Police arrested 17 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group in six Egyptian provinces on Tuesday, the police and the group's web site said. The dawn arrests were the latest in the ongoing crackdown on the country's largest opposition movement.
Also, Mahmoud Sayed Ghazlan, a senior leader of the Brotherhood, was arrested late Monday by state security, police officials said speaking on customary condition of anonymity. Ghazlan is a member of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. the Council of Boskone Guidance Bureau, the Brotherhood's highest decision-making body. He was freed in August 2005, after spending more than three years in prison after being convicted by a military court in 2002 on charges of belonging to an illegal organization and recruiting members.
This article starring:
MAHMUD SAIED GHAZLAN
Muslim Brotherhood
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman lashed out at European leaders on Wednesday for refusing to impose economic sanctions on Iran. "There are European leaders who think they can sacrifice Israel for the sake of their economic interests," Lieberman declared at a meeting with American Jewish Council delegates.
Speaking to the AJC delegates, the strategic affairs minister compared the current situation to the state of affairs in Europe "on the eve of World War II."
Two weeks ago, Lieberman told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee upon his return from a trip to Russia that Israel could deal with the Iranian nuclear threat alone if necessary - a statement that seemed to imply that help from the international community was less than forthcoming.
In his first appearance before the Knesset panel, Lieberman said it was the responsibility of the international community to stop the Iranian nuclear program, but that neither Israel nor its friends should become "hysterical."
The strategic affairs minister said that the government of Israel was "doing more than any other country to confront the Iranian nuclear threat." "We can face the country even if we're left to face them one-on-one," he said, adding, however, "I think it would be much better for the world if the international community were to step in."
US-FRENCH relations are set to shift as France chooses a successor to President Jacques Chirac, who has defined himself on the world stage as an opponent of American dominance. With Chiracs long-expected announcement on Sunday that he would not seek another term, French elections beginning April 22 provide an opportunity for the allies to strengthen cooperation unhindered by rancor between Chirac and US President George W Bush.
While the two nations have cooperated in recent years on many issues dear to Washington, relations between the two presidents never fully recovered from Chiracs vehement opposition to the Iraq war. On Monday, Bush -through a spokesman -wished Chirac well in his life after politics. The United States and France have been and will remain steadfast partners and allies, spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
It depends on whom the French vote for. Royal might be worse than Chirac, while Sarkozy might be somewhat rational. We'll find out soon.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/14/2007 0:04 Comments ||
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#2
Nope. Royal doesn't have the pathological hate of the US that Chirac has.
#3
Given the role that France has chosen to play as a counterweight to whatever the US does, I seriously don't expect anything to change no matter who is running the country. A little nice talk maybe, but that's it.
#4
ANY change in leadership will have some effect on US/France relations. The only unknown is exactly what that effect will be. Chiraq was the last of the "DeGaulle Era" politicians that could hold major political office in France. He's not the last ARROGANT French politician, but he's the last that still holds the DeGaulle "attitude of afront" over the French role in NATO that caused DeGaulle to withdraw from that agreement and expel US forces from France. That alone will change attitudes between France and the US.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/14/2007 12:36 Comments ||
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#5
Sarkozy is a French Nationalist that seeing the world for what it is may be more inclined to skip the PC LLL BS and make a pact with the US to defeat a mutual threat. He would not be a US ally like Britian, Australia but we could work with him in mutual benificial goals against mutual enemies.
The Socialist girl on the other may not have the Bush derangment syndrome of just oppose anything Bush/US propose however her PC LLL foundation will pretty much get her into that position anyway. Under her watch we may get less active undermining of everything we do but I would doubt any support of any kind with public refusals to boot just short the Chirac days of activley campaining against our proposals.
Either way a improvement. Unless of course in some wild chance Villipen gets the thumbs up then we are Chirac X 2.
#6
The greatest damage France is doing is to seduce the Brits into EUrope. This will continue, with or without Chiraq as a matter of French EUropean policy. The Brits will probably not be willing to join us the next time and even if they were willing, they won't be able because of the extent to which their forces will have become EUropeanized and unable to act independently. It'll be us, Oz and maybe India.
