[ARABNEWS] Tunisian authorities tossed in the clink Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! another 150 people including local opposition leaders over unrest against price and tax rises that prompted troop deployments to restive towns, and activists called for renewed rallies at the weekend.
Protests, some violent, flared across Tunisia on Monday, when one protester was killed, before ebbing on Thursday. Protesters have burned dozens of state buildings, prompting the government to send the army into several cities and towns.
Activists and opposition politicians appealed for fresh demonstrations in the capital, Tunis, on Friday and on Sunday, the seventh anniversary of the toppling of authoritarian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
On Thursday, unrest was limited to sporadic festivities in the northern city of Siliana, in Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia and Douz in the south of the North African country.
"The protests have declined and there was no damage, but last night the police arrested 150 people involved in rioting in the past few days, bringing the total number of detainees to 778," Interior Ministry front man Khelifa Chibani said. Sixteen turbans were among those detained, he said.
Three local leaders of the Popular Front, the main opposition bloc, were detained in Gafsa for allegedly setting fire to a government building, a judicial source said.
The Popular Front said its leaders had been targeted in a political campaign that was "reproducing the methods of the oppressive Ben Ali regime." Party members had also been arrested in Mahdia and Karbariya, it said.
The protests draw on anger over price and tax increases included in this year’s budget that took effect on Jan. 1. The government has blamed the opposition and "troublemakers" for stoking unrest, a charge the opposition has denied. The government has vowed not to back down on the austerity measures, taken to satisfy foreign lenders.
Prices have increased for fuel and some consumer goods, while taxes on cars, phone calls, the Internet, hotel accommodation and other items have also gone up.
Tunisia appears to have little scope to back away austerity. The International Monetary Funds says Tunisia is committed to "decisive action" to reform its economy before the IMF reviews the payment of its next loan tranche.
Last year, the Washington-based IMF agreed a four-year loan program worth about $2.8 billion with Tunisia, but tied to economic reforms.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2018 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Ahmad Alhaw admits terror attack and killing, claims they were partly in anger over Israeli security measures on Temple Mount
Sudden Jihad Syndrome attack by 1) a known Islamist who 2) was a rejected asylum seeker. A Palestinian dental student born in the United Arab Emirates, 3) he was not eligible for asylum or refugee status to begin with, but 4) could not be sent back because he had thrown away his papers. There are probably thousands like him, but at least the locals responded to his nonsense by beating him with chairs instead of cowering in corners while waiting for the police to handle it.
A 26-year-old Paleostinian man admitted Friday to killing a man and wounding six others with a knife in a Hamburg supermarket, an attack that stoked fears of Islamist terrorism in Germany.
Ahmad Alhaw "declares that he takes responsibility for the very serious crimes he committed, and explicitly recognizes his guilt regarding all the charges," the defendant’s lawyer Christoph Burchard told judges in the high-security courtroom.
Just checking in to see how the other man hated by Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First, called “the much beloved” is faring as he works through the 95 cases against him.
[Rudaw] Proceedings in the case of Selahattin Demirtas on charges of "insulting the president" have concluded for the day and will continue on May 17 in order to allow the court to consider a request from Demirtas challenging parliament’s decision to lift his immunity. In May 2016, the parliament passed a law lifting immunity from a select group of 138 MPs, including Demirtas and many other HDP members. In court on Friday, Demirtas said the parliament acted contrary to the constitution and demanded the decision be cancelled.
"Now I have immunity as much as [Prime Minister] Binali Yildirim... [I] have to be tried in the constitutional court. I demand the movement of the case to the constitutional court," he said.
HDP, however, has slim hope of receiving a favourable decision from the court. Co-chair Serpil Kemalbay, making a speech in front of the courthouse, said that the court's decision is already pre-decided and is being dictated by Ankara. She claimed that the judge on Friday was reluctant when agreeing to consider Demirtas' request.
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/13/2018 00:43 ||
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#1
I predict an unfortunate accident for this guy in the very near future. Tough call, I know...
[IsraelTimes] Ottoman Turkish authorities on Friday reinstated more than 1,800 civil servants in an emergency decree after finding they had no links to a group blamed for the 2016 failed coup.
The public sector employees were fired after being accused of downloading an encrypted messaging app known as ByLock, which the authorities say was used by the movement of US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... who is blamed for the attempted putsch. But late last year, the authorities said that the app had been unknowingly downloaded by thousands of people.
A total of 1,823 civil servants will return to work, including 544 personnel from the education ministry and 204 health ministry staff. The decree also said 458 personnel from the police force could return to their jobs.
The employees will have to return to work within 10 days and will receive their wages for the period they were not working, but they cannot apply for compensation.
