[ARABNEWS] The recent attempts of the terrorist organization, Daesh, to expand its influence in the war-torn Libya or the Arab inaction toward the constant collapse of the North African country might not have surprised anybody.
The situation in Libya has gone from bad to worse in full view of the entire world. It was obvious that the mixture of chaos, proliferation of weapons and the political, tribal and factional infighting would repeat the Somalia or Afghanistan scenario and allow for the expansion of Al-Qaeda and Daesh or any other terrorist group.
In fact, this has been the case in Iraq, Syria and though differently, in Yemen. The Arab reaction to the deteriorating situation in Libya was not unexpected. Statements condemning the turmoil were issued and useless meetings were held as Libya fell victim to a debilitating power struggle and became an easy target for myrmidons. It has become habitual for Arabs to do nothing concrete in the face of danger. And regional crises have been dealt with by referring them to a UN envoy to absolve the Arab League
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] Two hundred years ago this month, at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat at the hands of an allied army, led by the Duke of Wellington, reshaped Europe's future. Britannia may now be poised to do so once again.
The United Kingdom, whose new majority Conservative government has pledged to hold a referendum on European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... membership by the end of 2017, perhaps even next year, is not the outlier that it is often portrayed as being. Indeed, it is at the vanguard of the EU's institutional atrophy. Even if it does retain its EU membership, the UK will continue to move steadily away from Europe. With more attractive commercial opportunities elsewhere, most European countries will follow suit.
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Wellington was once at an official ceremony when the French soldiers turned their backs to him. A woman said, "They've turned their backs!". Wellington said, "Madam, I have seen their backs before".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/13/2015 18:55 Comments ||
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[ARABNEWS] The recently concluded general elections proved to be a major turning point in the Turkish political history. The Justice and Development Party or AK party, which had been ruling the roost for the past 13 years once again emerged victorious with one difference -- for the first time in 13 years it lost majority in the Parliament.
This means that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... will have a coalition government after over a decade. Coalition governments in Turkey have always been marked by political instability; therefore, one could say that the people in Turkey are not very fond of such a setup.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... it would be more accurate to ascribe the instability of coalitions, not to their nature per se, but to the errors in the predominant mindset in the country -- democratic weaknesses and the influence of the secret state apparatus. These 13 years of stability in Turkey changed many things in that sense. The influence of the secret state apparatus came to an end and Turkey realized it was sufficiently mature and strong as a state to survive on its own. There could now be no going back. It is time for Turkey to move ahead.
The main reason for the AK party's loss, as the public opinion polls show, was the talk of the presidential system. The insistence on demanding a US-type system of governance created serious public concern. The presidential system inevitably leads to federation. And while federation may not represent a problem for different countries in different regions, it is not considered good for Turkey because in the southeast of Turkey is the PKK, a communist terror organization that has been awaiting federation for the last 40 years. Having failed to break Turkey up with terror attacks, the organization is now trying to achieve it through other means and has long been striving for autonomy.
It plays the Kurdish cards despite having no interest in Kurdish nationalism and oppresses the Kurdish people living in the area. The aim of this organization is to enter the Turkish Parliament in the form of a legal party and dominate the southeast through an illegal state structure. If the Turkish republic were divided up into federations, the PKK, which dominates the region through pressure and threats, would almost have achieved its aim. That fact caused the Turkish people to panic and to exhibit no tolerance for talk of a presidential system. The only way of obstructing Erdogan's insistence on a presidential system was to vote for the HDP, the party best suited to crossing the 10 percent threshold.
The problem is that despite all its liberal views, the importance it attaches to women's rights and moderate policies, the HDP is backed by the PKK. Party members and leaders are also threatened by the PKK, and it -- willingly or otherwise -- stands as a "legal party representing the PKK" in the Parliament behind closed doors. Were it not for the fact that it is backed by the PKK, the party could become an important component of our democracy and enjoyed even greater support. But the backing of the PKK serves only to portray the HDP as a threat.
By the time you read this, a new government in Turkey may already have been formed, or maybe the negotiations will still be continuing. Early election will serve no purpose unless the mentality changes, and the number of votes going to the AK party may decline still further. A minority government is also risky in terms of an opposition majority. It will be exceedingly hard to get decision and bills through the Parliament and the chances of stability will decrease. The most stable path is clearly a coalition. The best candidate is the MHP, a nationalist party determined to make no concessions to the PKK. It is essential for the MHP to be part of the government and also for it to be given the interior ministry. If that is done, the heavy responsibility incumbent on the AK party due to the grinding of the peace processor will be somewhat lightened and since the PKK is aware of the MHP's determined stance it will be unable to maintain its dominance in the southeast.
Let us remember that if the PKK grows stronger in the region and lays the foundation for a communist state in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, that will result in a terrible scourge, not just on Turkey, but on all the Middle East and then the entire world. Turkey must therefore take the threat seriously. The West is only now coming to understand Turkey's position, a country that was accused of not helping the PKK over Kobani. An article written by Jamie Dettmer in the Daily Beast titled, "Town the US helped save, now run by terrorists" is a good example of this.
