[AnNahar] Two Iranian destroyers, sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect fat merchantmen, have reached the entrance of Bab el-Mandab, a strategic strait between Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and Djibouti, Iran's navy said Thursday.
In another sign of tensions between Gulf rivals Iran and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , meanwhile, the Saudi charge d'affaires was summoned to the foreign ministry in Tehran to hear a "strong protest" over Saudi military action which prevented an Iranian plane from landing in Sanaa.
"We are present in the Gulf of Aden in accordance with international regulations to ensure the safety of fat merchantmen of our country against the threat of pirates," said the head of the Iranian navy, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayari, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
The navy has sent the Alborz and Bushehr destroyers to patrol the entrance to the strait, he added.
Bab el-Mandeb, a narrow body of water, is the key strategic entry point into the Red Sea, through which around four million barrels of oil pass each day on ships headed to or from the Suez Canal.
Last week, U.S. officials said an American aircraft carrier and a cruiser left the waters off Yemen and headed back to the Gulf after an Iranian naval convoy also turned back from the area.
Washington suspected the convoy of carrying weapons destined for Shiite Houthis in Yemen.
"The information that the Iranian ships received warnings and left the area is not correct," Sayari said, insisting that Iran will not enter "the territorial waters of other countries" in reference to Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, which heads a Sunni Arab coalition conducting air strikes on Yemeni rebels since March, has imposed an air and sea blockade.
Sayari said the two destroyers would stay posted around Bab el-Mandab until late June.
Iran denies having armed Houthis and has called for the immediate end of coalition air strikes as a condition for resuming dialogue aimed at ending the crisis in Yemen.
The Iranian navy has deployed warships in the Gulf of Aden and in the Indian Ocean for a number of years to stave off the threat of hijacking for commercial vessels.
In Tehran, the top Saudi diplomat posted in Iran was summoned Thursday to the foreign ministry which "strongly protested" over an incident in which Saudi warplanes bombed Sanaa airport runway to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.
Tuesday's action "endangering the lives of the crew and members of the Iranian Red Islamic Thingy, who brought medical aid to Yemenis and wanted to transfer the maimed, is unacceptable," said a senior Iranian diplomat, quoted by IRNA.
It was the fourth time in a month the Saudi charge d'affaires was summoned.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
i'd be tempted to say 'pass the popcorn' if i wasn't so afeared of how this might turn out for the non Islamic world
#2
It's almost like Iran is a proxy for the Soviet Union Russia. Iran shuts down the gulf. The price and demand for Russian crude go up. Russia continues to aid Iran with its nuclear program. And the band plays on.
Posted by: Betty Protector of the Antelope8245 ||
05/01/2015 14:13 Comments ||
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[ABC.NET.AU] North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... has cancelled plans to attend events in Moscow next week commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, the Kremlin says.
"He has decided to stay in Pyongyang," Kremlin front man Dmitry Peskov said.
"This decision is related to [North] Korea's internal affairs."
The trip would have been Kim's first overseas since he took power in 2011 after the death of his father.
Shin Kyung-min, a member of South Korean parliament's intelligence committee, had said on Wednesday South Korea's spy agency expected Mr Kim to go to Moscow although there was no independent confirmation of the plan.
Yang Moo-jin, an expert at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said Mr Kim could have boosted his image by going to Moscow and it was not clear why he had decided not to go.
"He was at the stage in his leadership where he should have been seen working on external affairs and trying to overcome international isolation, especially in light of the negative publicity he's got in recent months," he said.
"By visiting Russia, he would have been able to exert pressure on China and also on South Korea, and he would have been able to improve his own image by going over there with his attractive wife and speak in English, which he surely must be able to do."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Could not find extension cord for refrigerator.
Posted by: Steven ||
05/01/2015 2:12 Comments ||
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#2
Feeding another relative to a pack of hungry dogs?
h/t Gates of Vienna
Italian laws concerning illegal residents who return after being deported are superseded by European directives, a European Union official said Tuesday.
