DOZENS of parents desperate to find their missing children rushed to a Thai hospital yesterday hoping that an unidentified Western toddler was theirs. But all came away disappointed and the blond-haired boy, thought to be about two, spent his second night alone in hospital. It was not clear what had happened to the boy, who was found sitting on a road not far from the town of Khao Lak in Phang-nga province, where waves swept away hundreds of tourists and trapped people inside flooded buildings. A few tourists saw the toddler sitting alone and took him to hospital, said Vilad Mumbansao, a staff member at Phuket Hospital. "He looked bleak when he arrived on Sunday night, with some surface wounds on his face and body," he said.
No one has claimed the child. The child was lying in a hospital bed yesterday wearing a red and yellow checked shirt and hooked to a saline drip. He was looking healthier after doctors gave him oxygen for a day. Nurse Jintana Choochai said dozens of foreigners had gone to the hospital to see if the baby was theirs, but his parents were not among them. Hospital staff were trying to determine the nationality of the baby. "He could be Swedish because he was enthusiastic when a man spoke Swedish to him," Mr Vilad said.
Meanwhile, Malaysian media reported that a 20-day-old baby sleeping on a mattress survived the tsunamis by floating to safety. The baby, identified only as S. Tulasi, was sleeping in a room behind her father's food stall on Penang's popular Batu Ferringhi beach when the waves hit, Bernama news agency reported. "We were all caught off guard. I was thrown several metres away, but managed to hold on to one of the posts," A. Suppiah, 55, was quoted as saying. His wife, Annal Mary, 40, fought her way through the waters to the room where the baby was sleeping. "Thank God the mattress was floating in about 1.5m of water and my baby was crying," she said.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
12/29/2004 7:14:12 PM ||
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Asedwich, please accept my highest hopes that your friends all return safe and sound.
A person from my own music clan went to Thailand just for the holidays. Our group was a bit frantic until he emailed back mentioning how he had fortunately gone to see the east coast beaches within less than a day of the quake. Needless to say (then why say it?), there were some tense hours awaiting his reply.
I urge all of Rantburg's members to consider emailing the Australian embassy at public.affairs@austemb.org with personal condolences. For how much Down-Under has fought and suffered right along side of us here Up-Over, I feel that expressing some sympathy for the Oz folk is a no-brainer. But that's just me.
#5
I saw this kid on TV this morning. He was identified as Swedish and his grandmother came to pick him up. His father had survived, but his mother is missing. I was actually quite touched by the story, thinking about my own 3-year old son.
#6
Off-Topic, Update-- my friends made contact. Seems they had spent Christmas kayak camping on an island off of Phuket. They were on the beach and saw the wave coming, and ran like mad. They lost everything but shorts and t-shirts, and count themselves extremely lucky.
Best wishes to all still missing their comrades.
Omar Solaiman, chief of the Egyptian Intelligence, paid an urgent visit Sunday to Saudi Arabia, an Egyptian Diplomat told a French news agency. Solaiman delivered a message from President Hosni Mubarak to Crown Prince, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the source added. The content of the message and the topics of discussion were not disclosed.
"I can say no more!"
Saudi Arabia has been at loggerheads with Libya, whom the former accuses of having been involved in the attempted assassination of Prince Abdullah. Saudi Foreign Minister Seoud Al-Faisal announced on December 22 that the Saudi ambassador in Libya was summoned and Riyadh was bent on expelling the president of the diplomatic Libyan delegation.
Time for a Deep-Laid Plot?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2004 12:31:38 AM ||
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"Faith, and 'tiz me pension yer after, which Oi moight add is perteckted by law!"
The massive bank robbery in Northern Ireland may have been carried out by paramilitary group the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to provide a "pension fund" for activists ahead of its dissolution.
That's if you believe they're gonna dissolve.
The Times newspaper said detectives suspected the IRA may have been behind the audacious December 20 heist on the National Australia Bank-owned Northern Bank. A large proportion of the £22 million ($59.6 million) taken might be used to provide a cash cushion to IRA members amid renewed peace efforts, the newspaper said.
Or to buy more guns
The IRA has formally denied involvement but Northern Irish police have raided a series of homes of suspected activists connected to the group, and say paramilitary involvement is a possibility.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 12:32:20 PM ||
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Only months after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. warned North Korea that it had designated the overseas transfer of nuclear materials as a "red line" that could warrant the use of force against the communist country, a former U.S. envoy on North Korea said. In an interview with Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, Charles Pritchard, former U.S. State Department special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, said he had conveyed this position to North Korea through diplomatic channels in New York in August 2003, and that the communist regime had accepted it as credible U.S. policy. Pritchard was serving in the capacity of special envoy at the time.
Pritchard warned North Korean officials that immediate measures would be taken if Pyongyang transferred nuclear materials to other countries, crossing the red line.
It was the first time anyone has gone on record as saying that the U.S. had informed the North of a nuclear threshold over which it must not pass, Yomiuri said on Dec. 23.
Yep, that's a red line allright.
The Bush administration last year drew a "red line" beyond which North Korea would not be allowed to expand its arsenals. Previously it had refrained from setting such a "red line," apparently out of concern that it might provoke North Korea to escalate its nuclear activities. The previous Clinton administration had declared reprocessing spent nuclear fuel a "red line" North Korea should not cross, according to diplomats in Seoul.
The difference being that after we liberated Iraq, the NKors had to know that GWB was serious in a way that Clinton could never be.
U.S. officials have not specified what type of action the U.S. might take if North Korea crossed the line, but the Japanese newspaper said a military strike could not be ruled out.
Sinking the NKor freighter, or shooting down the NKor transport plane, carrying the nuke material comes to mind.
The "red line" for North Korea's nuclear activities has often been described as moves to eject UN inspectors from the atomic facility, restart a nuclear reactor shut down under a 1994 U.S.-North Korean pact and move spent fuel rods for reprocessing to extract plutonium. Some say an actual nuclear test would be a "red line."
Raising the stake in the nuclear standoff, a North Korean nuclear official confirmed earlier this month that in September 2003 Pyongyang reactivated the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, the country's main nuclear complex, which was frozen under a 1994 accord.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2004 2:46:59 PM ||
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#1
sounds a little harsher than sipping champagne with Kimmy, hmm, Madeleine Halfbright?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 15:35 Comments ||
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North Korea blamed South Korea on Tuesday for a stall in the dialogue between the two countries and demanded an apology. In a lengthy report, the North's Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland cited a mass defection of North Koreans to the capitalist South earlier this year and a joint military exercise the South held with the United States as "anti-reunification acts."
"Stop those siren songs!"
Cabinet-level talks between the two Koreas were canceled in August after about 460 North Koreans arrived by plane in South Korea in an operation shrouded in secrecy. North Korea repeatedly has called it a "kidnapping."
"Due to all the wrong acts of the South Korean authorities, multichannel dialogues and contacts including the ministerial talks have stopped and the inter-Korean relations frozen, and the situation of the Korean Peninsula is rushing headlong to an acute confrontation and strain," the secretariat said in a statement carried by KCNA, the North's official news agency. On Tuesday, North Korea also urged South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's administration to "admit its two-year course of acts against reunification and apologize to the nation at an early date in whatever form and way considered suitable"... I checked KCNA in hopes of finding a good spew since face is involved in apologies - but the cupboard was bare.
Posted by: .com ||
12/29/2004 8:30:28 AM ||
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Via EU Referendum, this is part of the post, the Times article requires registration:
Without any specific topical "hook", today's Times sees a letter published from Professor Alan Lee Williams, Director, Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom, who recently attended the 50th anniversary of the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) in Rome.
