BAMAKO (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen killed three Guinean members of a U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Mali in what the force described as a robbery gone wrong, far from the northern area where troops have been attacked by insurgents.
The peacekeepers were in a rental vehicle on their way to return to Guinea for leave when they were stopped 44 kilometers (27 miles) southwest of Bamako on Friday night, the mission, known as MINUSMA, said.
U.N. peacekeepers and French forces are stationed in central and northern Mali to combat well armed jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State seen as threatening security across Africa’s Sahel region.
A MINUSMA spokesman said that the attack was a botched robbery, which would distinguish it from targeted attacks by jihadists using mortars and mines in the north of the country that have made Mali the deadliest U.N. mission with more than 160 peacekeepers killed.
[PULSE.NG] An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced two monks to death over the murder of a bishop, a judicial source said, in a case that shocked the Middle East's largest Christian community.
Coptic Bishop Epiphanius was found dead with a head wound in July at the Saint Macarius monastery in the plains of Wadi al-Natrun, northwest of Cairo.
Prosecutors said one of the monks Isaiah confessed to striking the abbot with a metal bar as the second monk Philotheos kept watch.
The authorities blamed the killing on unspecified "differences" between the two monks, one of whom was later defrocked, and the bishop.
The sentence against the two monks was referred to Egypt's Grand Mufti.
The country's top theological authority is required by law to give its legally non-binding opinion in cases of capital punishment.
The defendants can appeal the verdict after the Mufti gives an opinion and the ruling is officially issued on April 24.
In the wake of the bishop's killing, Egypt's Coptic Church placed a one-year moratorium on accepting new monks.
It also banned monks from social media, tightened financial controls and refocused attention on spiritual life.
Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Moslem population of 100 million.
The country's vast desert is home to some of Christianity's most ancient monasteries.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
I suspect Egyptian Copts & Muslims will agree on this issue.
[The Hill] Bolton scraps plans to visit South Korea 'to focus on events in Venezuela.
President Trump's national security adviser John Bolton has reportedly canceled a planned trip to South Korea in order to address the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela.
A spokesman for the National Security Council told The Hill in an email on Saturday that Bolton would not take his scheduled trip next week to South Korea in order to "focus on events in Venezuela."
The spokesman added that Bolton would still attend the upcoming summit between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam.
"Ambassador Bolton has canceled his travel to the Republic of Korea to focus on events in Venezuela," said Garrett Marquis, according to CNN.
Venezuela's escalating political crisis reached new heights on Friday after two indigenous people were reportedly killed by Venezuelan military forces at one of the country's border checkpoints with Brazil. The country has seen sweeping protests in an effort to pressure President Nicolás Maduro to step down.
#2
The communist government in Venezuela will fall. Then they will become the rebels in the hills again. The new government will be much more successful in every way if it doesn't have a "Yanqui Installed" sign hanging around its neck...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 10:02 Comments ||
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#3
if it doesn't have a "Yanqui Installed" sign hanging around its neck...
the way Trump would've been more successful if he wasn't accused of being Russia installed?
[ELUNIVERSAL] "Humanitarian aid is definitely on its way to Venezuela peacefully and calmly to save lives at this time," said the sworn-in president in charge.
The aid donated by the United States and its allies "is on the way" to Venezuela, announced this Saturday the chief legislative, Juan Guaidó, which began an operational complex to bring assistance in trucks from the border with Colombia, defying the Blockade of the Chavez government.
[ELUNIVERSAL] The legislative head pointed out that "humanitarian aid is definitely on its way to Venezuela in a peaceful and calm way to save lives at this moment"
[ELUNIVERSAL] The president of the AN, Juan Guaidó, had announced minutes before the aid trucks from Colombia were already in Venezuelan territory, but that they were being held
UPDATE One of the humanitarian aid trucks has just been lit on fire on the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge between Colombia and Venezuela. Our WCK team is safe in Cúcuta and not on the bridge. #Venezuela#AyudaHumanitariapic.twitter.com/ahsqn8lMZV
[ELUNIVERSAL] Guaidó confirmed through a press conference that they are "massacring" the town of Santa Elena de Uairén. Irregulars fire guns, but part of the humanitarian aid has already entered that city
[ELUNIVERSAL] Military and Venezuelan policemen threw tear gas and rubber shot at the demonstrators, leaving about six injured by the impact of the artifacts on the Simón Bolívar and Santander bridges
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[ELUNIVERSAL] Sixty uniformed Venezuelans have defected and crossed into Colombia this Saturday, the Colombian immigration authority reported in the midst of an escalation of tensions over the announced entry of essential aid to Venezuela.
