#2
article Ethiopia has admitted that they shot down on Monday a Kenyan plane carrying humanitarian and medical supplies, killing all six people onboard.
In a statement to the African Union, the Ethiopian military said they interpreted the plane’s “unusual flight” as a “potential suicide mission,” adding the crew did not inform authorities of any aircraft flying to the country.
"Because of lack of communication and awareness, the aircraft was shot down," the military said.
"The incident was performed by non-Amisom troops of Ethiopia, which will require mutual collaborative investigation team from Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya to further understand the truth," it added.
All six passengers onboard died on Monday after the plane was shot down in the southwestern town of Bardaale in Somalia.
Kenya expressed its shock over the incident, saying the plane was on a humanitarian mission amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/10/2020 10:09 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Move meant to support campaign against Islamist murderous Moslems in Sinai, ensure interoperability with Israel’s military; US says still pressing Cairo on human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... concerns.
The United States has approved a $2.3 billion deal on attack helicopters for Egypt, but an official insisted Friday that Washington was still pressing on human rights concerns.
US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... ’s administration informed Congress on Thursday that it has given the green light to the package to refurbish 43 Apache helicopters.
R. Clarke Cooper, the State Department official in charge of military sales, said the deal was intended to support Egypt’s campaign against Islamist murderous Moslems in the Sinai peninsula and to ensure its interoperability with Israel’s military.
The deal came despite appeals to cut off US military sales from April Corley, an American tourist visiting Egypt’s Western Desert who was maimed and whose boyfriend was killed in an Apache attack on their tour group in 2015.
She said Egyptian authorities admitted a mistake but have refused compensation.
Another US citizen, Mustafa Kassem, died in Egyptian custody in January from a hunger strike. He was rounded up on a visit to Cairo in 2013 as part of a sweeping crackdown.
"We have been very clear with our Egyptian counterparts and interlocutors about the death of Mustafa Kassem and about the case with April Corley and that settlement," Cooper told news hounds.
"Those have not gone away and they have not gone off the table," he said.
"But they do remain an important partner on the global counterterrorism campaign and they certainly remain a partner not only with us but also with our Israeli ally," he said.
Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, becoming one of the biggest recipients of US aid, with the defense assistance largely going back to US arms manufacturers.
Trump has cultivated a close relationship with Egypt’s general turned president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who has highlighted his fight against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and recently shipped coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... aid to the United States.
Representative Tom Malinowski, who served as the top State Department human rights official under president Barack Obama teachable moment... , told a forum last year that Egypt’s military was "utterly, disastrously incompetent in addition to being cruel" and said its Apaches often fired at any spotted target without intelligence.
"The only thing they know how to do well with these F-16s and Apaches is to show them off in parades and air shows that are designed to make the regime look good," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/10/2020 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
For more than twenty years following the 1978 Camp David Accords to keep peace between antagonists the aid to Israel totalled $3 billion per year ($1.8 billion for military, $1.2 billion for economic), and to Egypt, $2.1 billion per year ($1.3 billion for military, $815 million for economic). If these payments have ceased it has never been publicized.
Posted by: b ||
05/10/2020 10:51 Comments ||
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#2
Would this be the state department under the Obama regime which helped stage the coup in Egypt and use NGOs to install a dedicated member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who immediately went about saber rattling?
But not so incompetent to say enough of this, kick out the MoBro, and successfully install Sissi for how many years now of relative stability?
State Department Human Rights under Obama, gettautahere with that.
#3
swksvolFF: I don't know what in Hell you are trying to say. Take a deep breath. Gather your thoughts (if you have any), and then respond.
Posted by: b ||
05/10/2020 14:02 Comments ||
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#4
Wiki is your friend b. In addition to those cliff notes:
US involvement in campaigning for Morsi is well documented, to the point US NGOs were arrested for campaign meddling.
Morsi started shaking chains at Israel, as well as backing Paleo causes and rhetoric.
Morsi threatened to attack Ethiopia.
Morsi, Egypt, was the keystone to a pan-regional uprising from Syria to Morocco, south to at least Sudan but I include what would be al-shabob. The movement received support in Syria as McCain's Friends. It received support in Libya with NATO attacks against Quadaffy forces after the insurrection started getting its ass kicked. Never really took Algeria west on account of that. South, it faltered so now we have North Sudan and South Sudan. Syria, Assad was down for the count before Iran/Russia stepped in.
