#1
The military budget for fiscal 2020 – of $738 billion – will increase service member pay by 3.1 percent. Federal civilian pay is also set to rise by 3.1 percent.
N.B. - federal civilians can quit at anytime and are not subject to a separate set of laws as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
[ToloNews] Taliban ...Arabic for students... front man Zabiullah Mujahid on Monday rejected media reports saying the ruling council of the group had agreed to a temporary ceasefire that would eventually open the way for signing a peace deal between the group and the United States.
Mujahid said in a statement that discussions are still underway about a reduction of violence and lessened operations.
The news report about the group’s alleged agreement on a temporary ceasefire was first published by the News Agency that Dare Not be Named on Sunday, which quoted a source saying an agreement had been reached by all except for the top leader, who was "expected" to approve the ceasefire.
But a more recent Taliban statement said:
"The reality of the situation is that the Islamic Emirate has no intention of declaring a ceasefire. The United States has asked for a reduction in the scale and intensity of violence and discussions being held by the Islamic Emirate are revolving solely around this specific issue."
Sources familiar with the talks said that the Taliban council has agreed on a reduction of violence that will be limited to cities.
"All members of the Taliban’s ruling council, and a majority of their leaders, have agreed to a one-week ceasefire or reduction of violence that will be limited to cities," said Sami Yusufzai, a journalist in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... He said the Taliban is calling it a reduction of violence instead of a ceasefire and that "it will be a big test for the Taliban."
"We hope that Zalmay Khalilzad will return from the US to Qatar and make the final decision and sign the agreement about a withdrawal of foreign forces and a ceasefire," said Shakoor Mutmaen, a former Taliban member.
But the Afghan government said a ceasefire will be one of the main pre-conditions of negotiations with the Taliban.
"The Afghan government expects that the US-Taliban talks will cause a result soon," said presidential front man Durrani Jawed Waziri. "The government of Afghanistan has made preparations and formed an effective, concise and capable team for talks with the Taliban and for ensuring a ceasefire."
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had thought to pack sun block... deadly bouts of fighting continue, with tens of thousands of Afghan cops killed since they inherited combat operations from 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... at the end of 2014.
Everyday Afghans also continue to bear the brunt of the bloody conflict.
Last week the UN said the country had passed a grim milestone this year, with more than 100,000 Afghan civilians killed or maimed over the past decade.
[DAWN] Thousands of Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... prisoners placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in Afghanistan as bandidos krazed killers see a peace deal being hammered out between the United States and the Taliban as their ticket to freedom.
They know a prisoner release is a key pillar of any agreement that brings an end to Afghanistan's 18-year war, Washingtons longest military engagement.
A list of about 5,000 Taliban prisoners has been given to the Americans and their release has been written into the agreement under discussion, said a Taliban official familiar with the on-again, off-again talks taking place in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. US and Afghan government officials have said a prisoner release is part of the negotiation.
But some analysts say freeing prisoners could undermine peace in Afghanistan.
"There's a need for Afghan and US officials to do their due diligence on any Taliban prisoners they're planning to release, in order to minimise the likelihood that they'll set free jihadists that can do destabilising things and undercut a fledgling grinding of the peace processor," warned Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the US-based Wilson Center.
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named interviewed more than a dozen Taliban prisoners inside the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the eastern edge of the capital, Kabul. Several of them were nostalgic for the Taliban's Afghanistan, ruled by the mighty hand of their previous leader, the reclusive one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar, who died several years ago.
But they also insisted that they accept it would not be the same now and that, though they still wanted what they call Islamic rule, they no longer call for some of their strict edicts, like the ban on education and on girls and women working.
"We want women to be educated, become engineers, we want women to work in every department," said one prisoner, Maulvi Niaz Mohammed, though he said the work must be "based on Islam". He said young Afghans should not fear the Taliban, "it is they who will build our country and develop it".
Taliban negotiators have taken a similar tone in the talks. But there is a deep distrust on both sides of the conflict and many in the public worry what will happen if the Taliban, who ruled for five years until they were toppled in the 2001 US-led invasion, regain authority.
On Sunday, the Taliban ruling council agreed to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan, providing a window in which a peace agreement with the US can be signed, Taliban officials said. They didn't say when it would begin.
The Taliban have well-organised communication networks inside Afghan prisons that record the latest arrests, province by province, as well as who is sick and who has died. It all gets delivered to a prisoners commission, devoted to their release and headed by Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who during the Taliban rule served as justice minister and the virtue and vice minister in charge of inquisitors religious police.