There, he informs us, some 40 countries reaffirmed their support for Nato and the transatlantic alliance, declaring their hopes that America would continue to play a central role in formulating strategic concepts compatible with the development of the alliance's Response Force and its newly achieved operational capability.
However, writes Prof. Williams, "this show of support by ATA masked its underlying anxiety about the best way of reconciling Europe's strategic culture with the reality of American power." Opponents of the Iraq war: France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, together with Greece and Luxembourg, apparently regard the fledgling EU Rapid-Reaction Battle Groups as the basis of a possible European superpower....
There's some other goodies (and ARIS comments) there, I suggest you scroll down, especially the post about the coming EU waste regs and Scotland's sludge. That monstrosity won't work, but they're going to be a real pain until they collapse.
#1
I believe it is vital to preserve NATO to stop wave after wave of massed Russian tanks from charging through the Fulda Gap. What's that? Ain't gonna happen? Oh! Well, then, never mind!
The headline on cnn.com reads "28 Iraqi Officers Lured to house, killed." Well, that's not quite right. As the linked article makes clear, a number of Iraqi Police officers were killed, as were a far larger number of civilians.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/29/2004 12:06:31 PM ||
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#1
Negative is my middle name.
Posted by: Andrea Koppel ||
12/29/2004 13:38 Comments ||
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Mental note: Andrea's middle name is NOT Socialist Drone.
#11
Kinda obvious for anyone who's advanced beyond peek-a-boo mentality. And as a sidenote, I've figured the Egeland reference now - hadn't noticed his first name.
NEW YORK (AP) - A lawyer and two co-defendants helped an imprisoned Egyptian sheik commit a sort of "jailbreak" by allowing him to get around prison rules and feed messages to terrorists overseas, a prosecutor told a federal jury Wednesday. In his closing argument, assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Dember asked the jury to convict the three of a conspiracy to overcome the government's effort to silence the still "powerful and influential" prisoner, Omar Abdel-Rahman. Civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart and her co-defendants, Ahmed Abdel Sattar and Mohamed Yousry, testified they obeyed the law in the work they did for Abdel-Rahman.
The blind sheik, who entered the United States in 1990, is serving a life prison sentence for his 1995 conviction for inspiring plots to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and blow up New York City landmarks. Dember told jurors the three defendants in effect "broke Abdel-Rahman out of jail, made him available to the worst kind of criminal we find in this world - terrorists."
Stewart represented Abdel-Rahman at his trial, while Sattar served as a paralegal. Until their 2002 arrests, Stewart and Yousry, an Arabic translator, continued working on the sheik's legal team while Sattar provided materials to read to the sheik. The trial, which began with jury selection in May and opening statements in June, has been closely watched in part because of the rarity of a defense lawyer being prosecuted in federal court for actions she took on behalf of her client. The case was expected to go to the jury next week. Sattar could face life in prison and Stewart and Yousry up to 20 years.
Dember warned jurors that the case was not about the Egyptian government, what the defendants thought about the government's effort to silence the sheik or the religion of Islam.
Those subjects arose as all three defendants testified in recent weeks, saying they kept the convicted sheik informed of world events but did not believe they had committed a crime. The extensive testimony by defendants is rare in a federal trial. Prosecutors say Sattar brazenly used his telephone and fax machine to conspire with members of an Egyptian terrorist group to kidnap and kill people overseas. They say Stewart and Yousry conspired to provide material support to terrorists.
But Stewart said she felt an ethical obligation as a lawyer to keep the sheik's name and views relevant worldwide so he might someday be transferred to Egyptian prisons, where he would be watched by prison officers who know his language and traditions.
Yeah, like he'd really want to move to a Egyptian prison.
Yousry conceded on the stand that he was not immediately forthcoming with FBI agents who interviewed him after the 2001 terrorist attacks, but said he was worried about the "climate in the country" and how he would be viewed for his work for the sheik.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 1:38:20 PM ||
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The original Reuters headline states she is "stepping down." As the story finally discloses, she had no say in her departure, hence I changed it to be fired, a more accurate description.
The CIA's deputy director for intelligence is stepping down in the latest high-level departure in the shake-up under the U.S. spy agency's new management, a U.S. intelligence official said on Wednesday. "I can confirm that she did notify her workforce yesterday that she's leaving that position," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. No further details were provided. The New York Times reported on its Web site that Jami Miscik was forced out and would be the first major change within the directorate of intelligence under CIA director Porter Goss.
The top two officials at the CIA's clandestine unit resigned in November. Goss took over in September with a mandate to reform the agency, which has been under fire for intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and flawed prewar reports about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Citing a former intelligence official, The New York Times said Miscik was told before Christmas that Goss wanted to make a change and that "the decision to depart was not hers." The CIA had no immediate comment.
The New York Times said Miscik told subordinates in a message on Tuesday that she plans to step down on Feb. 4. The report said in a copy of the message obtained by the newspaper, Miscik described her departure as part of a "natural evolution" and that every intelligence chief "has a desire to have his own team in place to implement his vision and to offer him counsel." Miscik has headed the Central Intelligence Agency's analytical branch since 2002, the newspaper said. The unit is responsible for making important judgments about events around the world and prepares a highly classified brief for the president each morning, the newspaper said. Goss seems to be taking his time with these people - so one must assume that means some lengthy interviews and reviews to account for the time. It appears he has decided upon the route of surgeon, carefully cutting away dead tissue and tumors, whereas I (and others) had hoped for a more, um, vigorous approach.
Posted by: .com ||
12/29/2004 7:38:12 AM ||
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#1
" I (and others) had hoped for a more, um, vigorous approach"
Yeah, I was hoping that Goss would charge through the front doors with a flamethrower in hand, like Ripley against the Aliens.
But then, I am known for my direct approach to problems.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
12/29/2004 8:20 Comments ||
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It's a start.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/29/2004 8:44 Comments ||
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"Shows great potential for personal growth. Actively contributes to her community. Leads by consensus, and is popular with her subordinates and peers. Chairman of the family, RR/EO, and voter registration committees..."
#6
Shows great potential for personal growth. Actively contributes to her community. Leads by consensus, and is popular with her subordinates and peers
Promote ahead of her peers......Oh wow, I just flashed back to my EPR writing days.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 10:13 Comments ||
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Feminists raising hell about sex-jism in 5... 4...3...2...
NEW YORK Six Navy SEALs and two of their wives filed a lawsuit against The Associated Press and one of its reporters today for allegedly revealing their identities in photos published in early December, according to a press release from the plaintiffs.
The complaint, filed in California Superior Court, alleges that AP reporter Seth Hettena obtained a photograph in a personal Web site maintained by one of the wives of the Navy SEALs, which contains personal photographs.
None of the plaintiffs are named in the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by E&P. They are represented by attorney James W. Huston of San Diego.
Hettena allegedly removed photos from that site and published them on December 4, 2004, in a story stating that the pictures "could be" the earliest evidence of possible prisoner abuse in Iraq, the plaintiffs contend. The SEALs argue that the pictures "actually depict special warfare operators' standard procedures during covert operations. The Iraqis shown being captured in the photographs were leaders of anti-coalition attacks and Saddam loyalists."
AP Director of Corporate Communications Ellen Hale declined to comment immediately to E&P, but said she would look into the matter.
