Hamid Karzai travelled to Herat for talks with Ismail Khan. Karzai was accompanied by three ministers in his first trip to a provincial capital since his administration took office in December. Karzai was due to meet Herat governor Khan but no details on the purpose of the surprise visit were announced. The visit comes amid growing concern about unrest in the provinces, where Karzai has yet to fully establish the writ of his administration. Khan, an ethnic Tajik commander, has voiced his support for Karzai's government and denied reports that he is receiving military aid from neighbouring Iran across the western border. The Duke of Herat represents a power center that Karzai has to bring into the fold of the administration. Despite his recently incurred debt to Iran, he's still probably the best of the lot of the warlords.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Iran's Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari said that Iran is considering whether to kick out former Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and is discussing the matter with Afghanistan's interim government. ``Iran is not a place for any individual or group to make mischievous acts or any other action,'' Lari said. ``The case of Hekmatyar is being pursued through the Intelligence Ministry and other bodies and an appropriate action will be taken about him.'' Best thing would be to ship him home to government custody. Very best thing would be to ship him back in pieces.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A passenger tried to force his way into the cockpit of a United Airlines plane on a flight from Miami to Buenos Aires, but was subdued after the co-pilot hit him over the head with a small ax. Pablo Morcira, a banker from Uruguay, was restrained by the flight crew and later arrested by police after the flight landed in Buenos Aires. United Airlines Flight 855 took off with 157 people aboard. Mr Morcira, 28, began kicking the cockpit door about five hours into the flight, as the airplane flew over Brazil. The captain opened the cockpit door and Morcira made it inside. The co-pilot grabbed a small axe and hit Mr Morcira in the head. Orihuela said Morcira did not appear drunk and was not armed. Mr Morcira was treated for his injuries and was lucid and in stable condition. He will be charged with interfering with a flight crew and flown back to Miami today. Beaning me with an ax usually gets my attention, right of the bat. It's becoming pretty obvious that aircrews and passengers aren't going to put up with nastiness on flights anymore, regardless of the number of boxcutters. It makes my little heart go pitty-pat every time one of the goofs is roughly handled. This is not a good time to be a loon. Unless we get soft and forgetful, always a danger, the "good old days" may be in the past for them.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
From Daily Jang: Saudi Islamic charities denied involvement in financing terrorism, after Riyadh said it would take action to prevent misuse of funds raised by the charities. An official spokesman said Saudi Arabia would "take every possible action in accordance with relevant international resolutions to ensure that charity works are not misused for illegal purposes." The United States has submitted to Riyadh eight lists containing 168 names of individuals and groups suspected of funding terrorism. Saudi officials have said "appropriate" steps were taken against around 150 bank accounts.
The secretary general of the International Muslim Youth Assembly, Mane al-Jahani, criticised the Western media campaign against Islamic charities, saying Al-Bir charity which appeared on a terror funding list had ceased to operate five years ago. "Enemies of Islamic work" are not happy with the charities' achievements and are plotting against them, he charged. Saudi charities have offices and representatives in around 55 countries and have in the past two decades contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians, Bosnians, Afghans and others. In fact, everywhere they donate turns into a crisis area, just chock full of sectarian and internecine strife. Wotta coincidence.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The response by Israel to the Palestinian intifada has caused an "enormous drop" in incomes and living standards in the occupied territories, says Britain's Minister for the Middle East Ben Bradshaw. "Levels of poverty have increased considerably from 21 per cent at the start of the intifada to at least 35 per cent. This means that about 1 million people exist on less than $2 per day," Bradshaw said in response to a written question in parliament. He laid most of the blame for the declining economic situation of the Palestinians on Israel's policy of "closure" saying that unemployment was very high and many people are "just getting by thanks to savings and humanitarian aid." That makes sense. Not a lot of sense, but some, I guess. If they Palestinians can't be blamed under any circumstances for fouling their own nest, then it has to be someone else's fault. This is that magickal area of the world where cause (random exploding snuffies) and effect (no one's going to hire you because you might explode without warning, and if they do, no one else is gonna let you in their vicinity) don't apply.
Perry at the Libertarian Samizdatelstvo brings up the (self-imposed) poverty of the Palestinians as a good reason for Jordan not to want to reabsorb the West Bank. It's not so much the fact that the Palestinian GDP per capita is less than half that of the Jordanians, but that the reason it's so low is that the area is packed solid with wild-eyed exploding loons. Posted by Fred 2/8/2002 12:05:12 AM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Palestinian Authority today released 25 militants from two detention centres in Nablus after an Israeli air attack on the town. Palestinian officials said the move was designed to keep the militants, who come from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, out of harm's way. Among those released were Mohammed Tawalbeh and Ali Safouri, two leading Islamic Jihad members, who had been included on a US list of 33 militants that Washington wanted to see behind bars. In the West Bank town of Jenin, a crowd stormed an apartment building after the Nablus airstrike and released seven suspected militants detained there by Palestinian police. Palestinian police said 103 suspected informers with Israel remained locked up despite the airstrike by Israeli F16 warplanes which wounded 11 Palestinians.