They are "60 members of the different Armed Forces of Venezuela (who) have fled the dictatorship of Maduro by Norte de Santander and Arauca, during today," said Migración Colombia in a statement.
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#1
Keeping the military fed no matter how hungry the populace might be is a staple of running a military dictatorship. When you can't do that it's game over.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 3:55 Comments ||
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#2
Keep the loyal troops close to the flag pole and you lose the questionable troops who will desert at the borders. Keep the questionable troop close to home and put the loyal troops on the borders and you risk a coup. It's sort of easier when you are literally an island. Something else when you have lots of borders.
[DAILYCALLER] The first shipment of humanitarian aid crossed the border from Brazil to Venezuela Saturday, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido said, but getting aid to the people of Venezuela continues to be beyond difficult.
"This is a great accomplishment, Venezuela!" Guaido wrote on Twitter Saturday.
Guaido, the 35-year-old president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself the country’s interim leader in January as conditions deteriorated under socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro Venezuela's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy... Guaido’s supporters are trying to bring aid shipments from Colombia and Brazil into Venezuela, but Maduro’s troops are blocking trucks both coming and going along parts of the border. Video footage from Friday showed Venezuelan soldiers erecting barricades and brawling with Guaido’s supporters to keep trucks from exiting the country to collect aid.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... some soldiers posted on the Venezuelan border defected from Maduro’s control. A social media video appears to show four soldiers denouncing Maduro and supporting Guaido, who promised them "amnesty," reported BBC.
Guaido was in Colombia Saturday seeing off shipments of aid to Venezuela with Colombian president Ivan Duque, reported CBS News. Thousands of volunteers will help get the aid into Venezuela, he said according to BBC.
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#UPDATE: #Russia state TV issues a threat to the #US, "if you dont want nuclear subs armed with hypersonic cruise missiles at your door step, dont deploy missiles in Europe". They also stated they could destroy #US command centers within 5 minutes. -Gage http://t.co/F9flZgteWK
[AsiaOne] North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... told the US Secretary of State he did not want his children to live with the burden of nuclear weapons, a former CIA officer involved in high-level diplomacy over the North's weapons was quoted as saying on Saturday (Feb 23).
Mr Kim made the rare personal comments to Mr Mike Pompeo during a visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in April last year to lay the groundwork for the historic first summit between the North's leader and US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... in June in Singapore, former CIA official Andrew Kim said, South Korea's Yonhap news agency and the Wall Street Journal reported.
"'I'm a father and a husband. And I have children,'" Mr Andrew Kim quoted the North Korean leader as telling Mr Pompeo, when asked whether he was willing to end his nuclear programme.
"'And I don't want my children to carry the nuclear weapon on their back their whole life.' That was his answer," Mr Andrew Kim told a lecture on Friday at Stanford University's Asia Pacific Research Centre, where he is a visiting scholar.
Before he retired from the CIA, Mr Kim established the agency's Korea Mission Centre, in April 2017, and accompanied Mr Pompeo - who was then CIA director - to Pyongyang last year.
In their Singapore summit, Mr Kim and Mr Trump pledged to work towards peace between their countries and for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
But little progress has been made since then and they are set to meet again in Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday.
They are expected to focus on what steps North Korea might take towards denuclearisation, in exchange for what US concession.
The former CIA officer said the North Korean leader expressed a strong desire to improve ties with the United States as a way to build confidence between them, which he said was needed to end the nuclear weapons programme.
The North Korean leader left Pyongyang by train for his visit to Vietnam on Saturday afternoon, Russia's TASS news agency reported on Saturday citing a North Korean diplomatic source.
North Korea's state media has yet to confirm either Mr Kim's trip to Vietnam or his summit with Mr Trump.
