Five Muslim men were taken into custody early Wednesday morning after a break-in at the Bexar County Courthouse. Two of the men are on the FBI's watch list, officials said. The RV contained several documents and proof the men had been traveling across the country for some time, sheriff's officials said.
Sources told ABC News that three of the men appear to be of Morroccan descent and that the men had pictures of courthouses and water systems from around the country.
San Antonio police are investigating whether the break-in at the court house might have ties to an intelligence convention that's been going on all this week.
More than 4,000 people are attending the United States Geospatial Intelligence convention at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
The event focuses on satellites and other tools that are used in the field of national security as a way to keep an eye out for possible terrorist activities. ? a hit team?
[Tolo News] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... on Monday said he was asking NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... to explain why three family members of a former senator were killed in an operation conducted by international troops in Wardak province.
Karzai is demanding to know what actionable intelligence NATO had that led to the raid on former senator Sameh Jan Sherzad's family, the president's office said in a statement.
Noor Agha, the brother of Mr Sherzad, and two his young daughters were killed in the operation. Two other family members were also jugged in the operation on Sunday in the Chaki Wardak district of the province, President Karzai condemned the incident and had ordered an investigation, the statement said.
NATO said it was aware of Mr Karzai's statement and would "co-operate fully" with the government to "assess the incident."
Coalition forces said the incident happened when a joint Afghan and NATO force was searching the area for a Haqqani network leader who had organised attacks on Afghan officials.
The US has recently targeted many Haqqani network leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistain. The group is linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and is based Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The Kenya and Somali governments on Tuesday agreed on a joint strategy to wipe out the al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader... beturbanned goons.
As Kenyan troops moved deeper into Somalia, taking ground previously held by the beturbanned goon group, a meeting in Mogadishu attended by Kenyan Foreign minister Moses Wetang'ula, Defence minister Yusuf Haji and Somalia President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed, discussed the joint military offensive against the beturbanned goons.
But even as the meeting took place, the Somali capital was rocked by a huge car boomkaboom outside the former Foreign Affairs building.
At the battle front, the military declared that it will intensify its operations targeting al-Shabaab strongholds.
"Our forces will be concentrating on operations in Afmadow region today," said Kenya army front man Major Emmanuel Chirchir.
Kenyan troops have pushed at least 120 kilometres into Somalia to reach Afmadow region, guided by pro-government Somali forces, backed by heavy aerial bombardments, but slowed down by heavy rains pounding the region.
The diplomatic foray into Mogadishu came as President Kibaki chaired a Cabinet meeting that endorsed the military offensive, which it termed an "important duty of securing the Kenyan nation."
Mr Haji told the media after the closed-door meeting in Mogadishu that the two sides had discussed closer co-operation on security matters to wipe out al-Shabaab.
"Continuous exchange of information on security matters was considered a priority," said Mr Haji.
There was a scare after a car boomwent kaboom! in Mogadishu near the meeting between the Kenyan delegation and the Somalia leaders.
The kaboom is said to have claimed four lives including the driver of a truck suspected to have been carrying the explosives.
In Nairobi, a dispatch from the Presidential Press Service (PPS) said the Cabinet had fully backed the military engagement in Somalia while sending messages of condolence to the families of five soldiers who died in a helicopter crash at the start of the mission.
"The Cabinet that met today at State House, Nairobi, also supported and commended the actions taken by members of the Kenya Defense Forces and other security forces in the offensive against the al-Shabaab," the statement read.
"The Cabinet assured members of the country's security forces that the government and entire country were in support of their mission and conveyed their message of encouragement as they undertook the important duty of securing the Kenyan nation," it added.
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10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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KAMPALA: Ugandan police briefly arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Tuesday and said they would charge 15 protesters with treason in an effort to quell demonstrations against rising prices.
Deadly protests in April and May over soaring food and fuel prices were crushed by President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for more than two decades. Besigye was badly beaten and put under house arrest.
The protest movement, led by the Activists 4 Change (A4C)group, has struggled to rally large numbers since then, mainly because Besigye has largely stayed away from demonstrations.
On Tuesday, Besigyes party, the Forum for Democratic Change, said he was briefly arrested when he joined a walk-to-work protest on the outskirts of the capital, Kampala. Later, police said the former presidential contender had been released and taken to his home in the Kasangati suburb.
Opposition youths reacted angrily to his detention, hurling rocks at passing vehicles. Police used teargas and water-cannon trucks spraying pink-colored water to disperse the protesters.
Analysts said this opposition agitation was unlikely to grow into a serious threat to the government given the international communitys muted response to the previous crackdown.
Police brutality in April and May was not punished and neither did we see strong condemnation of Museveni from the Western powers, and this discourages would-be protesters, said political analyst Nicholas Ssengoba.
Ugandan troops form the backbone of a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, a task few countries are willing to undertake.
It's almost like Museveni bought himself a 'get out of jail free' card...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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In a war littered with homemade weaponry, Libyan government forces show off their latest creation in the battle against pro-Gaddafi forces in Sirte, a towering "bulldozer" reinforced with steel and concrete
Hoisting homemade wooden crosses and gruesome photographs of bodies they said were crushed by tanks, hundreds of Coptic Christians rallied in front of the White House Wednesday to protest rising violence against minority Christians in Egypt and demand that the Obama administration put pressure on Cairo to protect their rights.
The demonstrators, mostly Egyptian immigrants who came in buses from as far as New York and Chicago, included black-robed Coptic orthodox priests and families who had lost relatives to recent violence in Egypt, including the New Year's Eve bombing of a church and a bloody clash Oct. 9 between protesters and army forces in Cairo that left 27 people dead.
In September, Copts in the United States worried that Islamic intolerance would rise in their homeland and that they would be viewed with suspicion in their adopted land.
Religious tensions in Egypt, where Christians are a small but influential minority
once. now, only if garbage collectors are influential these days
in a largely Muslim society, have escalated sharply since January, when a popular uprising in Cairo led to the fall of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak but left the country of 81 million in a state of political drift and turmoil.
Many Christians in the Egyptian-American community, a largely middle-class group scattered across a dozen states, have expressed concern that radical Islamist groups are increasingly dominating the post-revolutionary scene and seek to turn Egypt into a Sunni theocracy. Some placards at the rally Wednesday warned of an "Islamic jihad" against Christians.
The demonstrators also expressed fears that the Egyptian army, a longtime bulwark of Mubarak's power, is becoming a repressive force against Christians. Many held up bloody photos of crushed torsos and limbs, which they said had been deliberately run over by tanks on Oct. 9.
Obama can't hear you, he's too busy being perfect elsewhere.
For Walid, Tunisia's revolution is an opportunity to turn one of the Arab world's most secular countries toward Islam.
"We paid a heavy price for the revolution so we are not ready to let secularists and supporters of the Zionists control our destiny," said the young man, with a beard and a long white robe, after prayers in the Omrane district of the capital.
"We want to respect our religion and to apply Islamic law in our country.