The attack was a response to the killing of three Israeli settlers last night, a woman and her two children, by a lone Palestinian gunman in the settlement of Hamra, in the Jordan Valley. We certainly wouldn't want any of our gunmen to get hurt. Don't know what the fuss was about. It was just some woman and a couple kids. Wonder howcome you never hear about muftis exploding or getting shot?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
In fighting over the past 24 hours, military jets pounded the Nozhai-Yurtovsky district, not far from the border with Dagestan, while artillery shelled Vedensky, Nozhai-Yurtovsky and Kurchaloyevsky districts. Rebels fired on federal outposts 10 times, killing one soldier and wounding another four. In Chechnya's northeastern flatlands, where federal forces have firmer control than in the mountainous south, a police station was shelled by grenade launchers, killing two officers. One rebel died in an ensuing gunfight. In Grozny, an army jeep was shelled in the center of the city, killing two troops and wounding another two. The car of the deputy chairman of the Chechen government, Ali Alavdinov, was also destroyed by a remote-controlled mine. Alavdinov escaped without any injuries, but two of his bodyguards were seriously injured.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
An Arab prisoner claiming he was Osama bin Laden's cook said the al-Qaida leader has sought refuge in Chechnya, Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. Haji Mohamad Akram's account of bin Laden's movements comes amid continued speculation over bin Laden's whereabouts. "Bin Laden had three offers of escape," Akram, a Saudi, said. "One from Iraq, one from Iran and another from some mafia types. He chose the latter and moved from Afghanistan into Pakistan and then back into Afghanistan and on to Iran. The mafia types were working for money and Osama saw their offer as the most reliable. Now I understand from friends that he was headed to northern Iran." He added he believed bin Laden had then gone to Azerbaijan and into Chechnya. Cookie's probably not the most reliable of witnesses - if he was Binny's cook in fact. But Chechnya's a pretty shrewd destination, probably the only one other than Xinjiang where the US won't follow in force. And the mafia involvement sure fits in. Since he's got a certain amount of sense, he's more likely to trust a crook than a mullah. (Wouldn't you, if it came down to it?)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Indian troops on Wednesday claimed they had shot dead five gunnies who belonged to Jaish-i-Mohammed. "The army had laid an ambush for a group of militants on specific information this morning," a spokesman said by telephone from Kupwara, near the Line of Control. "As the militants entered the ambush range they were asked to surrender, but instead they opened fire." Five Jaish members, identified as Pakistan nationals, were killed in the ensuing encounter.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Qari Qadeer, the father of Hashim Qadeer, reportedly arrested from Lahore for suspicion of a role in kidnapping a US journalist, Daniel Pearl, was taken to an unidentified place by officials of an intelligence agency and interrogated for about 30 minutes. He was later released. A large number of people, meanwhile, visited the Qari to offer condolences for his son's reported death in Kashmir. Or was it Afghanistan? Someplace, anyway.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
China has established its first dedicated anti-terrorism security force, an elite unit of heavily armed police based in Shanghai. The 67-strong force, under the control of the Shanghai Armed Police, will be trained to combat such dangers as bombings, assassinations and toxic gas attacks. Bet when they set up their version of Club Fed, it won't be in the Caribbean. I imagine incarcerations will be fairly short and uncomfortable and end with a very brief, very intense headache.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine openly criticized "simplistic" US foreign policy as signs of dissent grew in the ranks of the global coalition against terrorism. Two days after the United States unveiled plans for the biggest increase in military spending since the Cold War, Vedrine warned that the interests of the world were under threat from US unilateralism. Wonder which countries he consulted with before drafting that statement.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The White House declared that the Geneva Convention applies to Taliban forces captured in the Afghanistan phase of the war on terrorism, but not to Al-Qaeda. "President Bush has decided that the Geneva Convention will apply to the Taliban detainees but not to the Al-Qaeda international terrorists," Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said. The move comes after strong criticism -- including from key US allies -- stemming from alleged mistreatment of Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees the United States is holding at Camp X Ray in Guantanamo, Cuba.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in testimony before the House International Relations Committee that while the US values allies, it won't hesitate to go it alone if necessary. Powell said the US will work for a regime change in Iraq even though most of the European Allies, Russia, China and most Middle East countries are opposed to such blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. It probably will become necessary at first. If it flops they'll get to point the finger and say "I told you so." If it lasts long enough, they'll come on board. The dangers to the "allies" is that if it works, and works quickly, it'll be so hard to stand next to the USA for the gratitude that'll come from throwing off the bloody-handed dictators. That'll hurt business.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A British police superintendent in Lithuania for consultations with an anti-corruption force was fined for urinating on the president's palace office building. Kevin Williams Pytt, 49, was caught in the act on a security camera just after midnight and was ticketed the same day for violating public order. Words... simply... fail... me.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Doctors at a hospital in the town of Ulyanovsk have removed a star from the stomach of an army officer. It transpires that the officer was celebrating his promotion to the rank of captain and in keeping with tradition, threw his freshly awarded epaulet star into a glass of vodka. The unnamed newly promoted captain downed the glass with such enthusiasm that he forgot about his prized new star. The operation to remove the insignia took over an hour. Now, you can understand that happening to a lieutenant. But a captain? Disgraceful.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The Nizhny Novgorod nuclear power station is the only nuclear power station in the world that produces vodka. Within one of Russiaâs largest power producing plants the chinking of bottles resounds and every hour trucks loaded with Russiaâs traditional spirit and gin and tonic concoctions emerge through the plantâs gates. In what was built as the stationâs pressurisation section light alcoholic beverages are produced and stored, while in the neighbouring sector vodka is distilled. Head engineer Viktor Grachev explained: âThis section was for water purification and preparation. It was probably convenient to refit it for vodka production, thatâs why they chose it. The whole process of vodka production is carried out here, starting with the null cycle and ending with the finished product.â The Nizhny Novgorod atomic power station was built in 1986, fully equipped and ready for operation, but following the Chernobyl catastrophe operation plans were halted. It has never functioned as a nuclear power station and has become the largest producer of vodka in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
I'd bet there are plenty of nuclear power plants in Russia making Vodka. Nizhny Nov is probably the only one selling it commerically, however. Posted by Hermetic 2/7/2002 5:08:35 PM
"A surprisingly vigorous drink, with a strong finish. Overtones of oak and U235." Posted by Fred 2/7/2002 5:12:29 PM
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/07/2002 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
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.