"There was no need for the AP to publish the faces of the SEALs," Huston, the Morrison & Foerster partner who is heading the plaintiffs' legal team, said in a statement. "They added nothing to the value of the story. In fact, the SEALs showed more respect for the insurgents and terrorists that they were apprehending by obscuring their faces than the AP did for the Navy SEALs who were in Iraq risking their lives," he added.
Since the photos were released, they have been published widely in the Arab Press, including on Al Jazeera, the plaintiffs claim.
They are requesting injunctive relief, to preclude republishing the photographs, to preclude the publication of additional unpublished photographs, and to preclude the publication of personal photos by the Navy wife whose site was invaded, such as her wedding photos.
Posted by: Korora ||
12/29/2004 12:03:36 AM ||
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#1
More than just injunctive relief, these guys should do their best to hit AP in the pocketbook HARD.
#4
Good on you guys - hope you get shedloads of cash from those asshats.
You can find some of the images by googling for 'Seth Hettena' and choosing the link from apnews.myway.com - I'll not do it from here as I don't want to give it more googlejuice. One of the guys faces is very very clear.
The AP blurb says "A photo found posted on a commercial photo-sharing Web site operated by a woman who said her husband brought the photos from Iraq".
I have to ask though, why did she post their photos on her website?
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/29/2004 6:55 Comments ||
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SEALs are rough customers, can you imagine how insufferable their lawyers would be? sheeesh, the AP better have deep pockets.
#6
"I have to ask though, why did she post their photos on her website?"
Yeah. That is THE question. As much as I like the SEALS and hate the AP, what exactly is a "private website?"
Posted by: Dave ||
12/29/2004 7:25 Comments ||
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#7
I wouldn't "really" recommend that you avoid telling the judge you know nothing about the issues when you end up on a civil jury in the case a surviving spouse brings against the AP for actions which contributed to the death of his/her mate. Just check the for the previous record jury award in a civil case to see if you guys can top it.
#8
Much as I'd like to see the AP take it in the shorts, I don't see how the SEALS' case has much to stand on. Posting photos to a website isn't much different than printing out photocopies and handing them out on the street corner. The AP was the second entity to publish the pictures to a public domain, not the first.
Posted by: Dar ||
12/29/2004 9:59 Comments ||
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Sri Lanka's reclusive Tamil Tiger rebel leader made a rare personal appeal Wednesday to international aid donors and U. N. organizations to help ethnic Tamils affected by the disastrous tsunami waves that hit the island. "I solicit the support and magnanimous assistance of the international community and the U. N. agencies to help our people in distress," said rebel commander Velupillai Prabhakaran in a highly unusual personal statement posted on pro-rebel TamilNet Web site.
"We will, of course, spit in your face once we have the money..."
"The devastation caused by this tidal surge has exacerbated the sufferings of our people already affected by a war that continued for over twenty years and has torn asunder our nation," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 6:06:58 PM ||
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You've "torn asunder" your nation yourselves, buddy-boy, with that war that YOU perpetrated.
I feel sorry for the ordinary people in the area, but I'd be scared to go there to help since I'm pretty sure I'd get killed for my trouble.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/29/2004 18:27 Comments ||
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Israel air forces staged mock raids over south Lebanon Wednesday, breaking the sound barrier and causing panic, according to security sources. Israeli warplanes flew at low altitude over villages in south Lebanon as well as inland regions where anti-aircraft guns are manned by Hezbollah resistance movement and the Lebanese army. However, it hasn't been confirmed yet whether the gunners opened up on the intruding planes. Israel has violated Lebanese air space several times since it pulled out its forces from south Lebanon in 2000.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 9:50:20 PM ||
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#1
I bet those who were intended to get the message didn't. It would be wonderful if they did.
Face it Hexbollah is just the surogate army of Iran in Lebonon. It's continued existance and the refusal of Lebanon or Syria to do anyting about it means at some point the IDF will.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 22:09 Comments ||
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Hezbollah maintains a very, very large artillery park in Lebanon, which the IAF have been aware of, but which is apparently out of range of Israel's norther border. This 'knife' at Israel needs to be dealt with in any case.
Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Iranian parliament Speaker Ghulam Adel Wednesday denounced the expulsion of a Muslim student from a French school for wearing a veil. Adel urged European countries "to confront such unfair French measures," the Iranian News Agency reported.
"The French decision to ban the Muslim veil in public schools is a blunt violation of human rights and aimed at confronting a religious minority in that country," Adel told parliament. He said Muslim women "know very well that wearing the veil does not curb their political and social activities."
Muslim women not wearing a veil may curb their life span
France earlier this year passed a controversial law banning the provocative display of religious symbols in public schools, including Muslim veils, Jewish skullcaps and oversized crosses.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 12:51:09 PM ||
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Iranian parliament Speaker Ghulam Adel Wednesday denounced the expulsion of a Muslim student from a French school for wearing a veil. Adel urged European countries "to confront such unfair French measures," the Iranian News Agency reported.
The Bush administration accused Syria on Tuesday of helping insurgents in Iraq by giving haven to elements of the deposed Saddam Hussein regime. "And it is a problem that we think Syria needs to act to stop," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Tuesday.
Being a diplomat, he didn't say "Or else".
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is likely to discuss the U.S. complaint when he stops in Damascus on a trip that will take him also to Turkey and Jordan.
He's the one who get's to deliver the "Or else".
Details of Armitage's travels were withheld, except that he would leave Washington later in the week, go to the three countries and return sometime next week. Syria has shrugged off U.S. complaints, saying it was being made a scapegoat for U.S. failure to stop the uprising in Iraq.
"It's not our fault, stop pointing fingers at us! Mommy, make the bad man stop!"
Reports circulated in Damascus, meanwhile, that key support for the insurgents in Iraq was coming from a half brother of Saddam Hussein and Baath Party leaders in the Syrian capital.
Ereli said Syrian officials "have done some things with respect to the border and working with the Iraqis to control the border." But "the continued presence of former regime elements in Syria who are working, we believe, to the detriment of Iraq and in support of the insurgency is a problem that we think Syria needs to act to stop," he said.
This is where the "Or else" goes.
In his travels, Armitage also will convey the importance the Bush administration attaches to Sunni participation in elections scheduled for Jan. 30 in Iraq to select a 275-seat interim assembly. "That will certainly be a key message," Ereli said.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 9:22:18 AM ||
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Interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a campaign run Wednesday through West Bank towns living in the shadow of Israel's separation barrier, urging Israel to tear down the huge structure that he said would never help peace. Abbas, the front-runner in the Jan. 9 presidential election, made the appeal in Tulkarem, a town of 40,000 on the line between Israel and the West Bank, blocked on two sides by the 25-foot-high concrete slabs of the barrier. Israel began building it to stop a wave of Palestinian suicide bombers who were infiltrating unhindered from the West Bank. "I say to our neighbors ... no fence will bring peace or bring you security," Abbas told a rally at a Tulkarem stadium just 500 yards from the barrier. The complex of walls, fences, trenches, barbed wire and electronic devices, still under construction, roughly follows the "Green Line," the 1949 cease-fire line that divided Israel from the West Bank until 1967, when Israel captured the territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 6:14:26 PM ||
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Taking his campaign to succeed Yasser Arafat to the foot of Israel's West Bank barrier, interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday there would be no peace until Israel tore it down. Abbas, demonstrating a new knack for popular politicking after decades as a reticent deputy to Arafat, drew cheers from thousands at stops in two cities hemmed in by Israel's barrier in his pursuit of election on Jan. 9 as Palestinian president. "No (Middle East) peace can transpire with (Jewish) settlements and the wall," Abbas said with his back to the towering concrete divide that virtually encircles the town of Qalqilya near the West Bank's boundary with Israel. "We tell our neighbors: 'No matter how many settlements, walls or obstacles you build, it will not bring you security or peace," said the veteran moderate who wants talks on Palestinian statehood on Israeli-occupied land after years of fighting.
