollah would suspect.
In 2007, Ezz al-Din flew to the Persian Gulf emirates in search of investments. Major funds for southern Leb’s reconstruction began flowing in from Iran after the Second Leb War, and his high-ranking friends from Hezbollah looked for a good place for him to grow in. It is unknown to this very day who was the contact who had given Ezz al-Din the option of promising investments, but it is clear that he had made a deep impression on him.
He invested millions of private dollars and soon began earning a lot. He started an investment firm and recruited more and more investors who enjoyed the money‐thousands of the organization’s supporters in southern Leb, senior Hezbollah commanders and even the secretary-general himself, Hassan Nasrallah, who invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the initiative.
One day, it was all over. A senior Hezbollah commander’s check bounced. Ezz al-Din thought it was a mistake, called the bank and was told that the account was empty. All the other banks too informed him that his money had been emptied out. He called the company in Dubai and got no answer. Ezz al-Din discovered that his partners in the Persian Gulf had disappeared with about $1 billion, mostly from Hezbollah’s funds. Now try and explain that one to Nasrallah.
The Shiite organization’s serious investigations revealed nothing‐Abu Madoff was unable to tell them where the money had gone. "In Tel Aviv, however, people didn’t appear surprised by what happened. Hezbollah had been in (former Mossad chief) Meir Dagan’s crosshairs," says attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.
Darshan-Leitner is the co-author of "Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters", which was published in the United States in early November and unveiled the Harpoon unit‐the Israeli intelligence body responsible for the war on terrorism financing, mainly that of the Paleostinians and Hezbollah.
"In the Arab world, people suspected Israelis had done it, but there was no way of proving it," she says about the Lebanese Madoff affair. "They still don’t know what happened to this very day, but according to foreign reports that blamed Israel, there is a certain likelihood that it was a Harpoon operation."
Darshan-Leitner, who wrote the book together with author Samuel M. Katz, knows what she’s talking about. Not only did she interview senior intelligence officials from the mysterious intelligence body for the book, including the person who was in charge of it for many years‐former Mossad director Meir Dagan‐but she was also very involved in it herself.
FTFA:
[WeeklyStandard] Yiannopoulos generates controversy and outrage the way a blowtorch throws sparks. His persona relies heavily on his sexual identity, which in a more innocent age we would have called “flamboyant” and left it at that. We are to suppose that his energetic gayness clashes with his right-wing politics, making for an exciting and unexpected combination, although it’s not clear, prima facie, why right-wingery and homosexuality should be irreconcilable. With his trademark mix of High Camp and Falangism, Yiannopoulos is a kind of alt-right Liberace, lacking only the candelabra and musical talent. Controversy is his daily meat. Even as his manuscript was being edited, many observers knew it was only a matter of time before Yiannopoulos gave Ivers and Threshold a reason to abandon the book, and him, thus getting the literary community off their backs.
And sure enough, in February of last year, with the book’s publication date just a month away, some industrious Milophobe discovered an old podcast that had somehow escaped everyone’s attention. In it Yiannopoulos made light of pedophilia and endorsed its salubrious, life-affirming effects on his own upbringing. (He says he had his first sexual encounter with an older man when he was 13.) The podcast lit up the Internet, and Yiannopoulos acknowledged that he had misspoken. He condemned pedophilia in the strongest possible terms. What he had been endorsing, he explained, was not pedophilia—the abuse of pre-pubescent children and a horror to every decent person. No, what he’d been endorsing was hebephilia, which he defined as sex between adolescents and adults. From now on, he promised to be more careful with his words. Read it all at the link
[USATODAY] 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 fleeing strongholds in Syria are leaving behind a trove of records detailing everything from the terror group’s finances to personnel documents on individual fighters.
"Their record keeping is phenomenal," Maj. Gen. James Jarrard told USA TODAY in an interview from Baghdad.
The Islamic State, also called ISIS, kept meticulous records, including directives and orders marked with official stamps.
Over the past three years, the coalition and local forces have seized "hundreds of terabytes" of data from ISIS computers and storage devices in northern Syria, where U.S.-backed forces are operating, according to the coalition headquarters.
Each terabyte can hold more than 80 million pages of Microsoft Word documents.
"We did learn a lot about their organizational structure, how they communicated, how they facilitated personnel and finances," Jarrard said.
"It is a very detail oriented book keeping organization (with) tremendous amount of details on every individual," Jarrard said. The records include a "laundry list of individuals that have moved into Syria and Iraq," he said.
The information has allowed the coalition to target the group’s top leaders. "The most valuable stuff that we look for immediately is the connections, the understanding of the organization’s construct so we can focus our targeting efforts," Jarrard said.
The Pentagon said it has killed many of the group's most bigwigs, though the top leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart... , remains on the lam.