Advocate General Maciej Szpunar told the European Court of Justice that the EU's directive "does not tolerate" Italian laws that provide for the imprisonment of third-country nationals who return to Italy after being deported.
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] President Francois Hollande vowed on Thursday to make an example of any French troops found guilty of child sex abuse in Central African Republic as an internal U.N. report suggested that French, Chadian and Equatorial troops were implicated.
The allegations, which came to light this week due to an internal U.N. report summarizing interviews with victims, risks damaging the reputation of France's peacekeeping operations in Africa. Reuters obtained the U.N. report on Thursday, though the Guardian newspaper was the first to report on the charges.
The report suggests that at least 13 French soldiers, two soldiers from Equatorial and three Chadian troops had been involved in alleged abuse between December 2013 and June 2014. Subsequent French inquiries identified some of them, a French judicial source said, though none had been questioned.
The 6-page report said the child victims interviewed alleged they had performed oral sex on the French troops, while accusing soldiers from Equatorial and Chad of sodomizing children.
"If this information is confirmed ... the punishment will be proportionate to the deeds. If they are serious, the punishment will be harsh," Hollande told reporters during a visit in western France. "I will be implacable."
There was no immediate reaction from officials in Chad and Equatorial.
Hollande is a strong advocate of using the French military to secure peace in ex-colonies such as Central African Republic or Mali, where he received a rapturous welcome in 2013 after France intervened to halt an Islamist insurgency.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... will always support Bosnia and its people in the fight against terrorism, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on April 30.
"Turkey will always support Bosnia and Herzegovina and the people of Bosnia in the fight against terrorism, just like we support it in other fields," Cavusoglu said, while addressing a joint presser with his Bosnian counterpart, Igor Crnadak, in the Bosnia and Herzegovina capital of Sarajevo.
Speaking on the recent attack against a cop shoppe in eastern Bosnia, the Turkish foreign minister offered condolences to the family of the slain police officer and the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"We agreed that unfortunately both countries faced similar problems and together we are ready to fight against all forms of terrorism," Crnadak said.
A gunman had shot and killed a police officer and maimed two other officers on the evening of April 27 at a cop shoppe in Zvornik, a town in the Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The gunman was also killed in the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Turkey has stated that GCC, Balkans, + East Euro security is its security.
* FYI HURRIYET NEWS > A NEW WAR IN THE BALKANS?
Albania-vs-Serbia tensions, escalations over Kosovo + Bosnia-Herzegovina could lead to war, rising violence in Bosnia.
[ARABNEWS] An Indian plan to resettle tens of thousands of Hindus in new townships in the disputed Moslem-majority region of Kashmire is a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, a Pak government spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The divided Himalayan region is claimed by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistain and the nuclear-armed neighbors have gone to war two times over the territory since independence in 1947.
Pakistain has long pressed for the implementation of decades-old UN resolutions calling for a ballot for the region to decide its future. India says the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... has no role in Kashmire.
India's nationalist government said in early April it planned to resettle tens of thousands of Hindus in three new townships in its part of Kashmire. Pakistain's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that was unacceptable.
"Any effort to create special dedicated townships or zones, or any other step to alter the demographic make-up of Jammu and Kashmire, is in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions," the spokeswoman, Tasneem Aslam, told a regular briefing.
"We have already seen how the people of Jammu and Kashmire are resisting it," she said.
She did not elaborate, but was apparently referring to recent protests in Indian Kashmire.
Between 200,000 and 300,000 Hindus are estimated to have fled Kashmire after an armed revolt against New Delhi's rule erupted in 1989.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
as opposed to the Pak resettlement in 4-5 terrorists infiltrators under artillery cover fire?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/01/2015 21:11 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday offered an amnesty covering security forces members who fled 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, provided they return to their units within 30 days.