Dettmer explicitly wrote that it was not in fact Kurdish fighters who were helped by the coalition forces in Kobani, but PKK hard boyz who oppress their own people.
It is essential that a new government to be installed in Turkey attend to this threat. We need a government that stands against division, lifts the PKK pressure on the Kurds in the southeast and even on the HDP and completely eliminates the communist terror threat from the region and the country. What we need are parties that support one another for the sake of the country as a whole, rather than fighting among themselves. Coalition traditions must be cast aside, recriminations must be forgotten and a strong alliance that ensures greater stability in the Middle East should be established. That is what Turkey, and also the Middle East so drenched in blood need.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Whatever kill the most muslim-communists is fine with me...
Posted by: Herman Snoque9573 ||
06/13/2015 1:13 Comments ||
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#2
Erdogan will adopt the obooboo method: What you can't win at the ballot box, you just take. Popcorn...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/13/2015 8:34 Comments ||
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#3
So this guy is saying everyone voted against Erdogan to keep the PKK from gaining power?
#4
Bottom line: Bigoterd Turks who treat the Kurds like a permanent underclass are scared shitless of the Kurds separating. Because the Kurdis regions happen to have a lot of natural resources that the Tuks extract (using cheap Kurd labor kept cheap by discrimination) and sell to those resources to the benefit of the Turks, and not that of the locals (Kurds).
#5
The Turks should be afraid. After Erdogan sacking every competent officer in the military, they wouldn't be able to hold eastern turkey. Granted the kurdish wouldn't either without weapons and training, which Obama won't give.
Posted by: Charles ||
06/13/2015 19:29 Comments ||
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#6
Thats one of the reasons Obama will not arm the Kurds. The other is NW Iran is Kurdish majority, and ValJar would never let her masters in Tehran down.
Where in the U.S. are UFO sightings most common? What shapes do these unidentified objects usually take? What time of day do we typically notice them? Datavisualization expert John Nelson combined census data with nearly 90 years of statistics, compiled by the National UFO Reporting Center, to find out.
“Of course, as is the case for any observation data, there is a strong tendency towards echoing a population map,” Nelson writes on his blog. “This is certainly the case with this sighting data, as well. In order to visualize the actual sighting phenomenon, I needed to normalize by the underlying population.”
#3
Of course they see more UFO's. If you don't know how to identify them, they're by default unidentified. Right?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/13/2015 17:58 Comments ||
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#4
Well plain fact is that finding a decent cut of cube steak is difficult to find the further east you go, and the breaking technique is trickier than it might at first appear. Still, it's Gawds own dinner.
[DAWN] THE figure given by the DG Rangers on the amount of money being generated in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... through activities like extortion, smuggling, water and land mafias is staggering.
According to an official statement, the DG Rangers told the Sindh apex committee at its last meeting that more than Rs230bn are generated annually from criminal activities in the city of Karachi.
It is not clear how this figure has been arrived at, but media reports from last year gave a similar number.
The facts carried in the statement issued by the Rangers are widely known, so a few questions naturally arise.
Is the ambit of the Karachi operation about to widen beyond apprehending criminals and terrorists? And if the Rangers are preparing the ground to attack the nexus between politics and crime that is such a defining feature of the city's landscape, do they have a clear endgame in mind?
The statement emphasises the links between political parties and criminal activity, but something is strangely missing.
For example, consider the emphasis placed on smuggled Iranian fuel as one of the top four rackets in the city. How does this fuel cross the country's borders that are manned by the armed forces, either Coast Guard or FC?
Why are terror groups with a base in the city absent from the list of participants in these rackets? What about religious seminaries built on encroached land?
Ultimately, the city's peace can only be secured with proper governance that addresses the root causes of violence like poor land supply and informal land titles, and that is something the Rangers cannot do.
The neutrality of the operation is also crucial to safeguard, and the selective list of those participating in these rackets is likely to fuel perceptions that the operation is not being conducted in an even-handed manner.
Reading the statement, one gets the impression that the only problem in the city is the politicians, which may have some truth to it, but it is important to underline that politicians and political parties are not the only organised interests with roots in the city's rackets.
The nexus identified by the Rangers certainly needs to be dismantled, but that measure will lead to peace only when the nexus is replaced by a properly running city administration. It would inspire more confidence if one knew what plan the Rangers have to accomplish that.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ARABNEWS] Two hundred years ago this month, at the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat at the hands of an allied army, led by the Duke of Wellington, reshaped Europe's future. 
Where in the U.S. are UFO sightings most common? What shapes do these unidentified objects usually take? What time of day do we typically notice them? Datavisualization expert John Nelson combined census data with nearly 90 years of statistics, compiled by the National UFO Reporting Center, to find out. 