"We want Islamic schools all over the country ... We do not want our women prevented from wearing the hijab and niqab (Islamic veils). We would like our country to be an Islamic country that does not allow taboo things, like wine."
As Tunisia prepares to vote next weekend in the first election since the "Arab Spring" uprisings, people like Walid, a follower of the Salafist school which embraces a purist interpretation of Islam, are sending jitters through secular elites who fear their world could be about to change for ever.
It is a nervousness felt in Egypt and Libya where revolutions inspired by the one in Tunisia in January have handed power or influence to previously repressed groups who want Islam to play a bigger role in political life.
The Middle East is paying close attention to how Tunisia reconciles the conflicting agendas of Islamists and secularists following the ousting of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, and the evidence so far is that it will be a bumpy path.
Police last week used tear gas to break up a crowd of thousands of Islamists who were trying to march on the prime minister's office.
Another crowd attacked the home of a businessman whose television station broadcast the award-winning film "Persepolis." Islamists say one scene is blasphemous.
WRENCHING CHANGE
The October 23 election has become a lightning rod for these tensions. Tunisians will choose an assembly to draft a new constitution, oversee the government and set in train elections for new democratic institutions.
Ennahda, a moderate Islamist group which was banned under Ben Ali, is expected to win the biggest share of the vote. Such a resurgence of Islam would be a wrenching change for Tunisia because secular traditions are so deeply ingrained.
Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first president after independence from France in 1956, described the hijab, or Islamic head covering, as an "odious rag." Ben Ali jailed thousands of Islamists.
Many aspects of day-to-day life in Tunisia display a more relaxed attitude to Islam than exists in most Arab countries.
Alcohol is sold in bars and some shops. Many women do not cover their heads. Foreign tourists sunbathe in skimpy outfits at beach resorts. Tunisia has a vibrant Jewish community.
Even when Islam is practiced, it often does not conform to the orthodoxy found elsewhere.
For instance, a young woman standing outside Tunis-Carthage international airport wears the hijab and loose-fitting overcoat favored by devout Muslims. At the same time, she is smoking a cigarette, something frowned upon by traditionalists.
Tunisians have coined a phrase for this -- "Islam Lite" -- and many take pride in their country's modern, socially liberal traditions. Secularists are skeptical about Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi's assurances he will not impose Islamist values on society.
"It will be a disaster if the Islamists win in the elections," said Souad Layouni, a graduate in political science, at a cafe in the Al Manar district near the center of Tunis.
"They did not accept the broadcast of the film (Persepolis). We expect they will stop festivals and close the hotels."
Several thousand secularists made their views felt at a protest Sunday in an upmarket area of Tunis.
RADICALISATION
The tone of the debate is growing more shrill, especially on Facebook, Tunisia's favorite forum since the social networking site was instrumental in bringing about the revolution.
One post predicts that if Islamists win the election, Tunisia will turn into another Afghanistan.
An Islamist posted that if the secularists win, "in the future we will see a man on television complaining about his 15-year-old daughter because she still keeps her virginity."
The danger is that, whether they want it or not, both sides will be pushed into more and more radical positions.
"There is a great fear that this dispute could turn to violence in the streets if tension is raised between the two camps," said political analyst Chadli Ben Rhouma.
But the mainstream of public opinion in Tunisia is not radical. Salafists such as Walid are a vocal yet small minority. Most estimates put their numbers at a few tens of thousands and Salafist-aligned parties are small.
The gentler brand of political Islam promoted by Ennahda is much more popular and Ennahda officials underlined their moderate credentials last week when they condemned the violent protests.
Tunisia has another factor favoring peaceful accommodation, the example of Turkey, where moderate Islamist Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has overseen political stability and economic growth despite hostility from an entrenched secular elite.
Turkey is now sharing its experience. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Tunis in February and Erdogan followed in September. Both delivered the message that Islam and democracy can co-exist. Ennahda leader Ghannouchi has also visited Turkey in the past few months.
The Turkish model appeals to the millions of Tunisians who, with Ben Ali's repressive rule over, want to freely express their faith while enjoying the country's modern values.
Houda, a 25-year-old employee of a call center in Tunis, said she started wearing a hijab in February, the month after the revolution.
"Before, it wasn't possible to wear it with Ben Ali (in power)," she said. "But now we can respect our religion without fear. This is already one of the big achievements of the revolution, to feel free to dress as you choose.
"But that doesn't prevent me continuing to live as I did before, without fear or embarrassment. I am totally against this radical Islamist phenomenon.
"The new Tunisia should be for everyone, without exception for whatever reason."
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edmund Randolph ... flew in to Tripoli on Tuesday as Libya's new rulers try to crush the last pockets of resistance by fighters loyal to ousted leader Moammar Qadaffy ...Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years...
The first U.S. cabinet official to visit Libya since 2008 when Washington wanted to forge a new relationship with Qadaffy, Clinton is seeking to bolster ties with the new rulers and promote Libya's transition to democracy.
In a lightning visit amid tight security, the chief U.S. diplomat was to meet National Transition Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, interim prime minister Mahmud Jibril as well as Ali Tarhuni, the oil and finance minister.
Her visit to the oil-rich country follows those by French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... , British Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... , Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well as foreign ministers from Britannia, Italia, and Canada.
Speaking on the flight from Washington to Tripoli, via Malta, a senior U.S. State Department official said the United States aimed to forge new civilian ties with the Libyan people as the U.S.-backed NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... air mission winds down.
"It's not only that we want to be talking to Libyan officials about their own transition plans forward and how they translate their commitment to justice, transparency, rule of law into practice," he told news hounds.
"But it is also to signal to the Libyan people that we want a normal partnership going forward that is based on civilian relationships," the official said.
In the short term, he said the United States wants to provide parts and chemicals for the medical equipment needed to care for thousands of war maimed, while also transferring difficult cases to specialist U.S. hospitals.
It also wants to expand educational programs for Libyans to study in the United States, expand English-language programs in Libya, and provide jobs training for the war maimed.
He said it aims to offer grants to Libyans to develop archaeological sites in eastern Libya, including the UNESCO world heritage site of the ancient Greek city of Cyrene, a move that would presumably bolster tourism revenue.
More broadly, he said, the U.S. wants to talk about "how to integrate Libya fully into the 21st century world economy in transparent ways where Libya's oil wealth is used for the benefit of all of Libya's citizens."
The United States said it has so far spent $135 million, including for humanitarian assistance as well as boots and uniforms for the NTC forces, since the conflict broke out in Libya in February.
U.S. officials said the United States also seeks to raise from about $30 million to about $40 million the assistance it gives Libya to find and destroy shoulder-fired rockets known as MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems).
Clinton has publicly raised concerns that such weapons -- which pose a threat to civilian aircraft -- could fall into bully boy hands in the vacuum following Qadaffy's fall in August after 42 years in power.
The senior U.S. official expressed hope the NTC leadership follows through on its efforts to establish a centralized security system by grouping all the diverse militias that fought Qadaffy under one apparatus.