Multiple Iraqi divisions collapsed when an IS-led offensive swept through Iraq last June, overrunning large areas north and west of Baghdad.
In their haste to escape, some security personnel shed their uniforms and abandoned vehicles, weapons and other equipment, which the jihadists have since employed against government forces.
The statement from Abadi's office did not specifically mention IS, but the amnesty covers those who fled, were absent or harmed themselves to avoid service.
The amnesty specifically excludes those who committed offenses including crimes against state security, corruption and abuse of influence.
It was unclear if tens of thousands of so-called "ghost soldiers," who are on the payroll but do not show up for work, sometimes splitting salaries with their commanders, would be covered.
While Iraqi security forces performed dismally in the early days of the IS-led drive, they have since regained significant territory with backing from pro-government paramilitaries, a US-led coalition and Iran.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Iraq is poised to deploy Shi'ite paramilitaries backed by Iran to Sunni tribal areas west of Baghdad, a move supporters say is needed to defeat 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.... turbans but opponents say could inflame more sectarian violence.
Shi'ite paramilitaries have already played a central, if controversial, role alongside regular army units in recent months in the Iraqi government's first major successful campaign against Islamic State fighters, helping to capture Saddam Hussein's home town Tikrit on the Tigris River north of Baghdad.
So far, however, the government has avoided deploying the militia in the Euphrates River valley province of Anbar west of the capital, a vast Sunni tribal homeland that strides the main routes to Jordan and Syria. Baghdad considers Anbar the next target in its campaign to retake territory from the bad boys.
But with the army advance having faltered, officials are now speaking openly about dispatching the militia, organized under the umbrella of "Hashid Shaabi" - "Popular Mobilisation".
This could alarm the United States, which is supporting the Iraqi government from the air against Islamic State fighters but is wary of Baghdad's alliance with Shi'ite forces of Evil who openly receive arms, funds and strategic direction from Iran.
Some Anbar tribal figures fighting on the government side against Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, have issued calls in recent days for Baghdad to send the militia to their aid.
"We must recognize that it will be too difficult for tribal fighters and security forces to defeat IS in Anbar," said Sheikh Ahmed al-Assafi, who commands a group of rustics fighting the turbans and who met Shi'ite militia commander Qais al-Khazali to discuss the participation of the Hashid Shaabi in Anbar.
But others say this would be a dangerous mistake, provoking rustics to rally behind Islamic State, which presents itself as a defender against Shi'ite forces of Evil responsible for atrocities.
"If the Hashid enters (Anbar), in whatever guise, the situation will not stabilize," said Sheikh Ali Hammad, who fled to the northern Kurdish region from Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... an Anbar city just west of Baghdad that is now largely held by Islamic State.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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[Arutz Shiva] As the makeup and direction of the new government becomes clearer, it is worth making mention of a High Court decision which passed us by our post-election stupor. More surprisingly, the decision displayed a measure of sanity that has been lacking from that particular branch of government in recent years..
The High Court broadly approved the much maligned "Anti-Boycott Law", which various NGOs, invariably on the Left such as Gush Shalom, Adalah and Btselem, all vociferously attacked as an egregious attack on free speech. Whereas previously, the aforementioned groups and their acolytes could call for boycotts of Israel, the law now leaves them liable to civil damages. In addition, the Finance Minister is empowered to remove any NGO's tax exemptions that call for Israeli boycotts. The Court also saw fit to vacate the clause which would have allowed claimants against the "boycotters" to claim punitive damages.
Why is this significant? Because it assures that treason won't pay well?
[Manila Times] Leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front gathered in Marawi City on Tuesday to call for passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and to express solidarity with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Over a thousand people joined the Bangsamoro Walk for Peace around the city early Tuesday morning and held a rally to acknowledge peace efforts by the MILF and the Philippine government.
MNLF chairman Datu Abul Khayr Alonto said the Bangsamoro people are looking for more peace advocates to support the BBL. He said the BBL may be the last opportunity for the Bangsamoro people to negotiate autonomy for their homeland.