Analysts and even the United States’ own Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko said neither Afghanistan nor the U.S. is ready for the Taliban prisoners’ release.
Every past attempt at re-integration has been costly and a failure.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2019 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... says two men who were shot and killed last week in the eastern city of Dammam had been planning an attack and were in possession of explosives that could have been used to deploy a boom-mobile.
The Presidency of State Security, which deals with counter-terrorism and domestic intelligence, says in a statement to the state-run Saudi Press Agency that the two Saudi men had been wanted by police. They were identified as Ahmed Abdullah Saeed Suwaid and Abdullah Hussain Saeed al-Nimr.
Saudi security said the two were killed on Wednesday in a shootout with police after refusing to surrender. The statement said investigations and the arrest of a third person showed the group had been planning an "imminent terrorist operation," and were in possession of 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of a highly explosive substance, a machine gun, two pistols and live ammunition.
Saudi Shiites, who are a minority in the mostly Sunni Moslem kingdom, make up the bulk of the population in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern region, including the city of Dammam where the incident took place.
Dammam, like other cities in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, was roiled by Shiite-led anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012. As the Saudi government cracked down on the protests, some protesters took up arms against police and were branded as "wanted" by state security. Some have since been killed in shootouts with security officers. Others have been detained, tried and executed.
[Dawn] A total of 110 Pakistanis, including two with broken ribs and leg fractures, were deported by Turkish authorities and landed at Islamabad International Airport (IIA) on Sunday.
The two injured deportees, Sialkot resident Rehmat Javaid and Islamabad resident Zubair Hussain, were admitted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) because their condition was described as critical.
A Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) official said both men were tortured in detention and injured. The number of Pakistanis held in Turkish detention centres is not known, but the official said there were “a lot of people”.
Upon arriving at the airport, all the deportees were taken to the FIA’s Anti-Human Trafficking Cell in prison vans. The two injured deportees were later hospitalised.
Of the 110 people, 42 are from Gujrat, 38 from Gujranwala, 24 from Peshawar, three from Islamabad, two from Azad Kashmir and three from Islamabad. They were rounded up by Turkish authorities for entering the country illegally.
The official said the Pakistani nationals travelled to Turkey using land routes with difficulty in search of better opportunities, but were held by law enforcement organisations.
A senior official said the deportees are now being bars and will be produced in court for legal proceedings, and the court will decide who to release, although they have not committed any crime in their own country.
On Thursday, two Pakistanis died after boat carrying migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan capsized in Lake Van in the eastern Turkish town of Adilcevaz, killing seven people. At least 64 people were rescued.
The Foreign Office (FO) confirmed the deaths of two Pakistanis in the incident on Friday.
“As per the information shared by the Turkish authorities, a total of 71 individuals of various nationalities were present on the boat when it capsized including 25 from Pakistan. Turkish authorities carried out the search and rescue operation in the aftermath of the accident. Unfortunately, two Pakistani nationals lost their lives,” FO said.
It said the Pakistani embassy in Ankara and the consulate general in Istanbul were in touch with local authorities to seek further information and provide assistance to the affected Pakistanis.
The identity of the two deceased individuals is being ascertained.
“The families of the deceased will be notified upon confirmation of their identities and all possible assistance will be extended to the bereaved families for repatriation of the remains of their loved ones,” FO said.
“The remaining 23 Pakistani nationals who were rescued are with the Turkish authorities. “Those in need of medical attention are being treated in local hospitals,” the FO said.
[DAWN] Facebook has blocked live streaming of the Pakistain Broadcasting Corporation's (PBC) news bulletins for highlighting Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... , Radio Pakistain reported on Monday.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... temporary arrangements have been made to continue live streaming of Radio Pakistain's bulletins on YouTube, the report added.
In its report, Radio Pakistain has included screenshots of earlier warning messages received from the social-media giant, dating back to May, warning the public broadcaster of violating "community standards on dangerous individuals and organizations".
Specifically, these posts were from news stories about the death anniversary of Hizbul Mujahideen ...Party of Holy Warriors, founded by Muhammad Ahsan Dar in September 1989. One of the Pak sock puppets waging jihad in Indian Kashmir. It was originally organized as the armed wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. In 1990, Dar declared Hizbul as the sword arm of Jamaat. Hizbul murdered many of the pro-independence intelligentsia in Kashmir. After the organization was taken over by Syed Salahuddin Dar and several other ex-Hizb leaders were assassinated between 2001 and 2003... leader Burhan Wani in July and the curfew imposed after the death of Zakir Musa, also a Hizbul Mujahideen commander, in May.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad on Monday, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan stated that Pakistain has to move away from international [social media] platforms in order to become more self-reliant.