The idea being Egypt and Syria and Paleo, add a like minded Erdogon, putting pressure on Jordan to at least be neutral in pressuring Israel into a two state solution, with heavy election influencing in Israel - even bragging about sending the Obama Election A-Team to help out.
So all that is going on, Morsi is trying to purge the military and generally pissing the establishment off, when shortly after War with Ethiopia! enough had had enough.
Enter Sissi. Stabilized Egypt society (remember the riots?), co-op with Israel to stop gun running in from Sinai into Paleo - how many Egyptian Army Units were killed in ambushes doing so? To the point Sissi was like, Time for a Wall.
So when some Obama era state department knob warmer criticizes the Egyptian Armed Forces, I laugh.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Saudi authorities detained Prince Faisal bin Abdullah Al Saud more than a month ago and have since kept him incommunicado.
The New York-based organization quoted a source with ties to the family of Prince Faisal as saying on Saturday that the authorities may have forcibly “disappeared” the son of the late King Abdullah, who formerly served as the president of the Saudi Red Crescent Society, in late March.
“Despite waves of criticism, the lawless behavior of Saudi authorities during the de facto rule of [Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman continues unabated,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW. “Now we have to add Prince Faisal to the hundreds detained in Saudi Arabia without a clear legal basis.”
Prince Faisal was previously arrested in November 2017 and held along with over 300 leading business people, royal family members, and current and former officials at Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
They were pressured to turn over large sums of their wealth as part of an alleged “anti-corruption campaign," which observers said was meant to consolidate bin Salman's grip on power and silence his critics.
Prince Faisal was released on December 29, 2017 after he agreed to hand over assets, the source said, adding that since then, the prince had been put under an arbitrary travel ban.
On March 27, 2020, security forces arrived at Prince Faisal’s family compound northeast of Riyadh, where he was self-isolating due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and detained him without revealing the reasons, according to the source.
Faisal’s family members, he noted, have not been able to learn anything about his location or status, which may qualify as an enforced disappearance.
He further stressed that the detained Saudi prince has not publicly criticized authorities since his December 2017 arrest and that his family members are concerned about his health as he has a heart condition.
In April, Saudi Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, an outspoken human rights advocate, took to Twitter to say that she is being detained without charge at Riyadh’s high-security al-Ha’ir prison, with one of her daughters.
In early March, reports emerged that bin Salman had detained Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, King Salman’s full brother, along with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a former crown prince and interior minister in a new purge of royal family members over an alleged coup attempt.
The arrest campaign in Saudi Arabia is widely viewed as an effort by the crown prince to lock down potential challengers to his own succession before his father dies or abdicates the throne.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/10/2020 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] The front man for Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ’s Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... Ansarullah movement has held the Saudi-led coalition fully responsible for a possible oil leakage from a deserted decaying tanker moored in the Red Sea , which could result in a potential environmental disaster.
"We have long been calling for the maintenance of the Safer tanker. Nevertheless, the US-backed forces of aggression, besides their unjust blockade, have deliberately created obstacles and prevented any maintenance," Mohammed Abdul-Salam said in a post published on his official Twitter page on Saturday.
محمد عبدالسلام
@abdusalamsalah
منذ وقت مبكر ونحن ندعو لصيانة ناقلة صافر إلا أن قوى العدوان المدعومة أمريكيا تعمدت بحصارها الظالم وضعَ العراقيل ومنع إجراء أي صيانة، وعليه فهي من تتحمل التداعيات كافة لأي تسرب، كما أن واشنطن تلحقها المسؤولية كذلك لتوفيرها الغطاء السياسي والدعم العسكري لاستمرار العدوان والحصار.
1,403
10:22 PM - May 8, 2020
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He added, "They (members of the Saudi-led alliance), therefore, bear responsibility for the repercussions of any spillage. Washington should also be held accountable for providing them with political and military support to press ahead with their aggression and siege."
Last June, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that a leak or explosion of the vessel could be much worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill of the late 1980s in Alaska.
"If the tanker ruptures or explodes, we could see the coastline polluted all along the Red Sea," Lowcock, the under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said.