Analysts also use the intelligence to paint a broader picture of how ISIS functioned.
At its peak, the Islamic State earned about $50 million a month from oil revenues and had another $500 million it had looted from banks in areas it controlled. In 2014 it swept into Iraq from Syria, capturing large swaths of territory, including djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Iraq’s second-largest city.
At the time it appeared invincible, drawing fighters from around the world to its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
Today, the Islamic State has lost 98% of the territory it once controlled, according to the coalition. Pockets of murderous Moslems have fled to remote areas, including villages along the Euphrates River Valley, stretching between Iraq and Syria. Revenues have been depleted.
"They are struggling for cash in some areas," Jarrard said. "They’re telling folks no when they request money and resources."
Jarrard, who commands the Special Operations Joint Task Force in Iraq and Syria, said it will take at least a few more weeks to finish eliminating the caliphate.
"That doesn’t mean the war is over," he said. "We will have to continue to maintain that pressure."
Much of the intelligence data was captured when U.S.-backed forces pushed murderous Moslems out of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s global capital, in October. The organization was controlled from the city in northeast Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[PAJHWOK] A quadrilateral intra-Afghan peace dialogue began on Saturday in the Ottoman Turkish capital Istanbul, to find a negotiated end to the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan, a reliable source said.
A participant of the meeting confided to Pajhwok Afghan News the gathering initiated on Saturday would last three days (until Monday).
The source, wishing anonymity, also shared a few photos of the gathering with Pajhwok, saying the peace dialogue was arranged in cooperation with the Ottoman Turkish government.
He said Taliban ...Arabic for students... ’s Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... Office members, Mullah Mohammad Rassoul splinter faction members, the Afghan government representatives and Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) members were attending the huddle.
Rahmatullah Wardak is representing the Taliban, Mullah Rauf and Abdul Halim the Rassoul group, Haji Dawajan Ahmadzai and Homayoon Jarir the HIA and Dr. Basir, envoy of High Peace Council (HPC) head Karim Khalili is speaking on behalf of the government in the session.
The source said similar meetings had taken place in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... between the sides last year, but media was kept in the dark about them.
The meeting comes as reports suggest the Ottoman Turkish government has proposed the Taliban to open a political office in the country.
A front man for the HIA, Mohammad Nadar Afghan, confirmed the gathering to Pajhwok. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... he said, Homayoon Jarir and Dawajan Ahmadzai had not participated in the gathering on behalf of the HIA.
He said Jarir was a presidential advisor and both might be privately invited to the gathering.
Also an official of the HPC confirmed to Pajhwok the gathering in Turkey; however, he didn’t go into details.
A source close to Taliban admitted the peace negotiations but said no one from their supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah group was participating in the gathering.
He said a Taliban member named Rahmatullah Wardak was attending the gathering. Wardak, a former Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) employee had served as an intelligence operative in the Tailban regime. Wardak has been running a bee honey business in Dubai over the past few years.
According to the Taliban source, this was a third meeting of the kind taking placing between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives in Turkey. "But the recent (this meeting) is organized as a result of HIA leader Gulbuddin Hekmtyar’s visit to the country."
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[ARABNEWS] Tunisia’s government on Saturday announced an increase in aid to the needy and improved health care as part of social reforms following a week of unrest triggered by austerity measures.
Social Affairs Minister Mohamed Trabelsi told reporters that monthly aid to needy families would rise from 150 dinars (50 euros) to between 180 and 210 dinars (60 and 70 euros).
He said reforms which have been in the pipeline for several months would guarantee medical care for all Tunisians, without elaborating, and also provide housing to disadvantaged families.
The announcement came after President Beji Caid Essebsi consulted with political parties, unions and employers.
The North African country has been shaken by a wave of protests over poverty and unemployment during which hundreds of people were arrested before the unrest tapered off.
“It’s a very advanced legal project, which was submitted to parliament and will be discussed over the next week,” said a government source who requested anonymity.
At the opening of his consultations, Essebsi accused the foreign press of “amplifying” the social unrest and damaging the country’s image in its coverage of protests.
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Two non-combatants were killed and four others were maimed on Saturday when kabooms hit areas in northern and southern Baghdad, a police source was quoted saying.
A police source told Alghad Press that an bomb planted near a popular market in Youssefiya, south of Baghdad, went kaboom!, killing one person and wounding another.
Alsumaria News quoted another police source saying that a civilian was killed and three others were maimed when an bomb, placed near commercial stores in Husseiniyat al-Rashidiya, an area north of the capital, went off.
Possibly the same attack, possibly a different one:
[ARABNEWS] A suicide kaboom near a security checkpoint in the Iraqi capital killed at least five people on Saturday, a police officer said.
The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , had earlier gave an "initial toll of three people killed and 11 maimed" in the attack.