SEOUL/HANOI (Reuters) - North Korea on Sunday confirmed for the first time that its leader, Kim Jong Un, will hold a second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, days ahead of the high-stakes nuclear meeting in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi.
Kim left Pyongyang by train on Saturday afternoon for the Feb. 27-28 summit accompanied by senior North Korean officials as well as his influential sister, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency and its Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.
Trump and Kim will meet in Hanoi eight months after their historic summit in Singapore, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader, where they pledged to work toward the complete denaturalization of the Korean peninsula.
With little progress since then, the two leaders are expected to focus on what elements of North Korea’s nuclear program it might begin to give up, in exchange for U.S. concessions.
[Prairie Farmer] China is proposing that it could buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn and wheat as part of a possible trade deal being negotiated by the two countries, according to people with knowledge of the plan.
The offer to buy the extra farm produce would be part of the memoranda of understanding under discussion by U.S. and Chinese negotiators in Washington, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are confidential. The purchases would be on top of pre-trade war levels and continue for the period covered by the memoranda, they said.
As part of the talks, officials are also planning to discuss removing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on distillers dried grains, a by-product of corn ethanol production that’s used in animal feed, people said earlier. Soybeans, corn and wheat futures prices rose in Chicago in response to the news.
China has repeatedly offered to increase purchases of agricultural and energy products to shrink the U.S. trade deficit. Since a tariff truce agreed in December, it has resumed imports of some farm goods including soybeans and President Donald Trump this week said "a lot of" corn would be next on Beijing’s shopping list.
[NYP] Diamond dealers on 47th Street are hitting rock bottom ‐ and it’s all millennials’ fault.
The twenty-and thirty-somethings are turning to the Internet to buy engagement rings, squeezing gem sellers in the Diamond District, where empty storefronts and booths are multiplying.
"Everybody’s leaving. There’s no business," said Michael Abramov, who runs Abramov Jewelry with his brother, Albert. "The whole street is bad."
Young customers are less into formal fashion statements and not as likely to be impressed by a five-figure slice of ice.
"This generation is a more minimalist generation," said Ray Moses, who works in the business his father started in 1969, Ben Moses Fine Jewelry Designer.
"They don’t dress," said Mascha Seiden, who runs Paul Seiden Jeweler and has been on 47th Street since the 1950s.
Instead of roaming from shop to shop, buyers peruse Web sites like Blue Nile where they can chose from a variety of shapes, sizes and settings with the finished product delivered to their doors.
#4
And let's not forget the diamond business is just one more racket. Despite what you might read about "loose diamonds" in spy novels, just go try to sell one and see for yourself.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 4:49 Comments ||
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#5
The expanded version of the comment at #4 may also include the comments at numbers 1 and 3.
#6
You can go on etsy.com and find great handmade jewelry with real diamonds for spectacular prices. Plus, you support the person who made the product. Why give your money to jewelry store-owning leeches?
I got my wedding ring for $49. Fine-looking, engraved with our names, tungsten carbide, the same material they make drill bits out of so it's unscratchable. Except by my wife's diamond.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/24/2019 8:14 Comments ||
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#7
Diamonds are only valued because so many idiots want to pay extravagantly for them. Weddings & pickup trucks now seem to be more expensive now than down payments on houses.
[AlAhram] Yellow vest protesters erupted into the streets across La Belle France on Saturday for a 15th straight weekend of demonstrations, trying to re-energize supporters while tamping down on the violence and anti-Semitism in the movement's ranks.
Hundreds gathered at the Arc de Triomphe monument in Gay Paree for a march through well-off neighborhoods to protest government policies they see as favoring the rich. It was among many rallies and marches planned around Gay Paree and in other cities.
Five separate demonstrations were organized in the French capital.
Support for the movement has ebbed in recent weeks as it has splintered and outbreaks of violence continue. Online announcements for Saturday's marches appealed for peaceful action, and one of the weekend protests aimed to stand up against anti-Semitism.
The krazed killer views of some protesters erupted in a torrent of anti-Semitic insults hurled at noted philosopher Alain Finkielkraut on the sidelines of last weekend's Gay Paree protest. The assault came days after the French government reported a huge rise in incidents of anti-Semitism last year.