Again, I'm gabberflasted at Rooters' matter-of-fact description of Abbas as a "veteran moderate" as he threatens more bloodshed. I'd hate to see what an extemist might say...
#3
the wall is very unpopular among Pals. It would be very odd if Abbas didnt denounce it. The real question is will he refuse to act (stop incitement, crack down on terrorists, negotiate) while the wall is in place. We shall see.
#4
LH - his rhetoric to try and garner votes will come back to bite his ass. Either the IJ or Hamas will take him out when he reneges, or his admin will come to reside in a rubble-filled compound like the Muqata
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 14:48 Comments ||
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I think that the correct translation of Abbas' remarks is "Build it faster, higher, and stronger." Also, "shoot anybody and everybody that tries to tear it down or somehow get around, over, or through it." The Palestinians will never admit that the reason they live in a pestiliential s--thole is because they are the only ones that live in it.
#6
Maybe so, Frank G, but that would be the case whatever rhetoric he used.
Islamic Jihad operative 1: We gotta kill Abbas, he just signed an agreement with Sharon
Islamic Jihad operative 2: No way, he warned us he would during the election campaign, that means he gets to live.
#7
sucks being the titular head of a psychotic gang of nihilistic hate-drenched killers, huh? Too bad, Abbas
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 15:26 Comments ||
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#8
Its no suprise the animals resent their cage. If I were Abbas, I'd tone it down a bit though, I wouldn't want to spend my every waking hour listening for the approaching Apache's.
#9
Let them have their elections, declare that they are a state, and then LEVEL the f*cking snakepit the next time one of those state-sponsored terrorist groups act.
How long must this charade continue? When I was growing up, my folks purchased a 1968 set of Colliers Encyclopedias. When I was home for Christmas, I looked up "Israel" in the encyclopedia. A full 24 pages was devoted to the topic, and there wasn't ANY real mention of the bullsh*t that passes for "the current political position". Instead, it merely noted the history of Israel, the history of the Jews, and that Israel had defended itself a number of times from its violent neighbors.
Since 1968 a total and complete DO-OVER of history has occured--and we're all the worst for it.
#10
It works, else it wouldn't be an "issue". Build it faster.
Paleo Politics is a unique creature... an institutional death & murder cult.
It will only be over when one side is wiped out, decimated. As long as the Israelis (and Americans) are not suborned or betrayed from within and meet the threats from all quarters of Islam head on, such as the Mad Mullahs, it will eventually be the Paleos who effectively exterminate themselves.
Judging from the effectiveness of surrouding Gaza with a similar fence, I can see why the Paleos wouldn't like one paralleling Israel's border with the West Bank..
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
12/29/2004 20:51 Comments ||
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#15
"tear down this wall and drown yourselves in the Med, then we'll be ready to start talks..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 20:59 Comments ||
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#16
dot com is right. build it faster....build it higher. if the wall wasn't effective there wouldn't be any crying and whining from the muslim perverts...
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
12/29/2004 21:38 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave the army free rein Wednesday in its response to repeated mortar and rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, public radio reported. The premier's comments, made during a meeting with the army's most senior officers, come after a recent sharp increase in attacks on Jewish settlements in southern Gaza which are due to be evacuated by next September.
"Weapons free, fire for effect"
Fourteen Palestinians were killed earlier this month during an Israeli operation in the Khan Yunis area specifically to stop the attacks, which have continued unabated. At least 10 Palestinians were wounded when Israeli tanks fired shells into the heavily populated Khan Yunis refugee camp Tuesday in response to continued mortar attacks on Jewish settlers living nearby. A 13-year-old boy and a girl aged about 10 were among those injured by the shelling, which the Israeli military said was aimed at the source of mortar fire on the Gush Khatif settlement bloc.
The mortar attacks and subsequent shelling by troops manning a post by the settlement of Neve Dekalim came several hours after a failed Israeli air strike on a car carrying two Palestinian militants in the same area. The car was targetted by a drone that fired a single rocket on the car in the Khan Yunis region of the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. Palestinian security sources said both men who fled the strike on foot were members of the radical Islamic Jihad movement.
Israeli security sources confirmed the strike, saying their target had been militants behind the firing of mortars which have become increasingly frequent in recent days. "The IAF (Israeli air force) spotted and targetted a vehicle carrying a terror cell responsible for the mortar shell attacks from Khan Yunis," one source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 11:32:18 AM ||
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#1
Cause=>Effect lesson #7,265. Shoot at the Joooos and expect a sh&tload in return. Scorched earth - 1 acre/rocket
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 11:54 Comments ||
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#2
Yeeeee-haaaaah! :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/29/2004 12:00 Comments ||
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#3
"The IAF (Israeli air force) spotted and targetted a vehicle"
The U.S Apache and Blackhawk flys (low) over my neighborhood/house all the time. Sometimes I go outside and its only a few hundred feet above me. Man do those Apache's look scary. The Paleo's are a bunch of stooopid hardheaded morons.
FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 24, 2004) -- An explosive ordnance disposal Marine with Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 31, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit was part of the initial field testing Dec. 20 for the Marine Corps' newest vehicle in Iraq — the hardened engineering vehicle "Cougar".
Sgt. E.J. "Hondo" Weis is an EOD technician and part of MSSG-31, but was absorbed into the consolidated, multi-service pool of EOD Technicians at Combat Service Support Battalion 1. The pool was formed in preparation for Operation Al Fajr in order to combat improvised explosive devices, weapon caches and unexploded ordnance within the city. Weis is a member of a three-man consolidated EOD team given the responsibility of testing the new vehicle.
The HEV Cougar is a 28,550 pounds hulk of a vehicle, wrapped in steel armor and ballistic glass and driven by a six-speed, split-shift, all-wheel drive transmission designed to get the vehicle and its occupants through hazardous and uncertain terrain. The first two Cougars made for EOD came straight off the assembly line in Ladson, S.C. to the consolidated EOD section on Camp Fallujah, said Donald Scattergood, the technical representative from Force Protection, the vehicle's manufacturer, who is on hand to help work out any bugs. "It's a tremendous advantage having a tech rep here," said Capt. James P. Miller, CSSB-1, officer-in-charge of the consolidated EOD Platoon here. The Cougar and its three-man EOD crew entered Fallujah the morning of the 20th as part of a re-supply convoy and prepared to test the capabilities of their new ride.
The vehicle met up with another EOD team in a hard-back HMMWV and together the two vehicles drove throughout Fallujah, putting the vehicle through a series of narrow streets and tight turns. The Cougar was able to go everywhere the HMMWV was able to go, including a steep incline on the edge of the city and over rubble that had spilled into the roads.
"Frankly, I was impressed by the Cougar," said Weis, a Tucson, Ariz. native. "I'm grateful for the opportunity to test this new piece of gear. It's been a really positive experience." During the improvised trials, Weis acted as the spotter for Sgt. Jason Tinnel, an individual augment to CSSB-1 from 9th Engineer Support Battalion and driver of the HEV Cougar for such tests as backing around corners.
But even during these tests, the group remained on standby, ready to respond to any call. When a light-armored vehicle platoon found an IED outside the edge of the city, the Cougar and its occupants responded. The new vehicle received stares and strange looks from the Marines who had never seen it, and many of them snapped photos for themselves. For the EOD Marines, it was a routine call. They took the modified artillery shells designed to explode by remote control and rendered them safe, incapable of receiving the signal to detonate, then loaded them into the Cougar for transportation to a safe disposal site.