He said not all militia leaders were yet participating, calling it a "challenging process."
The senior US official acknowledged concerns about civil war but said the tide was turning against Qadaffy and his sons, who were still on the lam, and loyalist fighters who were holed up in Sirte, the former leader's hometown.
"None of us know where Qadaffy is ... But he has people, henchmen, loyalists, sons, here and there, who still have circles around them," the official said.
"I don't think there's any coordination going on between them. I think you are having pockets of people who are trying to stop the flow of history ahead," he said.
"He still is providing a lethal nuisance factor that is a distraction for many Libyans," the official added. "But the people of Libya by large measure are already plotting .... the future of Libya without Qadaffy."
Clinton is the first U.S. cabinet official to visit Libya since her predecessor Condoleezza Rice went to Tripoli in September 2008 and met Qadaffy in what was a new stage in Washington's reconciliation with a former enemy state.
Rice's visit came five years after Qadaffy's dramatic announcement he was abandoning weapons of mass destruction programs.
[Nigerian Tribune] Following the spate of killings in the last four days in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, the Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno has called on members of the public who are in possession of illegally acquired arms and ammunition as well as explosives to surrender such in their own interest.
This warning was contained in a statement which came on the heels of the murder of a member of the Borno State House of Assembly, Honourable Bintube Dalwa, who was rubbed out by gunnies suspected to be members of the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... sect.
Dalwa was killed in his Maiduguri residence at about 7:30p.m. on Sunday, when a group of gunnies stormed his residence and shot him.
A top operative of the JTF, who confirmed the incident to newsmen on phone said, " we are right in the house of the politician now and we are arresting suspects in the area, because the gunnies ran into one of the houses in the neighborhood."
He said they were sure of arresting the killers because "over 200 of our men have been mobilised to comb the entire area."
The killing of the politician came some hours after the chief of vigilante group in Maiduguri, Ali Banga, was attacked and killed in his residence by the same gunnies.
The JTF, who gave up to October 31, 2011 for those in possession of lethal weapons to surrender them, said the collection centres for such weapons include the headquarters of the JTF, 21, Brigadier Giwa Barracks, 212 Battalion, Maimalari Cantonment; the Nigeria Police headquarters in Borno and the headquarters of the Directorate of State Security in Maiduguri.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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Over the last several years Hezbollah and its patrons in Iran have greatly expanded their operations in Latin America to the detriment of inter-American security and US strategic interests. Today, Hezbollah is using the Western Hemisphere as a staging ground, fundraising center, and operational base to wage asymmetric warfare against the United States.
Hezbollah's presence in Latin America dates to the mid-1980s, when it began sending operatives into the notoriously lawless region known as the tri-border area (TBA)--where the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet--to use it as a principal safe haven for fundraising, money laundering, recruitment, training, plotting, and other terrorist-related activities. Their activity also includes drug and arms trafficking, counterfeiting, forging travel documents, and pirating software and music. Their resulting proselytizing has led to the creation of numerous Hezbollah cells, with an estimated 460 operatives in the TBA by mid-2000.
In 2007, one member of the network plotting a terrorist attack at New York's JFK International Airport met with radical Iranian cleric and Western Hemisphere point man Mohsen Rabbani in Iran; he was subsequently arrested in
Trinidad en route to Venezuela, where he planned to board a flight to Tehran.
In a September 2009 speech, then--District Attorney of Mew York Robert Morgenthau identified Hugo Chavez's two principal interlocutors with Hezbollah: Venezuelan Interior Minister Tarik El Aissami, who was suspected of having issued passports to Hezbollah operatives, and Venezuelan Ghazi Nassereddine, who has been sanctioned by the United States as a terrorist financier of Hezbollah.
In 2010, a sensitive source confirmed that two Iranian Hezbollah operatives were conducting terror training on Venezuela's Margarita Island for people brought there from other countries in the region.
In July 2010, Mexican authorities arrested Jameel Nasr in Tijuana, Mexico, for attempting to set up a Hezbollah network in Mexico and throughout the region.
On August 22, 2010, Hugo Chavez hosted a terror summit of senior leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Caracas.
In April 2011, Venezuelan drug kingpin Walid Makled confirmed in an interview that Hezbollah operates cocaine labs in Venezuela with the protection of the country's government.
In August 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that Hezbollah had established a cell in Cuba to expand its terrorist activity and possibly facilitate an attack on Jewish targets in the Western Hemisphere.
It is impossible to quantify the level of criminal activity taking place in the TBA, but some estimate that Islamic extremist groups there and in other suspect areas in Latin America remit $300 to $500 million per year in illicit profits to radical Islamic groups in the Middle East.
China will not support North Korea militarily in case of a conflict between North and South, according to a Chinese academic. Prof. Chu Shulong (55) of Tsinghua University was speaking at a seminar on Korea-China security strategy at the Seoul Press Center on Monday.
Perhaps they won't send a million man army swarming over the Yalu River, but so far they seem to be on the Norks' side...
"I believe China will call for a diplomatic solution even if the North is attacked by South Korea or the U.S.," Chu said. "Most Chinese don't think a reunited Korea would stand against China, even if the U.S. keeps stationing troops or bases on the peninsula. China won't mind Korean reunification, even if it is led by South Korea."
Chu said the Beijing-Pyongyang relationship is friendly and cooperative on the surface, but the truth is very different. "Chinese leaders, bureaucrats and citizens neither like nor support many North Korean policies and actions it has taken at home and abroad, including its development of missiles and nuclear weapons and its attacks on South Korea last year," he added.
But he also cast doubt on the "strategic cooperative partnership" South Korea and China have declared. The two "don't have the same strategic concerns and understanding, even though they currently share some basic strategic interests."
Boy howdy, what would we do without experts...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Whatever is a fruitless burden to the West is OK by the Chinese, I guess.
Of course, the West continues to take this on. Voluntarily. Give the South Koreans nukes and be done with it.
#3
No, China will inetrevene because ...
> It views the entire Korean Peninsula as a strategic route for invasion agz it by foreign powers.
> Is a GUARANTOR of North Korea's sovereignty + existence, to include the primacy of the NOKOR COMMIE-SOCIALIST MOVEMENT.
> China is looking for WARM-WATER PACIFIC PORTS FOR TRADE + PLA, ESPEC IN NORTHEAST ASIA [Japan-Okinawa to Taiwan] + "DRAGON'S TRIANGLE", which Beijing + PLA to be China's most vital front in peace or war, MORESO THAN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA. It why China has proclaimed it is willing to wage NucWar agz the US-Allied rather than give up Taiwan.
> The PLA allegedly has 10-20,000 elite troops inside North Korea providing close security for Kimmie + Family.