A few hundred yellow vest protesters made the most of the sunny weather to gather at the Chambord Castle in central La Belle France for a picnic while activists reportedly blocked access to an Amazon platform in the southwestern city of Toulouse ...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France... Local authorities in Clermont-Ferrand urged citizens to postpone their journeys to the central French city, where hundreds of yellow vest protesters gathered. The prefecture said police tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! 13 people _ including seven who were placed in jug _ and seized weapons including baseball bats and alarm pistols.
The yellow vest movement was named after the fluorescent garments French motorists must carry in their vehicles for emergencies. The protests started in November to oppose fuel tax hikes but have expanded into a broader public rejection of French President Emmanuel Macron's economic policies, which protesters say favor businesses and the wealthy over ordinary French workers.
The 15th consecutive yellow vest protests were relatively peaceful compared to previous weeks. Some 46,000 people nationwide joined the protests, a figure slightly higher than last weekend.
Five separate demonstrations in the capital drew 5,800 people, the interior ministry said, while there were around 46,600 protesters nationwide. Some 41,500 people joined protests across the country last week.
The protests ‐ named after the fluorescent jackets French motorists must carry in their vehicles for emergencies ‐ have generally become smaller since December when there was vandalism and looting in Gay Paree.
Protest organizers have sought to keep momentum behind an increasingly splintered movement and bouts of violence that threatened to tarnish its image.
DOZENS OF ARRRESTS
Police said 28 people were tossed in the calaboose Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in Gay Paree, where protests were mostly peaceful. As they ended, festivities broke out and police fired tear gas at protesters on the Place du Trocadero across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
Another 18 people were also arrested in the central city of Clermont-Ferrand, where 2,500 participated in protests that led to festivities with police. Weapons including baseball bats and gas pistols were among the items seized, police said.
In the western city of Rennes, 18 people were arrested, six coppers slightly injured and six protesters hurt by riot control pellets.
[DAWN] A woman and a five-year-old girl were killed during firing in the air and more than 140 people were injured in the garrison city on Friday as people celebrated basant despite the ban on kite flying.
Kaleem Ahmed, a resident of Bara Kahu said he had come to Sadiqabad with his family to see his ailing mother in-law. He said his five-year-old daughter Urwa was playing with other children on the roof of the house when she was hit in the head by a stray bullet.
“We did not realise she had been hit by a bullet and we took her to the hospital thinking she was unconscious because she had fallen down. Doctors at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) told us she was killed by a bullet in her head,” he told Dawn.
He said he had declined to register a case.
A woman, Shamim, the daughter of Latif, was killed after being hit by a stray bullet in the limits of the Waris Khan police station, which led to the suspension of the station house officer.
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[PULSE.NG] Ninety-eight workers have died and at least 200 others have been hospitalised in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, officials said Saturday, in the latest case of alcohol poisoning in the country.
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[MAIL] Controversial electric shock treatment for severe depression could cause permanent brain damage and ’should be stopped’, a leading psychologist has claimed.
A review of ten NHS mental health trusts, carried out by Professor John Read from the University of East London, has revealed that one patient in three is given electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, without their consent.
Prof Read’s Freedom of Information requests also showed a third of NHS trusts were failing to recognise adverse effects, which include long-term memory loss.
More than 5,000 British psychiatric patients receive ECT each year and in the wake of the findings, experts are now calling for a urgent review of the therapy, which they say offers no long-term benefits.
Now one mental health patient, a former paediatrician, has told The Mail on Sunday that she was given 21 sessions of ECT in a single year ‐ almost double the maximum number recommended ‐ in an attempt to treat her crippling depression. Dr Sue Cunliffe, 52, claims the treatment left her plagued by constant confusion and memory loss, while loud, bustling environments often leave her so ’disorientated she was ’unable to function’.
While now, 14 years on, her symptoms have mostly faded, they persisted for several years following the electric shock therapy.
The mother-of-three from Worcestershire, who has now been forced to abandon her career, said: ’By the time I finished ECT I was left with an inability to recognise faces, my hands shook uncontrollably and I couldn’t walk in a straight line. I fell over repeatedly and couldn’t walk through doors without bumping into the frames. My speech was slurred and I had word- finding problems. It took me three years to learn to read again.’