The Baghdad military command said the jacket wallah targeted a checkpoint near Aden Square in northern Baghdad.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but most such attacks in Iraq are the work 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.... jihadist group.
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[AlAhram] Egypt has renewed a nighttime curfew in designated areas of North Sinai following last week's extension of a nationwide state of emergency for three months starting 13 January.
Acting Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in a decree published in the state's official gazette that the curfew covers Tal Rafah in the eastern part of Sinai to the international border at Rafah, and from Halal Mountain until Ouga on the border.
The curfew is in effect from 7pm until 6am (local time), except in El-Arish city and on the international road, where it runs from 1am to 5am.
The curfew will continue as long as the state of emergency is still in effect, according to the gazette.
A state of emergency was declared in North Sinai in 2014.
A nationwide state of emergency was imposed in April 2017 after two church bombings killed 47 people in Alexandria and Tanta. The nationwide state of emergency has been extended every three months since.
[Khaama Press] The Talibs group in Afghanistan reacted in panic at the recent US decision to increase the number of troops as part of the train, advise and assist mission in Afghanistan.
The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... group front man Zabiullah Mujahid in a statement has said "If US failed to win war with a hundred thousand troops, it will not win with a few hundred. Deployment of 700 SOF is propaganda effort because US and allies are compelled to periodically reinvigorate spirits of their morale lacking troops."
This comes as the US military officials have said the US military is planning to send hundreds of new troops to advise and assist the Afghan cops during the counter-terrorism operations.
The officials have also added that the new troops to be deployed will act similar as the US special forces to advise and assist the Afghan cops in the frontline.
Reports regarding the deployment of new troops emerge as the 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... unveiled his administration’s new strategy regarding Afghanistan and South Asia late in August last year.
President Trump vowed to continue the US mission in Afghanistan besides reaffirming the continued support of Washington to the Afghan government and the Afghan national defense and security forces.
The new strategy, according to the US officials, will be implemented based on the conditions in a bid to force the Taliban group to opt reconciliation.
#3
The difference is that the US has cut aid to Pakistan, has hit targets inside Pakistan, and has, tangentially, targeted Pakistan ISI support for Taliban in the borderlands and Afghanistan
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.
[Baron's] Tightening global supplies and rising demand for crude oil helped prices for the commodity start the year with a bang‐hitting their highest levels in more than three years‐and many analysts believe the market has the fuel it needs to continue the rally to as high as $80 a barrel.
[FOX] Former President Barack Obama resurfaced on Friday and took a shot at Fox News viewers, saying they're "living on a different planet" than people who consume mainstream media.
[Breitbart London] New Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) statistics show the number of white people at British universities is in decline, with minorities surging ahead.
[Right Scoop] Hawaii's nutty Rep. Tulsi Gabbard blamed Trump for the false missile alert in Hawaii that made millions panic. She says it's his fault because he hasn't done what a handful of presidents before him had not been able to do either – solve North Korea.
[IsraelTimes] Tel Aviv study says global decrease in 2017 likely due to setbacks suffered by Islamic State; no bombings in Israel and West Bank, but 13 foiled.
...political has-been current Republican governor of Ohio...
...has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. It is sometimes described as the gynecololgical wing of the Democratic party.
...formerly Bradley Manning before he decided to become a girl. He, or she or whatever it was, was a misfit Army intel analyst who decided to leak all the secrets he could lay hands on. Sentenced to 35 years in Leavenworth, he was sprung on an Obamapardon in 2017....
[REUTERS] The leader of 
[IsraelTimes] Amid US president's push to incorporate Tehran's ballistic capabilities into nuke accord, Iranian official says missile program is 'only deterrent against enemy threats'
[AlAhram] A UN-sponsored reconciliation plan may allow Saddam Hussein loyalists to make a comeback in Iraq
[PAJHWOK] Two sons of a former Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) commander have been killed and he injured in a clash with Taliban insurgents in western Ghor province, an official said Saturday. Gunmen loyal to Taliban commander Abdul Hamid...
[IsraelTimes] IDF says aircraft targeted ’terror infrastructure,’ but won’t confirm on its nature; attack follows Israeli announcement that Kerem Shalom Crossing would be closed Sunday.
U.S. Representative for California's 43rd congressional district, serving since 1991, a total of 26.121101118050802 years. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the most senior of the 12 black women currently serving in the United States Congress, is a member and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Before becoming a member of Congress she served in the California Assembly, to which she was first elected back when Disco was in flower, in 1976, which would make it 41.11904772996046 years. She has been a politician for virtually all her adult life. If she was brighter she'd be a Communist...
Nancy 
... 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...
...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart...
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
[Khaama Press] The Talibs group in Afghanistan reacted in panic at the recent US decision to increase the number of troops as part of the train, advise and assist mission in Afghanistan.