Alonto said, "While we need sincerity to pursue lasting peace in Mindanao, all stakeholders, especially the government, should consider the utmost necessity to settle the Bangsamoro issue and a diluted [BBL] has a price that will be too great."
Participating in Tuesday's events were surviving original MNLF guerillas known in the late 1960s and the 1970s as the Black Shirts, MILF representatives, the government peace panel and the International Monitoring Team.
Alonto said the MNLF and the MILF have put aside their differences and agreed to work together after he and MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim signed a communiqué for cooperation at Camp Darapanan last January.
Posted by: ryuge ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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I'm starting to imagine a couple of Filipino news stringers off in the boonies somewhere, making up names and laffing their asses off while they toss back San Miguels on the company dime.
[ARABNEWS] Iran's Embassy in Denmark said the Maersk Tigris vessel that Iranian forces seized on Tuesday would only be released once the Danish shipping company settled debts in a long-running dispute over cargo.
The statement, which was dated April 29 but posted on Thursday, asserts that the Maersk Tigris vessel is owned by Maersk and that it had been apprehended in Iranian waters -- two points the shipping company denies.
Maersk urged Iran to release the crew. "We must insist that the crew and vessel are released as soon as possible. The crew is not employed by Maersk Line, nor is the vessel owned by Maersk Line," the company said in a statement.
"Maersk Tigris and its crew are thus not in any way party to the case, which presumably is the reason behind the seizure of Maersk Tigris," it added.
The Marshall Islands-flagged vessel was operated by Rickmers Ship Management, with head offices in Singapore and Hamburg, and was carrying cargo for Maersk Line.
The Danish company said it had been told by the Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization at a meeting Wednesday that the seizure was linked to the loss of 10 containers it had shipped to Dubai for an Iranian company in January 2005.
"The containers were never collected by the consignee or any other party. After 90 days and in accordance with United Arab Emirates law, the cargo was disposed of by (the) authorities," it said.
Several Iranian district courts had dismissed a $4.0 million (3.59 million euro) lawsuit by the Iranian company against Maersk over the lost cargo but in February the group had accepted an appeal court's ruling to pay the firm $163,000.
The group said it had been told at the Wednesday meeting that following another appeal it had been ordered to pay $3.6 million in compensation.
"As we do not have the details of the ruling we are not able to comment," it said.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had "harassed" a US-flagged commercial ship last week in the Gulf, raising security concerns over shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of global marine oil traffic passes.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
i.e. The crew is being held for ransom.
Posted by: frozen al ||
05/01/2015 11:15 Comments ||
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[ARA] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said that the time has come for a transitional phase in Syria that determines a Syrian future without any role for the Assad regime.
On Thursday, Kerry told news hounds in Washington that the transitional phase in Syria will be led by a coalition government that represents all spectrums of the Syrian people.
Kerry's statements came after a meeting with Khaled Khoja, President of the Syrian National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and the Opposition (SNC), in Washington.
He emphasized that the Assad regime is primarily responsible for the displacement of millions of civilians because of bombing the cities and destroying residential buildings, which indicates that this regime had lost all sense of logic or sense of responsibility.
Kerry added that Syria is now one of the attractive outposts for terrorists, saying that this is also the argument used by the regime to justify its survival.
He stressed that the United States will not accept any role for the Assad regime in the future of Syria, pointing out that the transitional government must transform Syria's dictatorial regime to a government that represents all spectrums of people.
The Secretary of State expressed the U.S. hope that the SNC can contribute to regain the secular identity of Syria.
On the other hand, the SNC's president, Khaled Khoja, emphasized the need for a U.S.-sponsored no-fly zone in Syria that may help stopping the bloodshed of innocent people.
Khoja added that the United States has provided assistance to the Syrian people, and still consider SNC as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrians.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Why does this idiot make a life long agnostic pray twice a day?