#8
Nah, no change. The Frogs will continue to sneer at us as ignorant, stupid Philistines and maintain their air of cultural superiority--right up to the point where they come begging for us to save them from the Muzzies.
Posted by: Mac ||
03/14/2007 17:41 Comments ||
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#9
Britain's gone, they've chosen the ovenmakers and the gigolo.
... a debate rages behind the scenes in Washington about the group, commonly known as CAIR, its financing and its motives ... Behind the scenes? Maybe at the NYTimes, but the debate is out front & easy to find on the internet. Other aspects of the WOT are difficult to locate, but material on CAIR isn't. Except at the NYT.
Government officials in Washington said they were not aware of any criminal investigation of the group. More than one described the standards used by critics to link CAIR to terrorism as akin to McCarthyism, essentially guilt by association.
Of all the groups, there is probably more suspicion about CAIR, but when you ask people for cold hard facts, you get blank stares, said Michael Rolince, a retired F.B.I. official who directed counterterrorism in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2005.
The cloud kicked up by the constant scrutiny is such that spokesmen at several federal agencies refused to comment about the group and some spoke only on the condition of anonymity. The cognitive dissonance in this article left my head spinning. Even the NYTimes couldn't whitewash this pile of manure.
[watch it in low Def or click on the screen, then after it starts, right click the screen and then click properties. then cut and paste the URL into the address bar for the High Def video. ]
The last time I checked Pat Robertson contributed millions $$$ to the Katrina families who were devastated by that disaster.
The last time I checked Pat Robertson's Ministries fed starving families in all over Africa.
The last time I checked Pat Robertson's folks had never held anyone hostage or forced them to covert and become baptised a Christian.
The last time I checked Pat Robert and the Christian Coalition never made a video of some trusted up victim having his head sawed off with a dull knife.
Yea I know he shoots his f****** mouth off and makes an absolute fool of himself on occasions to where I've even yelled at the TV a time or two but... SO WHAT!
In May 2004, Specialist Justin Lillis got drunk on what he called "hajji juice," a clear Iraqi moonshine smuggled onto an army base in Balad by civilian contractors. He began taking potshots with his M-16 service rifle.
"He shot up some contractor's rental car," said Phil Cave, a lawyer for Lillis, 24. "He hopped in a Humvee, drove around and shot up some more things. He shot into a housing area" and at soldiers guarding the base entrance.
Six months later, at an army base near Baghdad, after a night of drinking a stash of illegal whiskey and gin, Specialist Chris Rolan of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, pulled his 9mm service pistol on another soldier and shot him to death.
Continued on Page 49
#1
I wonder how the alcohol-linked crime rate and the heavy drinking rate among soldiers in Iraq compare with those of similar age and sex groups in the American civilian population, or even the military population in a peaceful place or time. Anecdotally, it seems to me a huge proportion of crimes and other demonstrations of idiocy throughout society are preceded by the words "Here, hold my beer."
#2
Can't answer your question, Glenmore, but during my ten years in Germany (beer is plentiful) I attended three funerals. One person died in a drunk driving one-vehicle accident, one died in an aircraft crash during training, and one died in a 16-car pile-up in the fog in southern Bavaria. Too small a group to draw any conclusions.
Alcohol was freely available in Vietnam, and we still lost people to stupid accidents, untimely incidents, and just plain idiocy, as well as from combat. I think part of the problem in Iraq is that there's no CONTROLLED drinking, where a guy can unwind and safely blow off a bit of steam. Pressure builds, there's no outlet, and you get "incidents". Maybe we need to take these guys down to Diego Garcia once every three months and let them get plastered for a weekend. I don't have the answers, but the problem is clear enough.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/14/2007 12:46 Comments ||
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#3
Today's StrategyPage says: Thus, of the 665 troops who have been convicted of crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, a third of them were drunk when they committed their crimes.