To the average individual, loading tampered explosives into your truck seems like an insane idea, but the EOD Marines pay it no mind. They receive seven months of training, learning the critical details of weapons systems and ordnance from around the world, their capabilities and how to safely disarm them.
During Operation Al Fajr, the consolidated EOD Platoon at CSSB-1 played a serious role in making Fallujah a safe place for civilians to return to by disposing of 389 caches, 1,126 IEDs, 96,165 explosive items, roughly 2.5 million small-arms rounds and 16,525 pounds of high explosive.
"When we dispose of a weapons cache, our goal is to have all of the ordnance consumed in the blast," Miller explained, a Chicago, Il. native. "When individuals who don't have the technical knowledge of how different ordnance items function, it becomes a safety issue." Miller explained that EOD has very specific methods for identifying and disposing of ordnance, including techniques used to prepare ordnance for disposal and methods of placing explosives to ensure the entire cache is consumed by the blast. In cases where servicemembers have taken it upon themselves to attempt to destroy weapons or ordnance, many times they don't destroy all of it and this results in what we referred to as "kick outs," ordnance that was thrown from the cache, Miller said. It may be that they are trying to do EOD a favor, but more often than not, they are making it more dangerous for other military and civilian personnel because now they have to deal with "angry ordnance," items that have sustained a high order detonation, and are perhaps more volatile as a result. When not disposed of properly, these ordnance items could be scattered among the rubble and difficult to locate.
The EOD Marines continue to respond to different types of calls including weapon caches, unexploded ordnance and IEDs. With their new vehicle, EOD Marines now has a safer way of transporting themselves and their EOD-unique tools and other equipment to wherever their services are required.
A Muslim cleric who offered prayers of peace was abducted and had his throat slit by Islamic radicals in Western India, near Pakistan. The terrorists were upset by the imam's prayers at the local Jamia mosque in the town of Danwakote in Rajouri district, Express India reported. The murder of Moulvi Mohammad Bashir sparked off a huge demonstration in the area, the news service said. Bashir's body was spotted by villagers at the place where he was killed, about a half mile outside of town. Protesters called for a human rights organization to come to the area to investigate. "The killing of imam has exposed the militants' claim of carrying out jihad and their so-called sympathy with Muslims of the area," a protester said. Khalil Ahmad, who was abducted along with Bashir, but released, said based on their appearance and speech, the attackers likely came from Pakistan.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/29/2004 9:15:25 AM ||
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Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark has joined the team of Jordan-based lawyers defending Saddam Hussein. Mr Clark - who held office in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson - said his principal concern was protecting the rights of the former Iraqi leader. Saddam Hussein this month saw a lawyer for the first time since his capture.
Left-wing activist Mr Clark described the special tribunal established to try members of the former regime as a creation of the US military occupation. He said it had no authority in law as a criminal court. Mr Clark is joining a panel of about 20 prominent Arab and non-Arab lawyers who have volunteered to defend the former Iraqi leader. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign policy on Iraq and visited Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in February 2003 just before the US-led invasion. After leaving office in 1969, he became active in the anti-Vietnam War movement. More recently, he has offered legal advice to numerous figures at odds with the US government including former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
I can sleep easy now, with Ramsey on his defense team, Sammy's doomed.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 8:50:21 AM ||
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#1
Rebel? ROFL!!! BBC is becoming quite funny, as it disintegrates.
#3
This is becoming obscene. The number of 'people' rallying to this fiend's defence is unreal.
It's very nice of the former AG to be concerned about the rights of that vile PoS, but what about those poor bastards they're still digging up from mass graves. Where was Clark then?
I sincerely hope that the Iraqis start his trial early in January, pronounce sentence the day after the election, publicly hang him, burn his body and scatter his ashes on Iranian soil.
Then maybe they can draw a line under that period of their history and move forward.
DAMN! these vermin that think it's more important to care about a genocidal megalomaniac's 'rights' than the innocents that died under his bloody hand.
I'm stopping now before I start using real swear words...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/29/2004 9:23 Comments ||
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#4
Where was Clark then?
writhing in ecstacy. Clark has long been a supporter of the worst of the worst. I'll celebrate his death just as I did Sontag's and later, Chomsky and Castro...
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 9:42 Comments ||
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#5
Why stop at "Rebel"? Why not refer to him as an "insurgent"?
FORMER US attorney general Ramsey Clark is to join the defence team of Saddam Hussein, a spokesman for the toppled Iraqi president's lawyers said today.
Mr Clark, who held the office of attorney general under US president Lyndon B. Johnson, "is one of the members of the defence team of president Saddam Hussein," Ziad Khassawneh said.
"This honours and inspires us."
The former top US justice official who arrived in Jordan where the defence team is based, has become known as a left-wing lawyer and firm critic of US foreign policy since leaving office.
He visited Saddam in Baghdad in February 2003 just before the US-lead invasion and has also been involved with the defence of former Yugoslav leader Solbodan Milosevic, on trial for war crimes at a UN court in The Hague.
Mr Clark told reporters in the Jordanian capital that his principle concern was protecting the rights of Saddam, who saw a lawyer for the first time this month, a year after his capture.
"In international law, anyone accused of crime has the right to be tried by a confident, independent and impartial court, and there can be no fair trail without those qualities," he said.
"The special court in Iraq was created by the Iraqi governing council, which is nothing more than a creation of the US military occupation and has no authority in law as a criminal court."
The Iraq Special Tribunal was established by the US-led coalition last December to try members of the former regime of Saddam.
Mr Clark also said the US itself must be tried for the November assault on Fallujah, destruction of houses, torture in prisons and its role in the deaths of thousands of Iraqis in the war.
Posted by: tipper ||
12/29/2004 8:54:28 AM ||
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#1
Is there a genocidal idiot on this planet that he won't defend?
#4
Clark was AG, essentially J. Edgar Hoover's boss, at the time of the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations in 1968.
LLL conspiracy theorists have accused practically everyone who was in government then of complicity in the murders. They have even accused Richard Nixon, who was still a private citizen in 1968. The only office holder they haven't accused, oddly enough, is the one who by all rights should be conspiracy-suspect number one, Clark himself.
#7
FORMER US attorney general Ramsey Clark is to join the defence team of Saddam Hussein, a spokesman for the toppled Iraqi president's lawyers said today.
MANAMA — The participation of all factions, including the minority Sunnis, is essential in the new elected government of Iraq, Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Abul Ghait, stressed here yesterday.
'cause we all know what a sterling example of democracy Egypt is.
"Participation of Sunnis has to be ensured in the future government of Iraq," the minister said when asked by Khaleej Times to express Egypt's views on recent reports that stated that the US administration was talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunnis a certain number of high-level jobs in the elected government of Iraq, even if they lose seats against the Shia candidates in the January 30 elections.
The representation of Sunnis in the new Iraqi government is a necessity, he said, underlining their absence would not serve the purpose. This should happen, and if required the constitution should support this, he stressed, adding how it can be done is up to the government and the people of Iraq.
As long as they do as they're told.
The minister said Egypt was keen to see elections take place in Iraq and a democratically elected government installed in the war-torn country.
Just as he is in Egypt.
He agreed that there was violence in Iraq, and also noted that it was the responsibility of the Iraqi government to assess the situation and win the confidence of the people.