Talking about Kashmir, she said: "As we have seen, every time we try to highlight human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... violations on social media platforms, such as Facebook, the accounts are suspended".
"We have raised our voices against this before and will do so again in the future and will have those accounts restored," she added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
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Posted by: John Frum ||
12/31/2019 15:59 Comments ||
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#2
Pakiland should block Fakebook in it's country then forever. Tit for tat I think they call it.
[EN.MEHRNEWS] In its Monday statement, IRGC announced, "The US air attack on PMU bases which killed and maimed a number of Iraqi resistance and mobilization forces was a violation of Iraq’s national illusory sovereignty and once again showed the US is a leading cause of insecurity, chaos, seizures and fueling the war in the region."
"Certainly no free and independent nation will allow its children to be subjected to the aggression and crime of alien," the statement added.
"Naturally, the Iraqi people and PMU have the right to retaliate and respond to the recent great US crime according to international law and charter," the statement is read.
US forces launched deadly Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against Kata'ib Hezbollah bases, which is part of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), on Sunday night, claiming that the attacks have been in response to alleged attacks targeting US and coalition forces.
According to PMU, the attacks have left at least 25 individuals martyred and another 51 injured. The targeted Kata'ib Hezbollah forces belonged to brigades 45 and 46 of the PMU, according to PMU official Jawad Kazim al-Rabi'awi.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2019 00:00 ||
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After the IRGC-backed Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, al-Nujaba, and (of course) Kata'ib Hezbollah, The Iranian proxy Kata'ib Seyyed al-Shuhada also signals its readiness to wage attacks against the US interests in Iraq, if ordered by Soleimani pic.twitter.com/iPM2pmA5xO
[THEBAGHDADPOST] Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi on Monday condemned air strikes by the United States on several bases belonging to an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq and said the attack would have consequences.
"The caretaker prime minister described the American attack on the Iraqi armed forces as an unacceptable vicious assault that will have dangerous consequences," his office said in a statement.
The government will announce its official position following a meeting of the National Security Council later on Monday, Abdul Mahdi said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/31/2019 00:00 ||
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Operations resumed at Iraq’s southern #Nassiriya oilfield the oil ministry said, but it will take up to two days for output to be fully restored, two oil sources said. #BaghdadPosthttps://t.co/I1Bj1pTOOY
LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has devised technology to restrict the use of anti-aircraft missiles after they leave American hands, a researcher said, a move that experts say could persuade the United States that it would be safe to disseminate powerful weapons more frequently.
The new technology is intended for use with shoulder-fired missiles called Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS), Dutch researcher Jos Wetzels told a cybersecurity conference here in Leipzig, Germany on Saturday. Wetzels said the system was laid out in a batch of CIA documents published by WikiLeaks in 2017 but that the files were mislabeled and attracted little public attention until now.
Wetzels said the CIA had come up with a "smart arms control solution" that would restrict the use of missiles "to a particular time and a particular place." The technique, referred to as "geofencing," blocks the use of a device outside a specific geographic area.
Weapons that are disabled when they leave the battlefield could be an attractive feature. Supplied to U.S. allies, the highly portable missiles can help win wars, but they have often been lost, sold, or passed to extremists.
For example, Stinger MANPADS supplied by the United States are credited with helping mujahedeen rebels drive Soviet forces out of Afghanistan in a conflict that spanned the 1980s and 1990s. But U.S. officials have since spent billions of dollars here to clear the missiles from the country - and from other conflict zones around the world.
#9
Is this a joke? If you can spoof an IP address, why can't you spoof a lat/lon? You mean the Russians and ChiComs don't have their own satellite technology they can use?
[AnNahar] Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... and the AMAL Movement have agreed with Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab on the formation of a purely technocrat government, sources close to Diab said.
"The government will not comprise figures from the outgoing government," the sources added in remarks to al-Jadeed TV.
"The government’s line-up has reached the stage of the final selection of some names and a large number of portfolios and candidates have been finalized," the sources said.
As for the representation of women, the sources said there will be five to seven female ministers.
Three candidates are meanwhile being considered for the interior portfolio and it will likely go to a retired officer who hails from Akkar while the telecom portfolio will be allocated to a figure from Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , the sources added.