In 2005 there were 11.5 million crimes in a population of 296 million. Of those 10.2 million were property crimes. That gives 7800 total crimes per year per 200,000 population or 260 non property crimes per year per 200,000 population. Multiply by 4 for the numbers of years 200,000 have been deployed to theater. Multiply by another factor (too lazy to look it it up) if comparing only military age males. AFAICR, 80% of US crimes involve alcohol or drugs, so banning alcohol is a good decision, though I would allow some alcohol in controlled R&R areas.
Posted by: ed ||
03/14/2007 14:00 Comments ||
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#4
Haven't you Americans tried prohibition already?
LONDON (AP) - A military court cleared two soldiers Tuesday over charges connected to the death of an Iraqi hotel worker following a six-month hearing, Britain's first prosecution for war crimes in Iraq. Baha Mousa was among nine Iraqi detainees taken into custody as alleged insurgents. Prosecutors charged they were held in stress positions and deprived of sleep for about two days in extreme heat at a British army barracks near the southern Iraqi city of Basra in September 2003.
Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, died after he was restrained by soldiers following an attempt to escape custody. A pathologist told the court Mousa had died from asphyxia, caused because soldiers had ordered him to hold a stress position.
Maj. Michael Peebles, 35, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, both of the Intelligence Corps, were among seven men who faced trial at Bulford Camp in southwest England on charges related to the incidents. Both were cleared Tuesday of a charge of negligence and failing to ensure the Iraqis were not ill-treated by men under their command.
Last month, four others, including Col. Jorge Mendonca, 43, the regiment's former commander, were cleared on the judge's orders because of a lack of evidence against them. The seventh soldier, Cpl. Donald Payne, 35, pleaded guilty to the charge of inhumanely treating the Iraqi civilians, making him the first British soldier to plead guilty to a war crime under international law.
Iraqis allegedly beaten by the soldiers were brought to the court to testify during the hearing, which opened in September. "I put flowers in my children's hands to welcome the British soldiers when they came to free us from Saddam," Ahmad Taha Musa Al-Matairi, one of the detainees, told the court through an interpreter. "I could not believe that these were criminals from Britain."
British defense ministry officials defended their right to bring the prosecution, even though six of the seven soldiers were cleared. "We need to maintain both operational effectiveness and the public's trust and confidence," the ministry said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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JERUSALEM - Hundreds of members of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement receive military training in Iran every year, the head of Israels internal security service was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Hundreds of Hamas men are sent for training in Iran, and not for short trainings of a week or a month, but for long sessions, MP Zvi Hendel told reporters after hearing Shin Beth chief Yuval Diskin brief parliaments influential foreign affairs and defence committee.
According to Diskin, the training in Iran is of high quality, and lasts several months, Hendel added.
I wonder if the Iranians make them jump through the dreaded 'ring of fire'.
Diskin also said that an unprecedented quantity of weapons was smuggled into the Gaza Strip during 2006, including 31 tonnes of explosives.
Which is what some predicted would happen when you pulled out of Gaza.
The statements came amid growing calls in Israel to launch a new military operation in the Gaza Strip to counter the reported arming of militant groups and to stem the rocket fire into the Jewish state.
Do a thorough job this time.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, for all their fancy training, they aren't doing too good against Fatah.
GAZA - Part of the $100 million in tax revenues transferred by Israel to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went on paying security services, including members of a Hamas-led force, a Hamas source said Tuesday. The (Hamas) Executive Force was a part of the security services which received part of their salaries, just like the other forces, the Hamas source said.
During a meeting with Abbas on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked him to account for how the $100 million in Palestinian tax revenues had been spent. Top aides to Abbas had no immediate comment.
"Umm ... umm .... umm-m-m ....."
Israel opposed using the money to pay salaries, particularly to members of Hamas, a group whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, government officials said. This flies in the face on what was agreed upon, said an Israeli government official.
You trusted Abbas and now you're surprised?
Under US pressure, Israel transferred the $100 million to Abbass office in January. Israeli officials said at the time that the money would be earmarked for humanitarian needs and programmes to strengthen Abbass presidential guard, and not to pay salaries.