IMO the best one can say is that China may NOT militarily intervene agz the US + ROK in a major war on the Korean Peninsula as long as the NOKOR Govt is NOT DESTROYED + "VICTORIOUS" US-ROK, ALLIED MILFORS DON'T CROSS THE DMZ INTO NORTH KOREA - IOW, THE US + ROK CAN MIL FIGHT NORTH KOREA BUT NOT DEFEAT OR DESTROY NORTH KOREA + KIM REGIME, I.E "STATUS QUO", OR IN ALTERNATE THE US + ROK DELIBERATELY LOSE MILITARILY AGZ NORTH KOREA.
versus
* ION TOPIX > [Wikileaks] "CHINA WON'T BE ABLE TO STOP NORTH KOREA'S COLLAPSE", after the death of Kim Jong-il according to Vice-FM + Trade Minister Chun Yung-hoo back in February 2010.
ARTIC > Minister Chun Yung-hoo believes that NORTH KOREA HAS ALREADY COLLAPSED ECONOMICALLY, + WILL COLLAPSE POLITICALLY NMT 2-3 YEARS AFTER KJI's PASSING.
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > BLOOMBERG: CHINA'S FALL, NOT ITS RISE, IS THE REAL GLOBAL THREAT.
ME > China's heavily regulated Communist Govt-Society versus Post-US = New #1 Global Superpower-wannabe requirements, espec vee Modern Trade.
#5
Support them militarily? No.
Support them politically and financially to make sure the government that unites Korea is at least a friendly neutral to China and hostile to the West? Yes.
#6
Or in the alternative, take that 25 mile perimeter along the Yalu River in North Korea as part of 'historical lost Chinese territory', and establish the new border there. That would let the ChiComs establish an easily defended border with a bunch of useful mines, factories, and other facilities already in place.
#8
Y'all are all thinking of new and exciting ways for China to benefit for having created and supported the totalitarian state of North Korea for the last sixty years.
North Korea is their buffer state between them and a non-tribute-state of non-Han. If their government depopulates their country so that in the future it can be populated with Han, they think it's a feature, not a bug. And as long as it's bleeding S. Korea and the US more than it bleeds them, that's a feature too.
#12
"Chinese leaders, bureaucrats and citizens neither like nor support many North Korean policies and actions it has taken at home and abroad, including its development of missiles and nuclear weapons and its attacks on South Korea last year,"
That has a ring of truth to it. Having to justify North Korea's actions is like having to justify the actions of a drunken, jobless, wife-beating younger brother. Nobody "likes or supports" that.
* PRAVDA > KURILS TO BECOME RUSSIA'S FORTRESS IN FAR EAST.
IMO read, Russia SSSSSSHHHHHHHH wants SCO-CSTO ally + strategic partner Rising China to come up against the US-Japan-ROK, UNC etc. in the Okinawa, Taiwan Straits = DRAGON'S TRIANGLE.
We already know about VIETNAM'S new rapprochment wid RUSSIA, US, ISRAEL, JAPAN, + INDJUH ala CAM RANH BAY + other Ports, + SOuth China Sea disputes. DITTO THE PHILIPPINES WID INDIA + JAPAN in the SOuth China Sea, + or course the US.
* New Players or Wannabes = IRAN'S + TURKEY'S + PAKISTAN'S NAVIES.
Lets also not fergit the new US-AUSTRALIA SECURITY ALLIANCE, ee US support for across-theboard Aussie military modernization + USN Carrier rights.
Taken collectively, that leaves China + PLA the TAIWAN-HAINAN CORRIDOR BETWEEN OKINAWA + NORTHERN PHIL, AIMING STRAIGHT AT GUAM-CNMI-WESTPAC, + FSM.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA'S MILITARY PLANES LEADS TO TRIPLING OF JAPAN [Air SDF] JET SCRAMBLES. Approximately 83 times = 3 times more for same six-month period in 2010.
* WAFF > TENSIONS FLARE OVER OIL IN SOUTH CHINA SEA [China demands India halt joint energy project wid Vietnam]; + CHINA FUMING OVER NEW ENERGY DEVLOPMENT AGREEMENT BETWEEN INDIA + VIETNAM.
* WORLD MIL FORUM > CHINA AGAIN WARNS JAPAN THAT PROPOSED NEW JAPAN SDF DESTROYER, AIR RECCE PATROLS IN DISPUTED DAOYUS ARE "UNACCEPTABLE" VIOLATIONS OF CHINA'S SOVEREIGNTY, + MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE BILATERAL RELATIONS.
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > BLOG:JAPAN MAY HAVE DOMINAT TERRITORIAL CLAIMS OVER TAIWAN.
Japan in better geographic or strategic position than the US to military defend or protect Taiwan from mainland China, vee Japan-controlled Yonaguni Island which is nearby to Taiwan + where Japan plans to expand the SDF presence there.
* SAME > US DEVELOPING NEW WEAPON TO DESTROY CHINA FROM US MAINLAND | AMERICA BREAKS MACH 20 SPEED LIMIT FOR WAR AGZ CHINA [HTV-2 project].
Wehell, whether China mil strikes via TAIWAN across OKINAWA into WESTPAC; or via HAINAN ACROSS THE NORTHERN PHILIPPINES into WESTPAC, GUAM-CNMI-WESTPAC WILL BE THERE.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
10/19/2011 2:29 Comments ||
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#4
In all fairness, even back in the 1980s, Iranians living in the US were hopelessly political sectarian, their only common ground being that the Mullahs would have killed most of them at the first opportunity.
Many are still bugging out of Iran as the opportunity permits.
#5
I know a number of Iranians. They are to a person vehemently anti-regime.
However, for all of them that are leaving Iran because they are more sectarian, it only takes ONE seriously dedicated one to cause us much eternal grief...
It's like someone in Bush's administration said:
"We have to be lucky/good 100% of the time, a terrorist only has to be lucky once."
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
10/19/2011 10:09 Comments ||
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#6
Curiously, ICE designated one of the fugitives as having an unknown gender.
What? Were they wearing a burqa?
Booked all but seven fugitives in three states that border on Mexico: Texas, Arizona and California?
Happenstance? Or are they coming via Mexico? Doesn't sound like they just over-stayed their visa.
[Dawn] Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pevez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... on Tuesday said Pakistain Army had no objection over government having dialogues with the Taliban, DawnNews reported.
Briefing the parliamentary defence committees at GHQ Rawalpindi, Gen Kayani said he had no intentions of sending the troops to North Wazoo prior to government's orders.
Gen Kayani further said he informed the US that Pakistain did not require any military aid of any kind and that there would be no compromise on national illusory sovereignty in bilateral ties of the two countries.
He mentioned that the defence budget was decreasing every year due to inflation and the Army had received only $ 0.2 billion of agreed $ 6 billion from the US.
The Army chief further said that the police and civil intelligence agencies were responsible for internal affairs of the country rather than the Army. "Army is not the solution of every problem," he added.
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10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... while terming the Karsaz Tragedy a clash between the champions of progressive and democratic Pakistain and the forces of backwardness and bigotry, said on Tuesday the courageous people of Pakistain would not allow a handful of bigoted minority to impose its agenda on peaceful majority. When did that change?