Revealing that Hizbullah and AMAL have agreed with Diab on "the principle of a technocrat government," the sources said economic expert Ghazi Wazni has agreed to be named as finance minister while Ziad Baroud will be appointed justice minister and Demianos Qattar will be named foreign minister.
"The PM-designate has met with all those nominated to become ministers and President Michel Aoun ...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... has largely cooperated with the PM-designate and he was positive and did not cling to any candidate," the sources added.
Noting that the government might be formed in the early days of 2020 pending the arrival of some would-be ministers from abroad, the sources said the issue of merging some portfolios is the last point that is being mulled.
Hezbollah's Nasrallah in the background: "The resistance will win all these wars in all the countries, they will be tougher and stronger, God willing." https://t.co/sy35xNa18P
See the main Day 2 post here, which links to the rest.
[IsraelTimes] Grafton Thomas hit with additional hate crime charges and denied bail, but family insists he has deep mental health issues, not motivated by hatred of Jews.
His court-appointed attorney, Susanne Brody, said Thomas has struggled with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Another attorney retained by his family, Michael Sussman, said Thomas had been hearing voices and may have stopped taking psychiatric medications recently.
A man charged with federal hate crimes Monday in a bloody attack on a Hanukkah celebration had handwritten journals containing anti-Semitic references and had recently used his phone to look up information on Hitler and the location of synagogues, authorities said.
Grafton Thomas, 37, was held without bail after appearing in federal court in White Plains on five counts of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs by attempting to kill with a dangerous weapon. Five people were stabbed and slashed in the Saturday attack north of New York City.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Mitchell Silber, who headed NYPD Intelligence unit, to lead effort aimed at helping Jewish institutions in city and some surrounding areas protect themselves.
Good. Along with the Guardian Angels and local Jews carrying openly, perhaps the mentally ill —and simply vicious — will discover that self-indulgence comes at too high a price.
A counter-terror expert who formerly held a high-level intelligence post with the New York Police Department will lead a new initiative to secure Jewish institutions in New York City, two Jewish umbrella groups said Monday.
The announcement of the hiring of Mitchell Silber comes as the city is grappling with what has been described as an anti-Semitism crisis, following a rash of attacks in the last several weeks in and around the city.
[Jpost] John Bolton, a former national security adviser for the Trump administration, has returned to serve as chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a conservative US-based think tank he chaired before joining the National Security Council (NSC) in March 2018.
Bolton sent an email to subscribers on Sunday, asking them to contribute to the institution and citing what he described as censorship in social media.
"At a time when Facebook censors, blocks, or removes Gatestone’s material, we refuse to be silenced; we continue to publish our carefully researched, accurate articles," Bolton wrote. "We need to combat this censorship that at the end is meant for all of us," he added. "To do this, Gatestone needs to strengthen its community of experts, to ensure their vital work continues to make its significant impact."
"The Christian population of the Middle East, there for 2,000 years, is being subjected to relentless persecution and forced conversion," Bolton said in his email. "The response of the mainstream media and almost all Western governments: Say nothing, do nothing."He also addressed criticism against Gatestone, writing: "During the past few years, we have seen many jihadist terror attacks across the West, killing hundreds of innocents in the US, La Belle France, Belgium, Germany, and Spain. And let us not forget the steady drip-drip of jihadi "lone-wolf" knife attacks in Australia, Britannia, Israel, Germany, La Belle France and the Netherlands."
"What is the response of the Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an leadership to our new reality? Denial, word games, and silence," Bolton wrote. "And verbal attacks on citizens who insist on talking about the threats we face. They call us ’Islamophobic’ or ’racist’ to try to silence us."
NBC reported in April 2018 that the advocacy group promoted misleading and false anti-Moslem news.
"Western governments have been successfully working with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Microsoft to censor what they call ’hate speech’ ‐ meaning any criticism of holy warrior Islam and unvetted immigration," Bolton said in his email.
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.
...Arabic for 
...mindless ferocity in a turban....jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...
LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has devised technology to restrict the use of anti-aircraft missiles after they leave American hands, a researcher said, a move that experts say could persuade the United States that it would be safe to disseminate powerful weapons more frequently.
...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
[Jpost] John Bolton, a former national security adviser for the Trump administration, has returned to serve as chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a conservative US-based think tank he chaired before joining the National Security Council (NSC) in March 2018.
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