"Depending on the time of year and water currents, the spill could reach from Bab el-Mandeb to the Suez Canal, and potentially as far as the Strait of Hormuz," he added.
The Safer tanker reportedly allows vessels to anchor offshore and transfer oil extracted and processed from installations in the Ma'arib oil field in central Yemen.
The tanker is said to contain 34 crude oil tanks of different sizes and volumes, amounting to a total capacity of around 3 million barrels.
The ship has been moored several kilometers outside the Red Sea port of Ras Isa, north of Hudaydah.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/10/2020 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Houthis
[GREEKCITYTIMES] Daily air violations of Greek airspace, the continued occupation of northern Cyprus, a failed invasion of Syria’s Idlib province, funding of the losing Moslem Brüderbund in Libya, and overseas military bases in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East — this is just a sample of the Ottoman Turkish war machine, despite its failures in all of its recent military adventures.Ahval’s Nurcan Baysal says "there is no money in the treasury. Everyone knows why, but we are not supposed to talk about it. Today it is hard to speak openly about military spending in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... . It is also hard to even access information about Turkey’s war expenditure."
This week, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released their latest report on global military spending and found that between 2009 and 2019, Ottoman Turkish military expenditure increased by 27%. More shocking is that Turkey’s military spending increased by 6% in 2019 from 2018 to $20.8 billion, comprising 7.8% of government spending, at $245 per capita.
Baysal recounts the words of Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party and an ally of Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... , who in a speech on November 29, 2019 said: "There is a cost of fighting against terror. And we bear this cost for the survival of our state. Those who speculate about the economy do not have any idea about the cost of a bomb. They are speaking idly. We support the statements of Erdogan about our economy."
Bahceli continued by giving details about the cost of bombs:
"Storm shells can use 240-250 bullets in one hour. You can use one shell for two hours. This means in one hour you use 500 bullets. The average cost of one bullet is $1,000. If you spend 500 bullets, this means $500,000 in a day. In one military operation, we use 100 shells, which means $50 million only for the cost of shells. The cost of an ordinary bomb used by a warplane is $2,500. Only one hour of gasoline for an F-16 costs $14,000." WTF?
$14,000 for an hours flight on an F-16, and in 2019 alone Turkey violated Greece’s airspace 4,811 times.
A report by New Economy published yesterday stated that "Turkey had significant foreign exchange outflows which we saw in the previous period due to the huge costs required by Erdogan’s costly imperialist wars."
The extremely detailed report by New Economy, that must be read in its full, found that "Turkey’s probability of bankruptcy is extremely high," along with its three big banks of Garanti, Akbank and the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk-founded Isbank.
"The country’s commercial banks, its last stronghold, have dried up from foreign exchange currency," meaning that Turkey nearly has no money for its import and export companies.
With the country on near economic ruin, needing a miracle to bring it back from the brink, could Turkey start rolling back its international war efforts in Libya, Syria and Iraq, its occupation of Cyprus, its dreams of occupying Greek islands, and its domestic campaign against the Kurdish minority? Highly unlikely.
As Baysal concludes: "No matter what happens in Turkey, whatever changes, some things will remain the same."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/10/2020 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
This is the second or third economic collapse Turkey has endured since the 1990s, that I am aware of. The current one was no doubt delayed by the confiscations of the property of all those arrested as Gulenists in recent years.
[IsraelTimes] Pharmaceutical company developing leading treatment for coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... ; ClearSky cybersecurity outfit says Iran-connected hackers targeting COVID-19 researchers, including in Israel.
An Israeli cybersecurity firm last week uncovered an attempt by Iran-linked hackers to breach US drug company Gilead Sciences, which is racing to roll out a treatment for COVID-19.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/10/2020 00:00 ||
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[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Rudaw] Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi made a landmark decision to promote Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi as the head of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Forces (ICTS) on Saturday.
"We decided to return our brother and hero Abdul Wahab al-Saadi to the counter terrorism forces and promote him to the post of the president of the Counter-Terrorism Forces," Kadhimi said in a presser following the first meeting of the new cabinet.
The PM added they have ordered security forces to release all those arrested during the protests which erupted across central and southern Iraq in October.