"The Karsaz tragedy marks a watershed in that it drew a clear line between moderate, pro-democracy, and peaceful political forces and turban, orc, and bigoted elements," Gilani said in his message on the 4th anniversary of Karsaz Tragedy on October 18.
"This clash between the champions of progressive and democratic Pakistain and the forces of backwardness and bigotry continues even today. It is battle between two kinds of ideas," he added.
The prime minister recalled that once Benazir Bhutto said, "an inferior idea can only be killed by a superior idea." The idea of a progressive and democratic Pakistain is potent enough to defeat the idea of militancy, terrorism and extremism, he added.
"The hundreds of sacrifices offered by the armed forces, personnel of security organizations and the people on the lam prove that the courageous people of Pakistain would not allow a handful of bigoted minority to impose their agenda on peaceful majority," Gilani maintained.
Paying rich tribute to the deaders of Karsaz tragedy, Mr Gilani expressed the government's resolve to further empower people, to strengthen institutions and to make the people of Pakistain the master of their destiny.
"The best way to pay tribute to Benazir Bhutto and hundreds of deaders is to fulfil her vision," he added.
The PM said, "the 18th of October reminds us of the brutal and cowardly attack on the 'Caravan for Democracy' led by Benazir Bhutto four years ago in 2007."
He said the return of Benazir Bhutto from exile on that fateful day promised a beginning of a new chapter in the history of Pakistain, adding, "Through her relentless struggle for the restoration of people's rights, she symbolized democracy, representative rule and empowerment of people."
"The millions of people who flocked to the streets of Bloody Karachi from across the country to greet their beloved leader looked up to her as a leader who represented socio-economic development for the underprivileged sections of society," he added.
The prime minister said that the perpetrators of doom and gloom were so upset with the dawn of a new era of change that they mounted deadly attacks at the life of Benazir Bhutto at the site of Karsaz.
"Around 200 workers of the Pakistain People's Party (PPP) had embraced martyrdom and hundreds of others were maimed in these attacks," he said and added those who undertook the attacks wanted to snatch from the people their hopes, their dreams of future and the right to elect their representatives.
"Little did they know that the democratic aspirations espoused by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent... and Benazir Bhutto were etched deeply in people's psychology, minds and personalities," he added.
The prime minister said instead of scaring Benazir Bhutto into submission, these attacks on people's liberty and political rights further renewed her passion and strengthened her resolve to serve the masses.
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10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] DG Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Athar Abbas ... who is The Very Model of a Modern Major General... has said regular army and FC have been sent to border areas with Afghanistan to stop beturbanned goons' attacks.
Talking to Radio Pakistain, he said Pakistain will not allow beturbanned goons to carry out attacks on our check-posts, border villages and kill our civilians.
The DG ISPR said about 100 personnel of police; levies and paramilitary forces have so far been martyred in beturbanned goons' attacks from across the border during last 3-4 months.
ISAF was informed about these attacks, besides pointing out the location of hideouts of beturbanned goons, but no action has so far been taken which may prove that safe havens and bunkers have been destroyed or beturbanned goons have decamped from there, he added.
He said apparently it seems that there is no presence of Afghan army or ISAF in the vast area from where beturbanned goons are operating against Pakistain, about 37 security personnel were martyred in Chitral attack, which was first such attack and is a matter of great concern for us.
Replying to a question, he said there is a report that the beturbanned goons have attacked in Bajaur, but no casualty has so far been reported.
He said Dir is the most affected area of beturbanned goons' attacks and terrorist group decamped from Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... is involved in these attacks so that they can come to Swat via Dir. We strengthened all border check-posts and increased their numbers in Dir.
He said beturbanned goons have safe havens in Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. and there are no security forces in most of these areas of Afghanistan.
It seems the beturbanned goons are being supported locally and operating freely, he added.
He said Pakistain cannot launch operation across the border.
He said Pakistain took up the issue with the Afghan Army personnel and ISAF, but we did not see any effective operation in that area.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Investigations are still underway into the Oct, 18, 2007 Karsaz suicide kaboom but there is no headway, said Additional IGP Bloody Karachi, Saud Mirza here on Tuesday.
"Our senior coppers are investigating the case but so far we are clueless," he said while talking to media persons after funeral prayers of a Shaheed police constable Muhammad Hanif killed in encounter with robbers in DHA area on Monday afternoon.
At least 140 PPP supporters and activists were killed and another 140 injured in two bomb kabooms at the rally of Shaheed Mohatarma Benazir Bhutto when the rally was passing from Karsaz Road on October 18, 2007.
The chairperson of PPP had beat feet unhurt in that attack.
Mirza said this year proved to be very tough for the coppers as 49 from their ranks were killed and over 100 injured in fighting faceless myrmidons and outlaws in Sindh province compared to the previous year.
He said that 1,900 personnel of Sindh police have embraced martyrdom in line of duty since 1982. "It is the highest figure compared to other provinces in the country," he added.
To a question about equipment to police, the AIGP said that President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... has already approved a package to improve the position of Sindh Police and added that 15 APCs will be delivered to the department while an additional 11 will be received early next year.
About the compensation to the family of the Shaheed policeman, Muhammad Hanif, the AIGP said that under package announced in 2010, the Shaheed's family will be given Rs 2.2 million as cash reward and his son will be given job in the police department while the family could keep the house till the superannuation period of the Shaheed constable.
Earlier, AIGP Saud Mirza and other senior coppers in large number attended the funeral of the constable at Police Lines Garden.
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10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"Our senior coppers are investigating the case but so far we are clueless,"
Give the boys a break. They're still trying to figure out if Benazir Bhutto was whacked.
[Dawn] Pakistain will only hold peace talks with Taliban beturbanned goons if they lay down their arms first, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. said on Tuesday, after both sides signalled willingness to consider negotiations.
"The minimum agenda is that they give up arms and come forward and then there will be talks. But if they think they will keep Kalashnikovs in their hands and also hold talks, that will not happen," he told news hounds.
Both sides have indicated recently they were open to talks, but analysts are sceptical the Taliban will ultimately agree.
"The government is saying accept the constitution and lay down arms. But the cut-throats have other aims. They want to take over, gain power. They think negotiations are a joke," said security analyst Mahmood Shah.
"How can you talk to groups that don't even respect the concept of Pakistain, never mind laying down arms?"
The Tehrik-i-Taliban, or Taliban Movement of Pakistain (TTP), have been waging a campaign of attacks including suicide kabooms across the South Asian nation since 2007 in a bid to topple the government.
A series of army offensives against Pak Taliban strongholds along the rugged mountainous border with Afghanistan has failed to contain the group, which is close to al Qaeda and is the biggest security threat to Pakistain.
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10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The Ministry of Religious Affairs and the local Auqaf department are reluctant to take over the administrative control of mosques and religious seminaries in Islamabad due to their heavy liabilities in terms of unpaid utility bills and pays; insiders told Dawn on Monday.