That worked well, didn't it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
See also WND/LUCIANNE > UN DEV BANK/PROGS used as an "ATM" for $$$ support of terror.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, chairman of ZAKA and former operations officer for the Ultra-Orthodox community, hit the Jewish man who kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was reported on Monday. The violent incident occurred last Friday in Poland during a mass visit of Orthodox Jews to the country in order to honor Hassidic Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. When the visitors arrived at Lizhensk on Friday morning, they heard that Moshe Arye Freedman, a member of the fanatic anti-Israel group Neturei Karta, was present as well. Freedman recently made headlines when he was photographed kissing Ahmadinejad during the Holocaust denial conference in Teheran three months ago.
Meshi-Zahav, along with another ZAKA member, quickly located Freedman and set upon him, punching the man, kicking him and breaking his glasses. To put it into the proper perspective, ZAKA are the ones who clean up after suicide bombings
The fight was dispersed when local police arrived at the scene. As an act of appreciation, Meshi-Zahav was called up to read the Torah in synagogue.
#2
And well-deserved! Anyone who kisses up to Ahmedinnerjacket deserves to have himself kicked, from crown to toes, by a 700-lb Norwegian lumberjack still wearing his hobs. The good rabbi will suffice in this instance.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/14/2007 13:19 Comments ||
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The national unity agreement that was reached last month in Mecca has triggered a behind-the-scenes power struggle in Hamas, sources close to the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip revealed Tuesday.
"Hamas is facing a serious split," the sources said. "Opposition in Hamas to the Mecca agreement is growing as some of the movement's senior officials are talking about a possible revolt." The "rejectionist" camp in Hamas, led by Interior Minister Said Siam and Foreign Affairs Minister Mahmoud a-Zahar, is opposed to the Mecca agreement under the pretext that Hamas made too many concessions to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. Both Siam and Zahar have privately criticized Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Syria-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal for signing the agreement, a top Hamas official in Gaza City told The Jerusalem Post.
He said the two, along with a number of senior Hamas figures in the Gaza Strip, have refused to participate in coalition talks with Fatah representatives over the past few weeks. The two are expected to lose their jobs in the new Hamas-led coalition. "Siam and Zahar are unhappy with the agreement not only because they won't serve in the unity government, but because they believe that Hamas has made far-reaching political concessions," the official said. "They are convinced that Hamas is gradually abandoning its ideology as Fatah did when it signed the Oslo Accords with Israel more than a decade ago."
Although Siam and Zahar have thus far refrained from public criticism of the Mecca agreement, the two are said to be quietly campaigning against the accord. Siam, for instance, has made it clear that he and his supporters will resist any attempt to dismantle Hamas's Executive Force that he established in the Gaza Strip last year. Zahar, on the other hand, is said to have warned that Hamas was headed toward a serious crisis because of its agreement to sit with Fatah in the same coalition. Siam and another prominent Hamas figure, Sami Abu Zuhri, were recently summoned to Damascus for emergency talks with Mashaal, who reportedly reprimanded them for campaigning against the Mecca agreement.
The tensions among the political leaders of Hamas have have also hit the movement's field activists. Hamas's two main militias, the Executive Force and Izzadin al-Kassam, are also facing divisions over the Mecca agreement. Leaders of the two groups have warned the Hamas leadership against falling into what they consider "a trap" by Abbas and the US.
Some Hamas preachers have also joined the "rejectionist" camp by speaking out in the mosques against the deal with Fatah. The rejectionists cited a number of "changes" in Hamas's traditional policy as evidence that the movement was on the verge of betraying its ideology. These include: Hamas's readiness to accept a temporary state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem; its readiness to abandon the armed struggle by accepting a long-term truce with Israel; its readiness to remain committed to the current cease-fire with Israel in the Gaza Strip; its readiness to endorse the Saudi peace initiative from 2002 and Haniyeh's announcement that he will attend the upcoming Arab summit in Riyadh later this month and Mashaal's reported promise to the Russians to work toward halting rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
KORNETS ATMS = SATURN V Model Hobby Rocket - obviously the Russians thought the
rockets/missles were for the kiddies???