[ARA] Since the onset of the anti-Assad uprising of March 2011, the Syrian Human Rights Network (SHRN) has documented 69 churches targeted by the various conflicting parties in the country.
The network reported that the Syrian regime's forces and allied militias targeted 41 churches, while 11 others were turned into military headquarters.
In its report, released earlier this week, the network said that they documented 69 targeted churches, 41 of which have been attacked by the Syrian regime forces since March 2011.
The report indicated that Islamist groups committed violations against 11 churches, 6 of which were conducted by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group (IS/ISIS), and 5 others were attacked by the al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-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 .. ... Front (Syria's branch of al-Qaeda). Factions of the Syrian armed opposition targeted 4 churches, and two other assaults were reported under anonymous parties.
Compared to other Syrian provinces, Homs had the lion's share of attacks on churches, especially by the regime troops, according to the report.
In the same context, the SHRN documented that at least 11 churches have been converted into military or administrative headquarters, where the pro-regime forces have turned 6 into security bases, while the hardline groups' share was only three churches, two of which by Islamic State and one by al-Nusra Front. The armed opposition factions turned two churches into military centers.
The SHRN's report added that the most targeted churches are located in the areas controlled by the opposition, relying on information from pro-regime sources. The SHRN verified the validity of this limited information procured under difficult circumstances while communicating with residents or local activists in those areas.
"Sometimes it was quite a challenge to accurately document the offenses, as the targets (churches) were located at the battles' sidelines," the report read.
Speaking to ARA News, Abdul Ahad Abdi, member of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that everyone has suffered from the four-year-long war of Syria.
"Mosques and churches were damaged, Moslemholy mans were barbarically killed in terrorist bombings like Mohammed Saeed Ramadan al-Buti, and the whereabouts of Bishops Paul Yazigi and John Ibrahim, who were kidnapped by unknown groups, is still unknown" he said.
"We are reliving the massacres of Sipho (committed against Armenians in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... at the hands of Ottomans in 1915) and today we witnessing the extermination of Assyrian villages in Tel Temir (near Hasakah) and the kidnapping of dozens of civilians at the hands of Islamic State's gangs," Abdi told ARA News.
"May peace and security prevail soon in all of Syria, because we are exhausted indeed," he said.
Activists accused the Assad regime of portraying the 2011-popular uprising as a sectarian conflict since the very beginning, showing its intension to protect ethnic and religious minorities "while it destroyed the entire society".
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 00:00 ||
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[ARA] On Thursday, the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group (IS/ISIS) summoned hundreds of young Syrians who swore allegiance to the group in the city of Manbij in the northern countryside of Aleppo, northern Syria, to undergo an IS-led Sharia training camp.
Speaking to ARA News, an eyewitness from Manbij said (on the condition of anonymity) that the IS-run Sharia training will be held in the groups main center in the city of al-Bab.
The training is expected to last for two months, and the participants will return home in Manbij to join the IS' institutions in the city.
"This is what the group has declared. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... we've received information that those who join the training camp in al-Bab will be sent to the Iraqi provinces of Anbar and Salahaddin to fight there in the ranks of the group," a local activist said on condition of anonymity.
The group has reportedly lost hundreds of faceless myrmidons during battles against Iraqi forces in the recent weeks.
"Thus they're recruiting Syrian youth and send them to the fighting fronts in Iraq in order to fill the gap. This way the group guarantees the loyalty of those youngster who'll be separated form their families and people and will have no other choice that showing loyalty to the group," the activist told ARA News on the phone.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/01/2015 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.
North Korea
[Manila Times] Leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front gathered in Marawi City on Tuesday to call for passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and to express solidarity with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Over a thousand people joined the Bangsamoro Walk for Peace around the city early Tuesday morning and held a rally to acknowledge peace efforts by the MILF and the Philippine government.
[ARA] U.S. Secretary of State 