The Senate standing committee on interior had decided to discuss the issue at a meeting to be held on Tuesday but it was postponed to October 25.
The sources said the minister for religious affairs was reluctant to take over the administrative charge of all the mosques in the federal capital which were at present under the supervision of the Auqaf department.
"It is not the duty of Auqaf department to look into the affairs of mosques and Madressahs, because it only deals with evacuated land and shrines," said an official of the local administration on condition of anonymity.
He said the local administration, which had limited funds to run its own affairs, was unable to meet the liabilities of mosques and Madressahs, including their unpaid utility bills running into millions of rupees.
The Senate committee, in its meeting on October 25, will also discuss issues relating to the exact number of mosques under the administrative control of Auqaf, criteria/procedure for the construction of new mosques, the role/responsibility of local administration in payment of the utility bills, and reasons for non-release of the Rs9 million electricity and Rs5.5 million gas arrears by the Ministry of Finance to the Auqaf department.
The committee will also discuss matters relating to Khateebs/Moazzans on the payroll of Auqaf, duration of their posting on the present positions/mosques with reasons/justification of the overstay, if any, along with the appointment, posting and transfer criteria/procedures, and facilities provided to them in terms of government accommodations or allotment of plots as compared to other employees of the Auqaf department.
It has been learnt that the urban or sectoral area of the federal capital has a total of 153 Madressahs but they all have been declared `unauthorised` after being built without approval of the authorities concerned.
"There are 153 Madressahs in the urban area of Islamabad and all are unauthorised as no permission was sought for their construction from the CDA," said an official of the civic agency.
He said there was a seminary attached with majority of the mosques despite the fact that even the authorised mosques had no such provision.
Under a recent survey jointly conducted by the CDA and the local administration/police; 76 mosques and 153 seminaries in different sectors have been declared `unauthorised`. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... the government seems helpless in taking action in this regard, sources in the local administration said.
The number of total mosques in both urban and rural areas of the federal capital is said to be over 600, while there are over 350 seminaries.
When over 70 mosques and 153 Madressahs have been established in violation of the government rules in the urban area of the capital, the number of such constructions in the rural area should be anybody`s guess.
"The survey has been conducted on the directives of the interior ministry to ascertain the number of unauthorised Mohammedan worship places and seminaries," an official of the local administration said. He said the role of the local administration in the survey was very small as it was actually conducted by CDA and the police.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... it seems impossible for the government to take any action against such mosques and seminaries amid intensified spate of terrorist attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain which is backed by most of the religious sects dominating in the capital.
When contacted, a bigwig of the CDA said a total of 276 mosques existed in the capital of which 220 were authorised while 56 built without permission from the CDA, local administration and police.
It has been learnt that unauthorised construction of mosques is again on the rise in Islamabad as a number of such worship places have been built in the recent past indicating that the authorities concerned were not making serious efforts to check their mushrooming growth, fearing reaction from the religious organizations.
Some of the mosques have been built within the last few months in Sector G-11 and G-10 right under the noses of the police and CDA.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan: It's not authorized for us to take over the mosques. But even if it were, we've invented this bogus story about not being able to pay their power bills.
What a load.
Posted by: American Delight ||
10/19/2011 6:23 Comments ||
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#2
"It's our country. We're sovereign. We can't afford to control it."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 11:01 Comments ||
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An unsuccessful suicide bomber released from prison as part of the deal to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli conscript, on Wednesday vowed to fulfil a childhood ambition by "sacrificing" her life for the Palestinian cause.
As she returned to her family home in northern Gaza, Wafa al-Bis said she would seize any opportunity to mount another suicide mission and encouraged dozens of cheering schoolchildren to follow her example.
Bis was one of hundreds of Palestinian militants freed by Israel on Tuesday in the first phase of a prisoner swap agreed with Hamas, Gaza's Islamist overlords, to win the freedom of Sgt Maj Shalit after five years in solitary confinement.
But as Israel celebrated the return of its captive soldier, her words will chill critics of the deal who argue that many of the 1,027 Palestinians who are to be released from prison will rededicate themselves to violence once they have been freed.
Bis was just 21 when, in 2005, she volunteered to undertake a suicide mission in Israel commissioned by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militant group that waged a campaign of violence during the Second Intifada. Her target, Israel says, was a hospital where she had been given permission to seek treatment for burns she sustained in a gas tank explosion. She never got there. Stopped by suspicious Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on Gaza's border, she was discovered with 22-lbs of explosives sewn into a belt inside her underwear. Bis tried to blow herself up but the detonator malfunctioned.
Biss was traveling to Beersheba's Soroka hospital for medical treatment in 2005 when Israeli soldiers at the Erez border crossing noticed she was walking strangely. They found 10 kilograms (22 lbs) of explosives had been sewn into her underwear.
A member of al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, Biss was sentenced to a 12-year term for planning to blow herself up.
AMMAN: Jordans King Abdallah on Tuesday issued directives to the newly-appointed head of the General Intelligence Department to support political reform and carry out modernization of the countrys top security apparatus.
Isn't the security intel chief supposed to follow the government line without being explicitly told to do so?
In a letter to Gen. Faisal Shoubaki, the monarch said the development process should find expression in showing due systematic and institutional respect for the countrys laws, human rights and personal freedoms.
Abdallah on Monday appointed Shoubaki as new intelligence chief in what appeared as a shakeup of the states top posts that also involved picking International Court of Justice judge, Awn Khasawneh as new prime minister.
The regional and local circumstances through which you take up the responsibility of this pioneering security establishment require the adoption of a national culture of openness, transparency and accountability, the king said, referring to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that inspired months of demonstrations in Jordan and other Arab countries. The monarch asked Khasawneh to open dialogue with all political parties and ensure the enactment of a new election law that leads to a lower house truly representative of the people.
Meanwhile, Jordans main opposition political party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), said Tuesday it was awaiting the program and composition of the new Cabinet to decide its stance on the change or any offers to join the new government.
The important thing is not who goes and who comes, but rather how the Cabinet is formed and what program it adopts, the IAF Secretary-General Hamzeh Mansour told Arab News.
For the past four years, Bakhit has been at loggerheads with the IAF and its mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which accused him of rigging the 2007 general elections to cripple the oppositions presence at the House of Representatives.
We want a program with a timetable for bringing the country out of its present crisis and returning back powers to the people, Mansour said.
Asked about the possibility of his party joining the new Cabinet, the IAF chief replied: The answer is neither yes nor no. Our stance will depend on the composition of the ministerial team and their action program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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JERUSALEM: A plan for settling thousands more Jews in a strategic part of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem has quietly cleared a key bureaucratic hurdle, threatening to cut a link between Jerusalem and the West Bank and endanger already slim peace prospects.
Hey Paleos: you might want to make peace before all the choice land is gone and you find yourselves living in Mauritania...
The proposed Givat Hamatos development would complete a Jewish band around a part of East Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital, complicating any future partition of the city.