#3
....treatment left her plagued by constant confusion and memory loss, while loud, bustling environments often leave her so ’disorientated she was ’unable to function’.
Proves absolutely nothing. I've got all of that and more. I've never had an ECT treatment, that I can remember.
#4
ECT is only claimed to be effective in about half of the cases of severe depression for which it is prescribed. Memory loss and confusion are known side effects, especially immediately following treatment.
Sadly, trailing daughter #1 is among the 50% for which it did not work.
The current version is much milder and more targetted than what was formerly used, and I understand that even more refined treatments are being tested, as well as new drug treatments. But the NHS does not have the funding to pursue more modern treatments when older, cheaper treatments work well enough for the general run of patient — who anyway does not know enough to complain about the options on offer.
This really — though the Daily Mail and Professor John Read from the University of East London are either unaware or or refusing to contemplate the possibility — an indictment of Britain’s National Health Service approach to health care: uncaring or overworked doctors improperly prescribing known-to-be risky treatments without bothering to pay attention to the impact on an individual patient, resulting in patients who lives are utterly destroyed, or sending patients home with aspirin only to have them die of whatever condition the doctor missed, whether cancer or appendicitis. Dr. Sue Cunkiffe, 52, is lucky she merely had to accept she would never be able to practice her profession again after spending three years relearning how to read — there are endless reports of patients of all ages dying because the NHS medical professionals didn’t bother to look closely at individual patients or follow up on diagnoses and treatments.
[PULSE.NG] NASA on Friday gave SpaceX the green light to test a new crew capsule by first sending an unmanned craft with a life-sized mannequin to the International Space Station.
"We're go for launch, we're go for docking," said William Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator with NASA Human Exploration and Operations.
A Falcon 9 rocket from the private US-based SpaceX is scheduled to lift off, weather permitting, on March 2 to take the Crew Dragon test capsule to the ISS.
NASA signed contracts in 2014 with SpaceX and Boeing for the companies to shuttle US astronauts to the ISS.
This will be the first time the US space agency lets a private-sector company transport their astronauts.
NASA ended its space-shuttle program in 2011 and since then has relied on buying spots on Russian Soyuz rockets to send US astronauts to the orbiting ISS.
"This is an absolutely critical first step that we do as we move towards returning the crewed launch capability back here to the US," said Gerstenmaier, speaking at a presser in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The March 2 flight will be identical to a flight that is set to take two astronauts to the ISS later in the year, possibly in July.
The Crew Dragon capsule has seven seats. It should dock with the ISS on March 3, then detach and return to Earth on March 8.
"I guarantee everything will not work exactly right, and that's cool, that's exactly what we want to do," said Gerstenmaier.
"We want to maximize our learning so when... we're ready to go do a real crewed mission, and it'll be the right safety for our crews."
SpaceX has already made more than a dozen unmanned trips since 2012 carrying supplies to the ISS with the cargo version of the Dragon capsule.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Considering NASA's previous treatment of SpaceX and it's love affair with Soyuz, the headline should read "NASA Gaslights SpaceX"
#2
Fred great choice of Space 1999 picture! Although the show crashed or blew up several every episodes. Guess they had a huge machine shop on the moon LOL.
#1
Circa not too distant future: "First thing we do when we come is "blank" the place. The blanker uses AI to force its way onto the house's router. Takes 3-5 seconds at most. The big AI boosters never saw that one coming. Then we can just make it seem like everyone's asleep or make the home assistants hear whatever we want 'em to. Then we do whatever we came to do. On the way out the door, you push another button, and the blanker cleans up all the logs and away we go."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 3:42 Comments ||
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#2
Or the flip side of blank. Have every Alexa Moral AI call the police randomly every few seconds. The police will shut it off on their end.
#3
I was listening to a ghost story on YouTube a few weeks ago. I played the sound on my stereo. Alexa made some really spooky comments at a couple of tense points, made me jump.
[PULSE.NG] Dozens of protesters rallied in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Saturday, calling on the government to recognise civil marriages carried out on home soil.