The Winograd Committee will publish a "partial" report in the second half of April focusing on the decision-making process during the first six days of the fighting in Lebanon last summer and the personal responsibility of the prime minister, the defense minister and the chief of General Staff for the decisions taken during those days, the committee announced Tuesday.
The report will cover the days between July 12, when two IDF soldiers were kidnapped in a Hizbullah cross-border ambush, and the prime minister's Knesset speech on July 17. It will include conclusions regarding the personal responsibility of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former IDF chief of General Staff, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, for the decisions made about launching the campaign and the way those decisions were taken.
The committee said it would release an unclassified copy of the report to the public and classified copies to Olmert and Peretz.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu asked MKs from Kadima and the GIL Pensioner's Party to join the Likud, Channel 10 reported Tuesday evening. Netanyahu offered the MKs a guaranteed place in the Likud list for the next elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Sources in Kadima said Tuesday that the party should prepare for the possibility that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be forced to resign from his position. The statement came ahead of the interim findings of the Winograd Committee against the PM, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former chief of general staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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A senior official of the Defence Ministry told foreign correspondents here that Rajapaksa Government was convinced that there could be neither peace nor development without defeating the Tigers militarily. "We are determined to destroy the LTTE military infrastructure wherever it existed. For over 20 years, the organisation has been allowed to grow due to lack of political will on the part of successive governments. We are confident of annihilating the Tigers' military capabilities in the next two to three years," he said to a pointed question. The official said the strategy was to clear the east from the clutches of the Tigers and than move towards the north. "Our strategy of ousting the LTTE from the east has been fairly successful so far. We do not agree with the thesis that it is an un-winnable war."
The Defence Ministry argued that it was foolish on the part of any one to argue that the war on terrorism could not be won. The official wondered why the U.S. and its allies had committed their troops in different parts of the globe in the war against terrorism. The official made light of the role of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and remarked that for them a posting here was no more than a vacation. The official claimed that the Government had shared evidence of the war preparedness of the Tigers with India and Pakistan for a major military offensive it launched in the east and elsewhere. The official dubbed charges of human rights violations a Tiger orchestrated propaganda and said the record of the armed forces was 100 times better than any army in the world.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
buh-bye, Mario Luigi!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/14/2007 0:51 Comments ||
Top||
#2
About friggin' time. Any US Senators paying attention? The press? Miscellaneous moonbats? This is the result of 20 years of learning. Don't let it go unheeded.
#3
See also ASIA TIMES > CHINA IS MOVING INTO INDIA's BACKYARD. Nutshell - besides everything else, India now has to contend that China's influence peddling in and around SW Asia + Indian Ocean, e.g. Chinese FI/FDI in SRI
LANKA, may be TOO STRONG TO COUNTER.
And remember, death is not an option: who's the worse kiss-up to thugs and dictators, Prodi or Zapatero? Answers in comments.
ROME - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi told Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad on Tuesday that this weeks visit to Damascus by the European Unions top diplomat is a good opportunity to overcome Syrias ostracism by the West.
Prodi talked by telephone with the Syrian president about EU foreign policy chief Javier Solanas visit on Wednesday to a country largely shunned by the West for its alleged role in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Al Hariri. This is a significant chance to work for resumed dialogue between Syria and the European Union and for better cooperation to reduce tension in various troublespots in the Middle East, Prodi told Assad, according to a statement from his office.
Because all roads for peace just have to go through Damascus, don't they.
Centre-left leader Prodi has fostered appeasement dialogue with Iran and Syria and led appeasement peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon, taking advantage of Italys lack of colonial baggage in the Middle East to act as a mediator. He withdrew Italian troops from Iraq last year.
So everyone knows just how firm he is when it comes to peacekeeping.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday said Iran was prepared to offer "necessary" guarantees on its nuclear programme if the issue is withdrawn from the UN Security Council.
