This Day in History:
1794 - Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin. (Get your cotton picking hands off my Gin)
1889 - German Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his "Navigable Balloon"
1945 - The R.A.F. first operational use of the Grand Slam bomb, Bielefeld, Germany. (WWII MOB)
1964 - A jury in Dallas, Texas find Jack Ruby guilty of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of John F. Kennedy.
1994 - Timeline of Linux development: Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released.
Marilyn Miller died tragically in 1936 at age 37 from an infection following sinus surgery. Penicillin would not be commercially available for another 6-8 years.
Kidnappers in Darfur have released two local staff of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) but were still holding three foreigners abducted with them, its Belgian branch said Thursday.
"Medecins Sans Frontieres confirms the abduction last night, of three international volunteers in Saraf Umra, in the Sudanese province of North Darfur. Two Sudanese personnel, captured at the same time, were quickly released," a statement said. "The three international volunteers, a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French official, work for the Belgian section of MSF."
Five employees with the Belgian aid agency have been kidnapped in Darfur, relief agency officials said earlier.
The office could not give further details about the number of staff involved, or circumstances of the incident but confirmed the abduction.
"I can confirm the kidnap of three international employees and two local employees," an official with the group told AFP earlier. "They were kidnapped yesterday (Wednesday) in north Darfur," another official said, adding that the identity of the kidnappers was unknown.
The French and Dutch chapters of MSF were among the groups ordered expelled from Darfur last week after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes over the six year-conflict in the region.
The French and Dutch branches of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) were among 13 groups kicked out last week after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Bashir for war crimes over the six-year conflict in Darfur.
The Sudanese government accuses the aid groups of cooperating with the ICC, which accuses Bashir of orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement and pillage in the vast largely desert western region.
More than 180 foreign aid workers have since left Sudan, according to the United Nations, which has warned that hundreds of thousands of aid-dependent people were being put at risk.
On Tuesday, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum said it was allowing non-essential staff to leave Sudan and had introduced "heightened security measures" after receiving information of "terrorist threats" aimed at Western interests in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Dissident soldiers deployed tanks in Madagascar's capital on Friday and said they would use them to fight any mercenaries hired in a power struggle that has killed 135 people on the Indian Ocean island.
The troops have broken away from the traditionally neutral security forces, saying they wanted to bring order to a country torn by a stand-off between President Marc Ravalomanana and opposition leader Andry Rajoelina. In the worst civil unrest for years, it is unclear who controls the government or military and the crisis is crippling the country's $390 million-a-year tourism industry. Many in the opposition fear the president will bring in mercenaries to defend his hold on power despite the mutineers denying that they are taking orders from Rajoelina.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Nine sedition cases were filed yesterday and Thursday against 15 activists of Islamist outfit Hijb ut-Tahrir. Officers-in-charge of Gulshan, Uttara, Pallabi, Mirpur, Darus Salam, Ramna, Sabujbagh, Mohammadpur and Khilgaon police stations filed the cases against 15 out of 27 Tahrir men arrested after the carnage at BDR headquarters in Pilkhana.
Gulshan and Uttara OCs each accused four Hijb ut-Tahrir men.
Anwar Hossain, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Mirpur zone, told The Daily Star, "The cases were filed after getting the required government approval."
According to police, the activists of the outfits were first arrested under section-54 of the Criminal Procedure Code and then charged with sedition. Police said after the mutiny at BDR headquarters on February 25 and 26, the accused distributed provocative leaflets urging people to oust the government.
Sources said after the arrest of the Hijb ut-Tahrir men, the government approved 14 police stations for filing sedition cases against them.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Immigration police yesterday arrested a suspected Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) member from Benapole border in Jessore.
Moulana Munsur Alam, 45, was rounded up from the cheek post of the Benapole when he was returning from India after five months, police said. Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) is now grilling Munsur, said Rab sources.
I imagine he's not feeling so well right about now ...
Immigration Acting Officer Kazi Akbar Hossain said Munsur went to India on October 10 with a one-month visa and stayed at different places of India in the last five months.
An Indian mobile SIM card was seized from Munsur. He said he stayed at different madrasas in India during his five-month stay there. Munsur is the son of Abdul Karim of south Isakhali village in Chittagong.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
The media organisations of NWFP and FATA, lawyers, political and civil society workers have condemned the blocking of Geo news in the strongest terms. They termed it ambush on media freedom in the country. The president of Khyber Union of Journalists Mohammad Riaz, general secretary Yousuf Ali, president of Tribal Union of Journalists Sher Khan, general secretary Khayal Zaman, PML-N NWFP president Pir Sabir Shah, secretary information Arshad Qureshi, JUI-S chief Maulana Sami-ul-Haq and others have slammed the closure of Geo news and showed complete solidarity with Geo news. They said Geo has always supported the truth and just cause of the people.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Two bodies were found in Sam Paga area of Upper Orakzai Agency on Friday. A note found near the bodies said the men were spying for the United States, warning that anyone found guilty of spying would meet the same fate. Separately, a body was found in Charmang valley of Bajaur Agency, identified as Abdul Ghafoor, who was abducted two days ago. Things're gonna be much better when the Talibs are the police...