His Majesty the King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, received here yesterday Abu Ghait, who is visiting the kingdom as the head of his country's delegation to the meeting of the Bahraini-Egyptian Joint Committee. The minister conveyed the greetings of Egyptian President for-Life, Hosni Mubarak, to the Old Reprobate the King.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2004 12:36:22 AM ||
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#1
The participation of all factions, including the minority Sunnis, is essential in the new elected government of Iraq, Egyptian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Abul Ghait, stressed here yesterday.
Er, no. If certain groups don't want to participate, then that's their choice. No one is forcing them to do what they don't want to do, and there is no reason to implement some variant of affirmative action just to make some minority group happy. Either vote and have your say, or don't vote and shut up and live with the result.
Now, as to whether the goon saying all this is even remotely qualified to be making this appraisal, well....
#3
Lol! I'm sorry, Ghait, but it's just over the top for thugocracies and dictatorships to be handing out advice on how to conduct democractic processes. Too stupid and Arab arrogant for words.
#4
.com, you should be used to it by now, the UN has been coddling most of those idiots for quite awhile, they actually have come to believe they have something legitimate to add.
Pakistan has told a former Guantanamo Bay inmate wanted for the kidnapping of two Chinese men to surrender by January 15 or face a military onslaught, officials said yesterday. Abdullah Mahsud was given the deadline on Monday by a Pakistani army commander in charge of hunting down Al Qaeda-linked militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan.
"Drop the rod and come out witcher hands up, Mahsud!"
Meanwhile Pakistani security forces captured an Uzbek suspected Al Qaeda member in a nearby region on the Afghan border, also on Monday, while his five Chechen comrades managed to flee. Mahsud, 29, has been on the run since and Pakistan recently offered a five-million-rupee reward for information leading to his capture. Pakistani commander Lieutenant-General Safdar Hussain warned that if Mahsud and his fellow militant Baitullah did not lay down their arms before mid-January "stern military action would be taken against them".
"No lashkar drums for you this time!"
The general told a tribal delegation on Monday to get rid of foreign militants hiding in South Waziristan, adding: "You should kick them out of your areas or hand them over to us."
"Or you can just kill them, it's okay with us."
The Uzbek Al Qaeda suspect was captured in neighbouring North Waziristan after Pakistani troops intercepted a car heading towards Afghanistan's Khost province, officials in the region's main town Miran Shah said. One of them, identified as Abdullah, surrendered after an exchange of fire on Monday night while five others made off under cover of darkness, local administration official Jamil Khan told AFP. The authorities impounded their vehicle and recovered two assault rifles, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2004 12:27:35 AM ||
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There is "not a glimmer of hope" for the creation of a true Palestinian state, the head of the Arab League said on Tuesday, dismissing growing hopes that the moribund peace process is on the verge of recovery. "I do not see any change in the positions of Israel, the United States and their allies or that the situation is going to calm down. I don't see a glimmer of hope," Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa said. Speaking to the Egyptian state daily Al-Ahram, Moussa warned against the temptation of giving the Palestinians statehood that turns out to be based on no more than a rump state. "I fear that all that is going to be proposed to the Palestinians is the creation of a rump state of a provisional nature which is just ridiculous because by consolidating the status quo a time-bomb is being laid," he said. "If there is a true desire to establish a Palestinian state in line with the roadmap then Israel must give the Palestinians 90 percent of the occupied territories as well as east Jerusalem and it must stop settlements," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 12:09:17 AM ||
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#1
In other words;
"Keep strapping on those bomb vests, suckers, because we still hate the Jews and that ain't changing anytime soon no matter how much you want your pissy little nation."
#2
âI do not see any change in the positions of Israel, the United States and their allies or that the situation is going to calm down. I donât see a glimmer of hope,â Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa said.
What about the position of the Paleos????? Don't eeeven try to insinuate that they're without fault.
âIf there is a true desire to establish a Palestinian state in line with the roadmap then Israel must give the Palestinians 90 percent of the occupied territories as well as east Jerusalem and it must stop settlements,â he said.
Hellooooo? Ehud Barak was willing to practically give the guys all the territory they wanted, and Arafart STILL turned it down. Israel can certainly be excused if there are no plans to be as generous this time around.
âIf there is a true desire to establish a Palestinian state in line with the roadmap then Israel must give the Palestinians 90 percent of the occupied territories as well as east Jerusalem and it must stop settlements."
If this is a correct quote and represents the position of the Arab League it is a major change and major improvement in the previous position of the League (which was in essence 'give back 100%'.
The Camp David and Taba plans had Israel giving back about 90-95% with the Paleos taking control of some land inside the green line.
#7
deals gone by due to bad faith on one side are just that: deals gone by. The Paleos will never get, nor do they deserve, anything like the terms they've previously rejected. To do anything less is to encourage continued boomers and intransigence.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2004 10:09 Comments ||
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#8
The worst thing that could happen to the "Arab" states is for the Paleos to have some form of democracy, peace with Israel and end their infitada against the jooos. Then there is nothing left to distract their own populace from their own form of malfeasance and suppression.
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
12/29/2004 10:53 Comments ||
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#9
"âNot a glimmer of hopeâ for Palestinian state: AL".
And the prospects of long term survival of the existing 22 [21?] Arab states are not all that bright either.
#10
Will the last person to leave the Palestinian State please turn out the glimmer.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 11:23 Comments ||
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#11
yeah, the AL sure as hell hopes there isn't a Palestian state. Imagine that, the only 3 countries in the middle east to get democracy are the ones under U.S. or Israeli control.
Posted by: jeff ||
12/29/2004 12:21 Comments ||
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#12
the AL gains more by the continued violence than it does by any so-called "palestinian state," whatever that turns out to be.
So, their real message is:
-maintain the conflict
-keep strapping bombs to yourselves (because it's you, not us, dying)
-in return, we will keep shedding crocodile tears for your plight. oh, and we'll throw you a few shekels, periodically, too.
-and as long as you do all that, we will be able to use this situation, and oil, as a weapon against the west
-and to get in our good graces, the west (europe, mainly) will pity you and to show their "sincerity," will placate and make concessions to us because it's easy to do and pays off well for them
#13
The idiots in the Arab League just got an answer from Sharon - the article above this one. The army has been given free reign. Either the "paleostains" learn to live in peace with Israel, or Israel will destroy them, beginning with Gaza. Sharon should have been a bit more direct - "give up your intifada, or we destroy you and salt the earth behind you". Instead, he's going about it incrementally, which only means more Israelis die before the program's fully implemented.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/29/2004 14:24 Comments ||
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#14
The worst thing that could happen to the "Arab" states is for the Paleos to have some form of democracy, peace with Israel and end their infitada against the jooos.
Not likely to be possible, the reason being that Paleos themselves are Arabs, which pretty much explains everything.
A former official of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (Haqiqi) was murdered in a drive-by shooting as he sat down to tea at a restaurant on Tuesday, police said. The victim, Nasir, a former sector in-charge of the group in the tense Lines Area, was shot near Jail Chowrangi by two men riding a Vespa scooter. He was hit multiple times and died at the scene. Shops in the Lines Area were closed after news of the shooting came in. Police sent the body to Jinnah Hospital for autopsy A case was registered by Jamshed Town police. Also on Tuesday, two bullet-riddled corpses packed in gunny bags were found in Waheed Colony, North Nazimabad, NNI reported. The victims were identified as Imran and Alam, aged between 28 and 35.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 12:04:25 AM ||
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FAISALABAD: Sixteen officials of Central Jail have been suspended and 11 arrested on suspicion they helped two convicted murderers escape. Sabir Hussain, 42, and Muhammad Ishtiaq, 38, were in prison for life after being convicted of murder in separate cases.