Mottaki said in a speech to the international Conference on Disarmament here that Iran was prepared to make efforts to build confidence if the Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany returned the issue to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Let me seize this opportunity, and in order to show our readiness to resolve the issue, underline that if the five plus one countries refer back Iran's nuclear issues from the Security Council to the IAEA, my country will be prepared to offer necessary guarantees in order to create confidence regarding non-diversion of its nuclear programme," he said.
He did not specify what guarantees Iran was prepared to give. Mottaki suggested the diplomatic pressure would make little difference.
"An issue such as Iran's nuclear issue cannot be solved through pressure or the Security Council resolutions," he said. Mottaki accused Israel and the United States of posing the main threats to the security of the Middle East.
Mottaki told the world's top disarmament forum that Israel was the only country in the region that refuses to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even though he said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last year acknowledged that his country had nuclear weapons - which Olmert denies doing. A nuclear-armed Israel poses "a uniquely grave threat to regional and international peace and security and requires to be seriously dealt with by the international community taking practical measures," Mottaki told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament.
"It is surprising that while no practical step is taken to contain the real source of nuclear danger in the Middle East, my country is under tremendous pressure to renounce its inalienable right for peaceful use of nuclear energy," Mottaki said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Hey, I'm all for it but only if it is difficult to pin down whether they are cheating again or not! /sarc off
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.
Police arrested 17 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group in six Egyptian provinces on Tuesday, the police and the group's web site said. The dawn arrests were the latest in the ongoing crackdown on the country's largest opposition movement. 
US-FRENCH relations are set to shift as France chooses a successor to President Jacques Chirac, who has defined himself on the world stage as an opponent of American dominance. With Chiracs long-expected announcement on Sunday that he would not seek another term, French elections beginning April 22 provide an opportunity for the allies to strengthen cooperation unhindered by rancor between Chirac and US President George W Bush. 
JERUSALEM - Hundreds of members of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement receive military training in Iran every year, the head of Israels internal security service was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Hundreds of Hamas men are sent for training in Iran, and not for short trainings of a week or a month, but for long sessions, MP Zvi Hendel told reporters after hearing Shin Beth chief Yuval Diskin brief parliaments influential foreign affairs and defence committee.
GAZA - Part of the $100 million in tax revenues transferred by Israel to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went on paying security services, including members of a Hamas-led force, a Hamas source said Tuesday. The (Hamas) Executive Force was a part of the security services which received part of their salaries, just like the other forces, the Hamas source said.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, chairman of ZAKA and former operations officer for the Ultra-Orthodox community, hit the Jewish man who kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was reported on Monday. The violent incident occurred last Friday in Poland during a mass visit of Orthodox Jews to the country in order to honor Hassidic Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. When the visitors arrived at Lizhensk on Friday morning, they heard that Moshe Arye Freedman, a member of the fanatic anti-Israel group Neturei Karta, was present as well. Freedman recently made headlines when he was photographed kissing Ahmadinejad during the Holocaust denial conference in Teheran three months ago. 
The national unity agreement that was reached last month in Mecca has triggered a behind-the-scenes power struggle in Hamas, sources close to the Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip revealed Tuesday. 
The Winograd Committee will publish a "partial" report in the second half of April focusing on the decision-making process during the first six days of the fighting in Lebanon last summer and the personal responsibility of the prime minister, the defense minister and the chief of General Staff for the decisions taken during those days, the committee announced Tuesday. 
A senior official of the Defence Ministry told foreign correspondents here that Rajapaksa Government was convinced that there could be neither peace nor development without defeating the Tigers militarily. "We are determined to destroy the LTTE military infrastructure wherever it existed. For over 20 years, the organisation has been allowed to grow due to lack of political will on the part of successive governments. We are confident of annihilating the Tigers' military capabilities in the next two to three years," he said to a pointed question. The official said the strategy was to clear the east from the clutches of the Tigers and than move towards the north. "Our strategy of ousting the LTTE from the east has been fairly successful so far. We do not agree with the thesis that it is an un-winnable war." 
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Tuesday said Iran was prepared to offer "necessary" guarantees on its nuclear programme if the issue is withdrawn from the UN Security Council.