The PM added they have ordered security forces to release all those arrested during the protests which erupted across central and southern Iraq in October.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/10/2020 00:58 ||
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[Jpost] Maher Obeid, member of the Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, 'political bureau,' said that any prisoner swap must include 'all the symbols, from Marwan Barghouti to Ahmad Sa’adat.' "Hamas 'Demands'" Lol
Hamas is demanding the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine Secretary-General Ahmed Sa’adat as part of a prisoner exchange agreement with Israel, a senior Hamas official said on Thursday.
Maher Obeid, member of the Hamas "political bureau," said that any prisoner swap must include "all the symbols, from Marwan Barghouti to Ahmad Sa’adat to Fouad al-Shobaki to Karim Younes and others."
He spoke as the Israeli security cabinet was set to convene on Thursday evening, amid speculation that a prisoner swap was in the works for the remains of Lt. Hadar Goldin and Sgt. Oren Shaul, believed killed in the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... war as well as for the release of two Israelis civilians Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayyed.
The Hamas official, however, downplayed reports about progress in the indirect negotiations with Israel to reach a deal and accused Israel of failing to respond to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s offer to make "partial concessions" to facilitate a deal due to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... crisis.
Obeid claimed that the negotiations were also stuck because of the political crisis in Israel after the March general election.
As good an excuse as any for what would not happen anyway...
"There are no real contacts, and until now there is no mediator assigned by the Israeli occupation to discuss this matter in a real and effective manner," he remarked. "We are ready [for a deal] and we are serious about securing the release of the prisoners, especially the elderly, females, minors and the sick."
Obeid said that Hamas has informed Egypt and Russia of its readiness to strike a deal with Israel. He noted, however, that the contacts with Egypt and Russia did not move forward.
[Jpost] PA paid NIS 517.4m. on these salaries in 2019, some NIS 15m. more than previous year
Israel plans to effectively return the tax and tariff funds deducted due to the Paleostinian Authority’s continued monthly payments to bandidosturbans and their salaries, in the form of a NIS 800 million loan on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon confirmed on Friday that he will sign an agreement with his Paleostinian counterpart on Sunday.
A report in Israel Hayom cited court documents in which Kahlon stated that, with approval from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in coordination with Defense Minister Naftali Bennett and National Security Council chief Meir Ben-Shabbat, Israel will grant the loan over the coming months. The loan is essentially an advance on tax funds Israel collects and transfers to the PA under the terms of the Oslo Accords.
The loan is meant to help the PA overcome its current economic crisis, which was deepened due to what has been nicknamed the "Pay for Slay Law" that went into effect at the start of 2019, by which Israel deducts the funds the Paleostinian Authority pays bandidosturbans and their families each month from their taxes and tariffs.
Since the law went into effect, Israel has deducted over NIS 700m., all of which and more will be returned in the form of the loan.The PA paid NIS 517.4m. on these salaries in 2019, an increase of more than NIS 15m. from the previous year.
A February poll of Paleostinians in the West Bank, conducted by the Washington Institute, found that 68% of them agree with the following statement: "The PA should stop special payments to prisoners and give prisoners’ families normal social benefits like everybody else, not extra payments based on their sentences or armed operations." Last year, only 43% agreed; the shift could be due to the PA slashing its workers’ salaries while keeping the full terrorist payments intact.
In Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , where Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,, not the PA, has control, only 37% agree with the statement; 50% agreed last year.
[Jpost] The number of those in the youngest age group saying they sympathize more with the Paleostinians tripled from 1997 to 2020, going from 10% to 30%.
Three-fourths of Americans (74%) view Israel favorably. This matches the figure of two years ago and is the highest favorable rating since 1991, when that number reached 79% after the First Gulf War
In the all-important battle for public support in the US for Israel, much emphasis is placed on the "youth" — the 18-35 demographic surveyed in the polls.
This age group, the oft-heard argument runs, is traditionally the least supportive of Israel — having no personal memory of the Holocaust, Israel’s birth, the wonder of the Six Day War in 1967 or the existential threat of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Moreover, they are being educated on decidedly liberal college campuses where they are exposed to a steady drumbeat of anti-Israel propaganda.
Continued on Page 49
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.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
[GREEKCITYTIMES] Daily air violations of Greek airspace, the continued occupation of northern Cyprus, a failed invasion of Syria’s Idlib province, funding of the losing 
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