If they'd been hung, I'll betcha this wouldn't have happened...
According to police sources, Hussain and Ishtiaq were whitewashing walls in Central Jail when it came time to return to their barracks. They had apparently bribed staff to lock up prisoners without a head count, allowing the two to slip away unnoticed. When the two missing prisoners were noticed, the jail superintendent declared an emergency. Senior police officials reached the jail and ordered mobile units to cordon off the city and begin searching for the prisoners. The police sources said the houses of Hussain and Ishtiaq's families in Thikriwala and Toba Tek Singh villages had been searched. A special team of investigators has been formed to find the prisoners.
After a preliminary inquiry, the Punjab government ordered the suspension of deputy superintendents Mian Hafeezur Rehman and Sheikh Jawed Afzal; assistant superintendents Rana Irfan Suleman and Muhammad Naseem; head warders Muhammad Haneef, Nasrullah Khan and Naeem Ahmed; and warders Jawed Omer, Khalid Yaqoob, Ghulam Akbar, Muhammad Nawaz Saqi, Athar Hayat, Akbar Ali, Ghulam Abbas, Ghulam Ali, Muhammad Mujtaba, Noor Ahmed, and Muhammad Younas. Sadar police arrested the two deputy superintendents as well as warden Khalid Hayyat, Ghulam Abbas, Ghulam Ali, constables Azhar Hayyat, Ashraf Mujtaba, Noor Mohammad, Jawed, Ghulam Akbar, Younas and Nawaz Saqi. Sadar police registered a case against the 11 jail staffers under sections 223 and 224 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 12:05:58 AM ||
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The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), headed by Maulana Samiul Haq of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S), is the genuine MMA enjoying the support of all religious and political parties of the country, said Mufti Mohammed Usman Yar Khan, Vice President of the MMA, Sindh, and Deputy Secretary of the JUI (S) on Tuesday.
"Just because nobody pays attention to us don't mean they don't support us!"
He was talking to the Daily Times about the circumstances that led to breaking away of the JUI (S) from the MMA, headed by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, chief of the Jamaat-e- Islami. Explaining his point of view, Mufti Usman said initially 35 political and religious parties of the country were part of the alliance when the MMA was formed before the general elections in October 2002. Major component of the MMA were the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (JUI-F), JUI (S), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaaf, Pakistani Awami Tehreek, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Tehreek Nifaz Fiqh-e-Jafria and others. He said soon after formation of the alliance, the JI and the JUI (F) began ignoring smaller parties and generated controversies over the number of seats for smaller parties in the general elections of 2002. Maulana Samiul Haq countered their overbearing attitude and reminded them that in the MMA no party was great or small and all the component parties had equal importance, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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#1
Damn! This post just caused a huge sucking sound from the local Hyphen-Mart...
ISLAMABAD: Ejaz-ul-Haq, the religious affairs minister, said on Tuesday that the government had registered nearly 80 percent of religious seminaries across the country. Speaking on PTV, he said the seminaries were providing free education, boarding and meal facilities to around 1 million students, without government support. The minister said the seminaries were also providing students with modern as well as religious education. He said the government wanted to place all seminaries in the mainstream education system, adding they would be provided with full support.
At a recent meeting with President Pervez Musharraf, the boards of all five Wafaq-ul-Madaris had helped remove negative perceptions of religious schools, he added. The minister said the perception that seminaries were producing religious extremists was incorrect. He said visits by foreign delegations to various seminaries had reinforced the government's belief that they were not providing extremist education to students.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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KARACHI: The former editor-in-chief of Dawn, Ahmad Ali Khan, said here on Tuesday that international law as shaped after World War II does not recognise any country's right to launch a pre-emptive strike. Speaking at the launching ceremony at the Karachi Press Club of "No Clean Hands Skeptical Chronicles of 9/11," a book authored by Sayeed Hasan Khan and Kurt Jacobson, Mr Khan, who was chief guest, said the idea to sell a new interpretation of Islam is not new. Elaborating, he said the United States in the 1980s floated the idea of "jihad" in the wake of the first Afghan War and today it needed moderate Islam after 9/11 the tragedy.
He said the American casualties in Iraq were alarmingly high and the US, which along with big business has big stakes in the huge oil reserves of Iraq, was suffering immensely. Ushba Publishing International has published the book. He said the "War on terror" was not confined to the elimination of Osama bin Laden. On the contrary the US was adamant to suppress freedom struggle as was evident by the bullying of Iran, Syria and other countries by the United States.
Life's tough when you're on the losing side, ain't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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#1
Bad country! No biscuit!
Posted by: Dar ||
12/29/2004 0:03 Comments ||
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#2
..and today it needed moderate Islam after 9/11 the tragedy.
How does one "need" something that hasn't been proven to exist in sufficient quantity to be of any benefit?
âStupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.â
from the great Robert Anson Heinlein.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/29/2004 6:41 Comments ||
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#8
Mine is from the Devil's Dictionary:
IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/29/2004 7:34 Comments ||
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#9
I smell Rantburg Classicâ¢!
Keep 'em coming, folks. After the last few days, I'm pretty sure all of us could use a little comic relief.
A few more:
My boss is so stupid, move his plate six inches and he'll starve.
This guy I know is so stupid, he thought Shakespeare was an African fight scene.
[an original]
My neighbor's momma is so stupid, it takes her two hours to watch "60 Minutes."
#10
Weird Al - I always enjoyed TDD's entry for Logic & Infidel...
INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.
LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion -- thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore --
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege.
Minds are like parachutes. They work best when open. Just make sure the strings are still attached.
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
I'd explain it to you, but your brain would explode.
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/29/2004 8:39 Comments ||
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#12
Steve - The last one comes from Mae West... More by Mae:
So many men, so little time.
It's not the men in my life; it's the life in my men.
Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.
I only like two kinds of men: domestic and foreign.
Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.
I've been in more laps than a napkin.
I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
He who hesitates is a damned fool.
She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.
Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
Once, during a trial in which she was accused of indecency on stage, the judge asked, "Miss West, are you trying to show contempt for this court?"
She answered, "On the contrary, your Honor, I was doin' my best to conceal it."
I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better.
I always say, keep a diary, and some day it'll keep you.
It ain't no sin if you crack a few laws now and then. As long as you don't break any.
It's better to be looked over than overlooked.
Maid (unpacking): Goodness, what nice jewelry.
Mae West: "Goodness" had nothing to do with it, dearie.
When I'm good, I'm good. When I'm bad, I'm very good.
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
-- From a newspaper contest where entrants were asked to imitate "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey"
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him.
It sure would be nice if we got a day off for the president's birthday, like they do for the queen. Of course, then we would have a lot of people voting for a candidate born on July 3 or December 26, just for the long weekends.
Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just any old yokel vote.
Home is where the house is.
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number.
As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few minutes each day. At the end of the year, you'll have a couple of days saved up.
It would be terrible if the Red Cross Bloodmobile got into an accident. No, wait. That would be good because if anyone needed it, the blood would be right there.
Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money.
The people who think Tiny Tim is strange are the same ones who think it odd that I drive without pants.
For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out.
Think of the biggest number you can. Now add five. Then, imagine if you had that many Twinkies. Wow, that's five more than the biggest number you could come up with!
I bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
The only stupid question is the one that is never asked, except maybe "Don't you think it is about time you audited my return?" or "Isn't is morally wrong to give me a warning when, in fact, I was speeding?"
Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed them, right?
When I go to heaven, I want to see my grandpa again. But he better have lost the nose hair and the old-man smell.
I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?
I often wonder how come John Tesh isn't as popular a singer as some people think he should be. Then, I remember it's because he sucks.
Whenever I start getting sad about where I am in my life, I think about the last words of my favorite uncle: "A truck!"
If you really want to impress people with your computer literacy, add the words "dot com" to the end of everything you say, dot com.
I like to go down to the dog pound and pretend that I've found my dog. Then I tell them to kill it anyway because I already gave away all of his stuff. Dog people sure don't have a sense of humor.
THIRD RUNNER UP
I don't know about you, but I enjoy watching paint dry. I imagine that the wet paint is a big freshwater lake that is the only source of water for some tiny cities by the lake. As the lake gets drier, the population gets more desperate, and sometimes there are water riots. Once there was a big fire and everyone died.
SECOND RUNNER UP
I once heard the voice of God. It said "Vrrrrmmmmm." Unless it was just a lawn mower.
FIRST RUNNER UP
I gaze at the brilliant full moon. The same one, I think to myself, at which Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato gazed. Suddenly, I imagine they appear beside me. I tell Socrates about the national debate over one's right to die and wonder at the constancy of the human condition. I tell Plato that I live in the country that has come the closest to Utopia, and I show him a copy of the Constitution. I tell Aristotle that we have found many more than four basic elements and I show him a periodic table. I get a box of kitchen matches and strike one. They gasp with wonder. We spend the rest of the night lighting farts.
WINNER
If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started.
#15
"international law as shaped after World War II does not recognise any countryâs right to launch a pre-emptive strike"
What an irresponsible, asinine, and unresearched statement by this moronic, Khan. Here is an direct quote from the U.N, of all places, favoring pre-emptive strikes. I am going to leave links, for any stoooopid extreme liberal and/or facist pigs, with their head in the EUROhole.
It looks like a "International body" to me.
Well Khan, not very well researched, are you. Your just jealous that you are maybe 6th on the list, instead on 1st, as a candidate for the receiveing end of pre-emptive strikes. Go and do some more research, Mr. Editor-in-Chief of spreading propaganda, and get back with the world with some facts.
#23
Not to add insult to injury but here's a few by Pudd'nhead Wilson, as related by Mark Twain, Mae West without the hips.
A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
When in doubt, tell the truth.
It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isnât.
Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.
âClassic.â A book which people praise and donât read.
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
It is your human environment that makes climate.
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another manâs, I mean.
There are two times in a manâs lift when he should not speculate: when he canât afford it, and when he can.
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.
The principle difference between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives.
Posted by: Ken Radovsky ||
12/29/2004 15:04 Comments ||
Top||
#24
Another from TDD, off subject, but too good to ignore:
CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/29/2004 15:23 Comments ||
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#25
And:
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
12/29/2004 15:26 Comments ||
Top||
#26
In the spirit of The Devil's Dictionary:
Reason: A term originally used by philosophers, but of unknown meaning, since the philosophers could never agree on what it meant. (Nor could they, in spite of using reason, agree on anything else.) Later taken up in popular usage to mean the form of thinking you engage in, whereas your opponent doesn't.
Rationalist: A person who believes that his view of how the world works is based on reason, in spite of the fact that other rationalists have entirely different views about how the world works. (See for example, Politics).
ISLAMABAD: Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, will meet Premier Shaukat Aziz at Prime Minister's House here today. Aziz invited Fazl to talks a couple of days ago and the MMA Supreme Council sanctioned the meeting. The two are to discuss how to create a better working relationship between the government and opposition on national and international issues. Talking to Online on Tuesday, MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmad said the talks were informal and formal talks would be initiated only by MMA.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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LAHORE: Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said on Tuesday that the government will screen applicants for new phone lines and set up provincial security teams in efforts to combat terrorism. He said that the government planned to set up National Crisis Management Cells (NCMCs) in all provinces to combat terrorism and crime. He also said law enforcement agencies would be linked to the NCMCs. Briefing reporters after the conclusion of the inter-provincial coordination meeting on law and order at the Punjab Secretariat, he said, "New cellular phone and landline connections will be given after online verification by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA)." He said that despite an overall law and order improvement, efforts were needed to eliminate terrorism from the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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Maulvi Sharif, who was wanted by the government and surrendered himself to the authorities unconditionally a few weeks ago, met NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah at the Governor's House on Tuesday, assuring him of his full cooperation in military operations in Wana. Maulvi Sharif, who belongs to Ahmedzai Wazir tribe of South Waziristan, warmly embraced and shook hands with the governor.
... just like Nek Mohammad did...
He assured Mr Shah of his loyalty to Pakistan and the government, saying he would fully support government policies for the integrity, solidarity and defence of the country.
... just like Nek Mohammad did...
Maulvi Sharif also assured the governor that he would honour all agreements with the government and no foreign militants would be given shelter in Wana areas.
... just like Nek Mohammad did...
The governor congratulated Maulvi Sharif on making the "wise decision" to cooperate with the government. He said tribal people and their interests were dear to the government. Shah hoped Wana's Ahmedzai Wazir tribes would continue cooperating with the administration and honour all agreements made with the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 12:00:24 AM ||
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#1
As a matter of fact, Sharif wears a bracelet that sez "WWNMD."
A special team Karachi and Lahore police officers has arrested notorious underworld kingpin, Shoaib Khan, and two of his accomplices, after conducting several raids in the provincial metropolis, sources told Daily Times on Tuesday. Police sources said that Shoaib Khan, who operated from Karachi, was wanted in over a hundred murder cases. A joint team of the Karachi and Lahore police, after receiving an anonymous tip, raided a house in C-Block, Defence Housing Authority, and arrested him. Later, the same team conducted another raid at a local hotel and arrested two more men, Awais Ijaz and Gullo. Awais Ijaz was the alleged right-hand man of Shoaib Khan, while Gullo was his bodyguard, sources claimed. Karachi police had been after Shoaib Khan for several months. He was released from prison last year on bail in a murder case. Police sources claimed that Shoaib Khan enjoyed the backing of several police officers, adding they had confiscated a video tape of a party he threw which showed several police officials in attendance. Police also accused him of running the city's illegal gambling dens.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2004 00:00:00 ||
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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 blamed South Korea on Tuesday for a stall in the dialogue between the two countries and demanded an apology. In a lengthy report, the North's Secretariat of the 
Pakistan has told a former Guantanamo Bay inmate wanted for the kidnapping of two Chinese men to surrender by January 15 or face a military onslaught, officials said yesterday. Abdullah Mahsud was given the deadline on Monday by a Pakistani army commander in charge of hunting down Al Qaeda-linked militants in the tribal region of South Waziristan.
FAISALABAD: Sixteen officials of Central Jail have been suspended and 11 arrested on suspicion they helped two convicted murderers escape. Sabir Hussain, 42, and Muhammad Ishtiaq, 38, were in prison for life after being convicted of murder in separate cases. 
ISLAMABAD: Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the opposition leader in the National Assembly, will meet Premier Shaukat Aziz at Prime Minister's House here today. Aziz invited Fazl to talks a couple of days ago and the MMA Supreme Council sanctioned the meeting. The two are to discuss how to create a better working relationship between the government and opposition on national and international issues. Talking to Online on Tuesday, MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmad said the talks were informal and formal talks would be initiated only by MMA.
A special team Karachi and Lahore police officers has arrested notorious underworld kingpin, 