But in Friday’s decree, 262 people including 48 military personnel were fired, state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... Anadolu said, while two organizations were shut down.
Following the failed overthrow of 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... , The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... imposed a state of emergency, which has been renewed five times and is likely to be extended again this month.
Using emergency decrees, more than 140,000 public workers have been sacked or suspended ‐ including teachers, judges, coppers and academics ‐ since July 2016.
Over 50,000 people have been tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! , including many with suspected links to Gulen because they had allegedly downloaded ByLock.
Last month the Ankara chief prosecutor said that 11,480 people were directed to the ByLock app without realizing it or giving permission.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/13/2018 00:11 ||
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#1
"we can't keep the lights on and water running..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2018 7:59 Comments ||
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#2
A little political overshoot there.
When does a state of emergency cease and become just another chronic condition?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/13/2018 14:41 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] White House official says it is only to give Congress time to strengthen the deal so that it never expires
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... signed a waiver on Friday keeping the Iran nuclear deal alive, at least for now. But a White House official told news hounds that "this is the last such waiver he will issue," unless Congress heeds his call from October to unilaterally strengthen the deal.
Faced with a deadline over whether to reimpose sanctions against Tehran that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord, Trump ultimately decided to keep those sanctions suspended for at least another 120 days.
If he had not signed those waivers, those sanctions would automatically be reinstated, putting the US in contravention of the deal’s terms and likely spelling the end of the 2015 pact.
The official said that Trump now wants to work with America’s European allies ‐ who all urged him to remain within the accord ‐ to develop a new agreement to replace the Iran deal.
Tehran would not be involved in these discussions, as it was prior to the signing of the 2015 accord, but would be subject to US and European sanctions if it breaks the terms of the new arrangement.
The new deal, the official said, would be permanent and would not begin to expire after a decade as was the case in the 2015 accord.
It would target Iran’s missile program and not simply its nuclear industry, and it would mandate UN inspections of Iranian sites.
"If the president can get that agreement that meets his objective and it never expires, it denies Iran all paths to nuclear weapons forever, not for ten years, he would be open to remaining in such a modified deal," the official said.
Under the accord, the US president has to sign the waivers every 120 days, while the American intelligence services monitor the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s compliance with the deal, which rolled back crippling sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
In conjunction with his announcement to extend the agreement, Trump used the occasion to slap 14 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Head of Iran’s Judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, with fresh sanctions.
The last time he faced a major deadline regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is formally known, he decertified the deal under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), a congressionally mandated measure that requires the president to determine if Iran is in compliance.
The administration charged that Iran was not living up to the "spirit" of the agreement and asked Congress to unilaterally impose "trigger points" on the deal that will reimpose nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran should it overstep certain bounds.
Those trigger points, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told news hounds at the time, would be aimed primarily at addressing what the administration sees as flaws in the deal, such as the sunset clause, which is set to lift limitations on Iran’s nuclear program when the accord expires in over a decade, and Iran’s ability to continue developing its ballistic missile program.
The move forced Congress to set another review period to determine whether to hit Iran with sanctions that were in place before the accord was implemented, or potentially take other actions.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/13/2018 00:00 ||
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[Daily Wire] The former spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council under former President Barack Obama lashed out over a recent report from a Kuwaiti newspaper about how the Obama administration prevented Israel from assassinating a man with strong ties to terrorism by warning Iran about their plans.
The New York Times’ Bret Stephens tweeted out an article from Haaretz quoting the newspaper saying that three years prior to its report, the U.S. thwarted an Israeli attempt to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani who is the commander of the Quds Force, a US-designated sponsor of terrorism. Unconfirmed single source reporting.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
01/13/2018 00:00 ||
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#3
The former spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council under former President Barack Obama lashed out over a recent report from a Kuwaiti newspaper about how the Obama administration prevented Israel from assassinating a man with strong ties to terrorism by warning Iran about their plans.
OK. Then can we all agree that this would have been a total bumhole move then?
[AlAhram] The Islamic State is using Sinai to settle scores with Hamas
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) affiliate Sinai Province last week posted a video of the execution of one of its Gazook members. In the video group members flank Moussa Abu Zamat as a young man named Mohammed Saad al-Seidi recites why Abu Zamat had been sentenced to death. Abu Zamat was charged with delivering weapons to Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", which is described in the video as an "apostate" group.
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Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/13/2018 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
... 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...
[Daily Wire] The former spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council under former President Barack Obama lashed out over a recent report from a Kuwaiti newspaper about how the Obama administration prevented Israel from assassinating a man with strong ties to terrorism by warning Iran about their plans.