"This is a game changer," Daniel Seidemann, a Jerusalem expert, said of Givat Hamatos. While relatively small in size, "this is a mega-settlement in terms of impact," he added.
The plan calls for about 2,600 apartments, including about 1,800 for Givat Hamatos and 800 for an expansion of Beit Safafa, an adjacent Palestinian neighborhood,
So both the Israelis and the Palestinians are to get more housing. Do the Palestinians not want more housing for themselves?
Seidemann said. Construction could begin by the second half of 2012, he said. Because of Israel's construction of a half-ring of Jewish enclaves in East Jerusalem, only a few land corridors are left between its core Arab neighborhoods and the West Bank.
Givat Hamatos would cut off one of the key remaining ones -- cutting off the area of Beit Safafa from the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
"It's another slap in the face of all those international efforts being made toward the resumption of a meaningful political process," Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said. "It's not only damaging to our own interests, it's damaging to all those who have a vested interest in a two-state solution," referring to a Palestinian state next to Israel.
The new building plan drew condemnation over the weekend from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Oh, they condemn everything. Carry on...
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Land grab? Inside the borders of their own country? Against squatters from Syria?
*Given to the Perfidious Albion by League of Nations to establish Jewish National home---not to reward one of their allied bedouin chieftains with a country of his own.
#5
I wonder how many rounds you can put through that thing before you need a barrel change?
In WWII, the Germans had water cooled MG that, in fighting the Russians, would boil off the water, so continuing to fire, one of the crewmen would put in handfuls of snow.
I would think about this when using an air cooled MG that needed its barrel swapped frequently.
#6
That $1700 "piece of metal" is a bit more than that. The article says that the chute assembly from the HMMWV's CROWS system is just being used here as a field expedient to deploy Ironman rapidly, while NSRDEC designs and tests a more permanent solution. Among other things, this means that there is a logistics chain in place to maintain the Ironman prototypes.
Here's more on the purpose of CROWS from a 2006 description:
The CROWS will provide the capability to remotely operate crew served weapons, improve system accuracy and operational response time by integrating state of the art drives, controls and sensors. ...
CROWS is mounted on High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) enables gunners to accurately engage targets viewed on a computer screen from the safety of their vehicle. CROWS allows Soldiers to operate successfully from within the safety of the Humvee's armor, without being exposed to the threat of improvised explosive devices and small-arms fire. The improved stable platform will support most crew-served weapons and contains a sensor suite and fire control software that allows on-the-move target acquisition and first-burst target engagement. CROWS can traverse 360 degrees and go 60 degrees up and 20 degrees down. The technology used on the CROWS is a variation of the remote-controlled crew-served weapons system already used on combat vehicles like the Bradley fighting vehicle and the M-1A1 Abrams tank
#9
The maker's of Predator as well as Jesse and Arnold have to be told about this. I do not care for either one's politics, but when you help inspire an idea that helps out the troops in combat, that increases their odds of surviving and winning shootouts, then a "tip of the hat" is justified.
Anyway, bringing in the celebrity angle will help get the troops who made the idea reality get some well deserved recognition.
HOOAH GUYS!!
Rifle308
European firms that play a key role in nuclear power and other critical industries have been targeted by a cyber espionage attack based on Stuxnet, the computer virus that was designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear programme.
Security engineers say it is likely the new variant, Duqu, was created by the same government agencies thought to be behind Stuxnet, an attack that heralded a new era of state conflict online.
But while Stuxnet was created to cause physical damage to Irans uranium enrichment facilities by surreptitiously adjusting machinery, Duqu is an intelligence-gathering tool.
The new virus precise targets have not been disclosed, but they include European firms that make the software that controls power stations and other industrial facilities. By infiltrating their computer networks, it aims to steal confidential information and potentially reveal vulnerabilities that could be exploited in later attacks.
Inside a target network Duqu seeks out sensitive documents and spies on network users activities, including the passwords they type into their keyboards. The information is then smuggled out, disguised as ordinary web picture traffic to circumvent security systems, to a command and control server located in India.
The designers of Stuxnet, the computer worm that was used to vandalize an Iranian nuclear site, may have struck again, security researchers say.
Stuxnet, which infected tens of thousands of computers in 155 countries last year, created an international sensation when experts reported that it was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage Siemens Corporation computers used in uranium enrichment at the Natanz site.
The researchers say the new malicious program, which they call Duqu, is intended to steal digital information that may be needed to mount another Stuxnet-like attack.
The researchers, at Symantec, announced the discovery on the companys Web site on Tuesday, saying they had determined that the new program was written by programmers who must have had access to Stuxnets source code, the original programming instructions.
Duqus purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party, the Symantec researchers said. The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.
They said the Duqu program was found in Europe in a narrowly limited group of organizations, including those involved in the manufacturing of industrial control systems.
Stuxnet, which infected tens of thousands of computers in 155 countries last year, created an international sensation when experts reported that it was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage Siemens Corporation computers used in uranium enrichment at the Natanz site.
The researchers say the new malicious program, which they call Duqu, is intended to steal digital information that may be needed to mount another Stuxnet-like attack.
The researchers, at Symantec, announced the discovery on the companys Web site on Tuesday, saying they had determined that the new program was written by programmers who must have had access to Stuxnets source code, the original programming instructions.
Duqus purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party, the Symantec researchers said. The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.
They said the Duqu program was found in Europe in a narrowly limited group of organizations, including those involved in the manufacturing of industrial control systems.
In contrast to Stuxnet, Duqu has been found in only a handful of organizations to date. The program is designed to last 36 days and then remove itself from the system it infected.
Like Stuxnet, Duqu tries to prove its authenticity by using a stolen digital certificate, this one apparently taken from a Taiwanese company. Symantec officials were able to revoke the security certificate after it was discovered stolen because the company owns the VeriSign authentication service that controls the certificate infrastructure.
The Symantec posting, and a related technical paper, raised a new mystery of its own. The company said it had been alerted to the new malware by a research lab with strong international connections, but declined to identify it further or say whether it was governmental or private.
According to Vikram Thakur of Symantec, the organization decided not to come forward because it wanted to protect the identity of the victim organization. The technical paper did include this comment from the team that apparently discovered the malware: As we are in academia, we have limited resources to analyze malware behavior.
Mr. Thakur added that in the two days since Symantec had received its initial malware sample, the security firm had received other variants of the program, which also appear to be aimed at makers of industrial control equipment.
The researchers identify a wide variety of similarities between Duqu and Stuxnet and said that the new program could not have been written without having access to the original programmers instructions. It has been previously noted that Stuxnet had both an attack capability as well as the ability to spy on the computers it infiltrated.
Security researchers have argued that the Stuxnet attackers were able to gather valuable intelligence information about the Iranian nuclear program as well as damage the control equipment at Natanz.
The Symantec researchers said they had not been able to determine how the Duqu code reached its target. Stuxnet used a wide range of system vulnerabilities, leading to speculation that it could have been written only by an organization with the resources of a national intelligence agency. Mr. Thakur said of Duqu, This is extremely sophisticated, this is cutting edge.