The demonstrators gathered in front of Leb's interior ministry, days after recently-appointed Interior Minister Raya al-Hasan said she is willing to engage in "serious and profound dialogue" over the issue.
The minister's comments prompted a backlash from religious bodies, including the highest Sunni authority in Leb, and stirred debate on social media.
Leb has 15 separate personal status laws for its recognised religions but no civil code covering issues such as marriage.
Many Lebanese couples travel to neighbouring Cyprus to tie the knot in a civil ceremony, because Lebanese authorities recognise such unions only if they have been registered abroad.
Hasan, the first female interior minister in Leb and the Arab world, touched on the issue of civil unions in an interview with Euronews last week.
She said she would "personally endorse" attempts to establish a framework to govern civil marriages in Leb.
"I will try to open the door for serious and profound dialogue on this issue with all religious authorities and others, with the support of Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. ," she said.
Dar al-Fatwa, the highest Sunni authority in Leb, issued a response the day after Hasan's interview was published, saying it "categorically rejects" civil unions conducted on Lebanese soil.
Such unions "violate the provisions of Islamic law" and "contravene the provisions of the Lebanese constitution" regarding the authority of religious courts over personal status issues, it said.
The highest Shiite authority in the country also expressed opposition.
"The Lebanese constitution recognises that every sect has its own personal status laws," deputy head of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council said Friday.
"We strongly oppose civil marriage because it violates the constitution," he said.
The head of Leb's Maronite church, Beshara Rai, however, said he was "not against civil unions" conducted on Lebanese territory.
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For the first time in nearly 17 years, bright blue Union Jack flags commemorating a pivotal World War II battle will again fly high on Navy ships -- a move meant to symbolize U.S. naval might as adversaries pose new threats across the globe.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson announced the change to the Navy's official maritime flag on Thursday. The blue Union Jack flag, which features 50 white stars representing each state, will return to jackstaffs on June 4 in honor of the historic Battle of Midway.
"Make no mistake: we have entered a new era of competition," Richardson said in a statement. "We must recommit to the core attributes that made us successful at Midway: integrity, accountability, initiative and toughness."
The Union Jack will officially replace the First Navy Jack, the service's current maritime flag that features red and white stripes with a rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread on Me." Navy ships began flying that flag in place of the Union Jack on Sept. 11, 2002, while fighting the Global War on Terror.
Sailors around the world will raise the Union Jack on all Navy ships at morning colors on June 4, according to Navy administrative message 039/19, which was signed by Richardson and details the changes.
There's just one exception: Only the Navy's oldest deployable warship -- the amphibious-command ship Blue Ridge -- will be allowed to fly the First Navy Jack.
"The Navy will reestablish the custom in which the commissioned ship in active status having the longest total period in active status, other than USS Constitution, will display the First Navy Jack until decommissioned or transferred to inactive status," Richardson wrote.
A version of the Union Jack first flew in 1777 and was updated with new white stars as more states joined the union. It symbolizes "the cumulative strength of our nation and of our Navy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts," Richardson said.
Displaying the flag is also a nod to the sea service's rich heritage.
"A version of the Union Jack flew when Commodore [Matthew] Perry formally established relations with the Empire of Japan. A version of the Union Jack flew in harbors around the world as the Great White Fleet circumnavigated the globe. A version of the Union Jack flew in ports throughout the Pacific as the Navy island-hopped its way across the vast ocean, and in the Atlantic as the Navy supported operations to liberate the European continent," Richardson said.
The Navy is a symbol that projects American values to the world, he added.
"For more than 240 years, the Union Jack, flying proudly from jackstaffs aboard U.S. Navy warships, has symbolized these strengths," Richardson said.
The new policy won't affect those who wear the First Navy Jack patch as an optional component on certain Navy working uniforms, according to the administrative message.
#1
The Global War on Terror that never ends and will go on indefinitely, costing us trillions that we could have spent on ourselves. Yeah great idea there Admiral.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/24/2019 4:17 Comments ||
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#2
I think it's a morale thing. Reading more than that into it is probably a bit much.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/24/2019 4:22 Comments ||
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#3
go take a warm bath, Herb. It'll calm your hysteria
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/24/2019 7:27 Comments ||
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#6
The Global War on Terror that never ends and will go on indefinitely, costing us trillions that we could have spent on ourselves.