However, AFP reported that residents found three headless bodies dumped in the wilderness in Charmang tehsil of the agency. Local administration official Jamil Khan confirmed one of the bodies was Ghafoor's.
Residents said the Taliban had kidnapped Ghafoor and two other tribesmen because they were considered to be supporters of the government. Also, the political administration has started crackdown on illegal Afghan refugees in the agency's Khar tehsil.
Meanwhile in another incident, unidentified men fired at a car on the Kohat-Hangu national highway, killing two people and injuring five others.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Three Red Cross workers kidnapped in the southern Philippines contacted the international aid group for the first time in nearly three weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
ICRC workers -- Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba -- were kidnapped by gunmen belonging to the Abu Sayyaf group nearly two months ago. They were abducted minutes after they left a prison on southern Jolo island where they were inspecting a water and sanitation project.
"It was very good to speak with all three and know that they are together," Alain Aeschlimann, ICRC's head of operations for East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement dated March 13 on the group's website. "They sound calm and composed, considering the enormous stress of this situation," he said.
The three had been communicating regularly with the Red Cross by telephone until three weeks ago. "It's frustrating for everyone, especially our three kidnapped colleagues and their families, that this has gone on for so long. We would very much like to see some rapid and meaningful progress towards resolving this crisis," Aeschlimann said.
The Red Cross reiterated in its statement a plea to the country's authorities to ensure any military action would not put the lives of their workers in danger.
In another part of the southern Mindanao region, gunmen abducted three female public school teachers late on Friday in seas off Sibugay Bay in Zamboanga Sibugay province, police said.
Four gunmen on an old, white speedboat pointed guns at the wooden-hull motorised ferry boat carrying the teachers, frightening the boatman who jumped overboard and swam away. The unidentified gunmen then seized the female teachers and left a fourth teacher who identified himself as a Muslim.
Posted by: ryuge ||
03/14/2009 07:05 ||
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Suspected Muslim terrorists militants critically wounded a 9-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting Saturday, a day after three soldiers were shot dead in restive southern Thailand. A Muslim man believed to be a police informant was also shot and wounded Saturday in Pattani, said Thai military spokesman Col. Parinya Chaidilok.
The 9-year-old Muslim boy was severely wounded by gunfire as he sat in a pickup truck waiting for his uncle who is a policeman in Yala, said police Col. Poompetch Pipatpetchpoom. "We believe they were targeting his uncle who works for the government but did not find him in the truck," Poompetch said.
Assailants also burned down two public schools overnight in Pattani. Hundreds of schools deemed by some Muslims as places where the government indoctrinates children with un-Islamic values have been torched since 2004.
The attacks came as authorities beefed up security for the anniversary of the founding of a separatist group called the Barisan Revolusi Nasional. Police had warned that insurgents might try to mark the Friday anniversary and following days with violence.
On Friday, three soldiers were shot dead and one wounded while patrolling a road on motorcycles in Narathiwat province. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced Thursday that 4,000 more soldiers and other security personnel would be deployed to the region, supplementing more than 60,000 already there.
Both sides in Sri Lanka's conflict may have committed war crimes and must suspend fighting to let thousands of civilians escape, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Friday.
Warning that the loss of life may reach "catastrophic levels", she urged the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels to suspend hostilities to allow evacuation of up to 180,000 civilians trapped on the northeastern coast. Pillay said the government had repeatedly shelled the designated "no-fire" zones for civilians and also cited reports that the separatist guerrillas were holding civilians as human shields and had shot some as they tried to flee.
"Certain actions being undertaken by the Sri Lankan military and by the LTTE may constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law," Pillay said in a statement issued in Geneva. "The world today is ever sensitive about such acts that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," added the former UN war crimes judge, who grew up in a poor Indian neighbourhood in Durban as a member of South Africa's Tamil minority. Sri Lanka's military has encircled the LTTE Tamil Tigers in a mere 37-sq km of the island nation's northeastern coast and is fighting to deal a death blow to a civil war that has raged off and on since 1983.
Military's claim: Also on Friday, the defence ministry said at least 32 Tamil Tiger rebels have died in the latest push by Sri Lankan government troops into the rebels' shrinking fiefdom. The ministry said the rebels were killed in battles around the small town of Puthukkudiriruppu in the north east, where the LTTE have been hemmed into a small jungle area. It said the clashes since Thursday also led to the recovery of a large haul of arms and ammunition. No details on government casualties were given. There was no comment from the LTTE, and no independent confirmation of the claims -- as Sri Lanka bars independent journalists and most aid workers from the north.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Any time one of these "useful idiots" raises their heads, they should be bound hand and foot and dumped in the middle of the situation they're whining about. After two or three weeks of actually living through the crap, maybe they'll have a glimmer of a hope for an idea about what they're talking about. Shorter solution - shoot 'em.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/14/2009 14:26 Comments ||
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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.
Dissident soldiers deployed tanks in Madagascar's capital on Friday and said they would use them to fight any mercenaries hired in a power struggle that has killed 135 people on the Indian Ocean island. 
Immigration police yesterday arrested a suspected Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) member from Benapole border in Jessore.