Terror suspect Umar Patek will return today to the sites in Bali where the bombs he made nine years ago killed more than 200 people. Patek, held in Jakarta since his extradition from Pakistan in August, has admitted to having built the bombs.
He will re-enact for police what he did during the final hours before the series of bombs were detonated on the night of October 12, 2002. As part of that re-enactment, he will be taken to the site where the Sari Club once stood. The nightclub was flattened when a car bomb was set off by a suicide bomber just outside.
He will show police where and how he and his co-conspirators finished the explosive devices used for the attacks, as investigators look to build up a case against him.
Patek arrived in Bali amid tight security yesterday, along with others already convicted in the 2002 attacks. Yesterday, a police spokesman said, "One of the locations he will be taken to tomorrow is ground zero."
Patek's arrival in Bali comes after he claimed that he had attempted to stop the nightclub attacks from going ahead. In comments published by the Jakarta Globe, Patek claimed he warned Bali bomb co-ordinator Imam Samudra to cancel the attack in favor of the jihad in Pakistan.
He told the newspaper, "I only advised him, but the planning for the Bali bombing was almost done and could not possibly be cancelled.
"I wanted to live and wage jihad in Afghanistan. It is a jihad area because Muslims have indisputably been colonised by America and NATO."
Investigators have cast doubt on these comments and contend that Patek was a central figure in the attack. Authorities have previously admitted their chances of pursuing a terrorism case against Patek are limited because the tough anti-terrorism laws introduced in Indonesia in 2003 cannot be applied retrospectively.
It is more likely he will be charged with premeditated murder and possession of explosives, as well as a number of other relatively minor offenses. The murder charges will probably extend to a series of bombings of churches in Indonesian cities on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Tehran has pointed the finger at a dissident group it considers a "sworn enemy" in an attempt to distance itself from US accusations that the Islamic regime in Iran conspired to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
"Wudn't us. Honest. Would we lie to you?"
Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported that one of the two suspects the US said were involved in a plot to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir is a "key member" of an Iranian dissident group, the People's Mujahideen of Iran (MEK).
"The person in question has been travelling to different countries under the names of Ali Shakuri/Gholam Shakuri/Gholam-Hossein Shakuri by using fake passports, including forged Iranian passports," according to Mehr
[Dawn] Turkey's foreign minister met members of Syria's newly-formed opposition National Council in the Turkish capital on Monday, a foreign ministry official said, the first time Turkey has acknowledged such a meeting with the council.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the members to work in a peaceful manner for democratic transformation in Syria.
Earlier this month, Syria warned it would retaliate against any country that formally recognises the National Council set up by opponents of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... The formation of the council has been welcomed by Western countries including the United States and La Belle France. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... unlike the transitional council set up by Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability has been an inspiration to dictators everywhere... , Western governments have not offered the SNC any formal recognition.
Turkey has allowed opponents of Assad to meet in Turkish cities since anti-government protests started in March and is also providing sanctuary to the most senior Syrian military officer to defect.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[An Nahar] Britannia's Treasury said Tuesday it had frozen the assets of five men in connection with the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Soddy Arabia's ambassador to the United States.
The finance ministry confirmed that it had acted under the Terrorist Asset Freezing Act, after ministers pledged action in response to the purported plan to kill Saudi envoy Adel Al-Jubeir in a kaboom.
Two men have been charged by U.S. authorities, who accused them of attempting to hire an alleged Mexican narco mob member to carry out the killing.
U.S. officials have described the plot as a clumsy but serious operation by Iran's elite foreign action unit, the Quds Force.
A front man for Britannia's Treasury, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with policy, said the ministry had imposed asset freezes against five men.
They include both men charged in the case -- Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old U.S. citizen who also holds an Iranian passport, and Gholam Shakuri, an alleged member of Iran's Quds Force, who is on the lam in Iran.
Britannia also froze the assets of three other men -- Hamed Abdollahi, a senior Quds officer alleged to have helped coordinate the plot, Abdul Reza Shahlai and Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds force who allegedly oversaw the plot.
The U.S. last week acted against the same five men.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons last week that the alleged plan "would appear to constitute a major escalation in Iran's sponsorship of terrorism outside its borders."
He said talks were ongoing between the United States, Britannia, Soddy Arabia and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... over whether to impose additional sanctions, which could include measures against Iran's regime, or specific entities.
"We are in close touch with the U.S. authorities and will work to agree an international response," Hague said.
U.S. President Barack B.O. Obama said last week that officials at the "highest levels" of the Iranian government must be held accountable.
Iran has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! any involvement in the alleged plot.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
ION NEWSMAX > IRAN'S NUCLEAR THREAT EMERGES FASTER THAN THOUGHT.
and
* TOPIX > IRAN COULD MAKE ATOMIC BOMB MATERIALS DESPITE HURDLES [centrifuge breakdown = defect].
As a reminder of the dangers POTUS Bammer may face going into the 2012 Elex iff war breaks out now or next year between US, Israel? versus Iran ...
* IIRC NEWSMAX > [Ronald Kessler] SECRET SERVICE COSTS-CUTTING LEAVES PRESIDENT VULNERABLE.
given
* RANTBURG > IRAN: ISLAMIC AWAKENING HAS REACHED THE US.
Many in Radical Islam already want the Bammer's head for the killing of Osama + general GWOT agz Islam, Muslims = IRAQ + AFPAK, etc.
Once again, ss I've said or inferred times before, THE MOST DANGEROUS PHASE/PERIOD/TIME OF THE GWOT LIES AHEAD OF US, NOT BEHIND US [2010-2020/2025].
The US may be seemingly winning all the battles, but it hasn't yet won the war; Radical Islam is seemingly losing all the battles, but isn't defeated yet + is actually trying to expand jihad + go nukulaar [nuclear = nucweaps].
* MAD MULLAHS, etal. > "ISLAM WILL RULE THE WORLD, OR ISLAM WILL BE DESTROYED".
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.
l-Shabaab.png)
Hoisting homemade wooden crosses and gruesome photographs of bodies they said were crushed by tanks, hundreds of Coptic Christians rallied in front of the White House Wednesday to protest rising violence against minority Christians in Egypt and demand that the Obama administration put pressure on Cairo to protect their rights.
Hillary Clinton
David Cameron
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pevez 
[Dawn] Prime Minister 
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
Investigations are still underway into the Oct, 18, 2007 Karsaz 
Asif Ali 
[Dawn] The Ministry of Religious Affairs and the local Auqaf department are reluctant to take over the administrative control of mosques and religious seminaries in Islamabad due to their heavy liabilities in terms of unpaid utility bills and pays; insiders told Dawn on Monday.
JERUSALEM: A plan for settling thousands more Jews in a strategic part of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem has quietly cleared a key bureaucratic hurdle, threatening to cut a link between Jerusalem and the West Bank and endanger already slim peace prospects.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