The war will go on as long as there are jihadis trying to conquer us from within and without, Herb. Pay the cost or be conquered — there are no other choices. We fought against fascism for about half a decade, against Communism until the Berlin Wall fell according toone perspective, or until North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons by another. But until the Muslim jihad is shivered into particles of dust the war will continue, the only question being how efficiently and effectively it is fought.
[Times of San Diego] Even though America hasn't had a military draft since 1973, men ‐ but not women ‐ are required to register with the Selective Service.
A federal judge Friday said that must change ‐ ordering the government to register women as well. Welcome to Real Equality, SJW's!
U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller in Houston agreed with the San Diego-based National Coalition for Men and granted its request for summary judgment in a class action suit. Touch my grandchildren and things will become instantly kinetic.
"The male-only registration requirement of the Military Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3802(a), violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution," Miller's "final judgment" says.
"Women are now allowed in combat, so this decision is long overdue," said Marc Angelucci, attorney for NCFM. "After decades of sex discrimination against men in the Selective Service, the courts have finally found it unconstitutional to force only men to register."
Indeed, Miller wrote: "While historical restrictions on women in the military may have justified past discrimination, men and women are now ‘similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft.' … If there ever was a time to discuss ‘the place of women in the Armed Services,' that time has passed."
Angelucci noted that despite the absence of a draft, men still face prison, fines and denial of federal loans for not registering or for not updating the government of their whereabouts.
"Since women will be required to register with the Selective Service," he said Saturday in a statement, "they should face the same repercussions as men for any noncompliance."
Angelucci, a Los Angeles attorney, previously worked as a family law attorney for the Men's Legal Center in San Diego.
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02/24/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
While I'm happy payback is coming, its all due to 'judicial' interpretation, not the reading of the Constitution. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment has been abused by the judiciary to expand its powers and oversight into things it was never intended, but certainly avoids all that messy stuff in Article V on how to amend the Constitution.
Here's the part the judge refused to adhere to -
Art I, Section 8, Congress shall To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
It's Congress' call. Per their authority
10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
That is the basis for the selective service and activation of the federal militia.
I don't see anything but another example of judicial dictation overthrowing the Constitutional separation of power.
#3
The Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified. There were reasons it failed and why the Founded set the bar so high. Our lords and ladies of America's judicial aristocracy however have since decided to implement it through 'interpretations' such as this.
[EpochTimes] Therese Okoumou, 44, scaled the statue on July 4, 2018, claiming she was protesting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The island that the statue sits on was shut down on the national holiday, forcing thousands of would-be tourists to make other plans.
In an order filed this week, Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein said that he plans to visit the statue "to better appreciate the risks or hazards created by defendant’s conduct," according to NBC, which obtained the filing.
"Additionally, if it were deemed possible and safe, the Court would like a ladder to be made available so the Court (and counsel if requested) can view, while remaining on the ladder, the surface of the area where the defendant was situated on July 4, 2018," the order read.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
North Korea
SEOUL/HANOI (Reuters) - North Korea on Sunday confirmed for the first time that its leader, Kim Jong Un, will hold a second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, days ahead of the high-stakes nuclear meeting in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi.
[Prairie Farmer] China is proposing that it could buy an additional $30 billion a year of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans, corn and wheat as part of a possible trade deal being negotiated by the two countries, according to people with knowledge of the plan.
[DAWN] A woman and a five-year-old girl were killed during firing in the air and more than 140 people were injured in the garrison city on Friday as people celebrated basant despite the ban on kite flying.
[PULSE.NG] Ninety-eight workers have died and at least 200 others have been hospitalised in northeastern India after drinking toxic liquor, officials said Saturday, in the latest case of alcohol poisoning in the country.
[MAIL] Controversial electric shock treatment for severe depression could cause permanent brain damage and ’should be stopped’, a leading psychologist has claimed.
[PULSE.NG] NASA on Friday gave SpaceX the green light to test a new crew capsule by first sending an unmanned craft with a life-sized mannequin to the International Space Station.
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
