[Quqnoos] An influential German candidate said his country should move toward an 'eventual withdrawal' from Afghanistan
German Chancellor Angela Markel and her main rival Walter Steinmeier in the next week election discussed Afghanistan issues in a televised debate on Sunday. "Germany should move toward an eventual withdrawal of its 4,000 troops from Afghanistan," said Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier. "We want to create the conditions ... by 2013 so that the withdrawal can begin," Steinmeier, the head of the German Social Democrats, said in Sunday's debate.
Merkel said that pressure needed to by exerted on Kabul to ensure progress but would not engage on a specific withdrawal plan. "Getting out now would mean women going back into the cellar, girls no longer going to school, farmers growing drugs again and plenty more," Steinmeier said.
Germany as a key US ally in Afghanistan has nearly 4,000 troops in the country, mostly stationed in the relatively peaceful northern Afghanistan.
In a visit with her French and British counterparts last week, the German chancellor said training of Afghan forces should be accelerated in order to transfer full control of security to Afghans.
A lovely idea, but I was under the impression the training is going as quickly as can be done with troops that start out unaccustomed to boots or reading.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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"We want to create the conditions ... by 2013 so that the withdrawal can begin,"
Well that's not bad per se. Nobody wants to stay forever, right? It's not likely that in 2013 the conditions will be achieved but trying to do so is not a bad thing.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
09/15/2009 18:16 Comments ||
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The US, NATO, and the Afghan Army need to "exit" via Karachi, taking on anyone in their way. Once they've finished (hopefully with some help from India), the "Pashtunistan" problem will be solved, the Jammu & Kashmir problem will be solved, the security problem with Pakistani nukes will be solved, and the extremist madrassa problem will be solved. Afterwards, Afghanistan and India can agree on a common border (the Indus River), and another problem is solved. What's NOT to like by such a strategy?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/15/2009 18:59 Comments ||
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Friends of Mohamoud Hassan got the call nine days ago that he had become the latest Somali-American from Minneapolis to die in his homeland. Buried the same day, they were told, was a companion who went by the Muslim nickname "Abdirahman."
But "Abdirahman'' was not a Somali-American. The caller from Somalia described him instead as a "Caucasian American" who had fought alongside the Somali men who had come from the Twin Cities. Abdirahman may have been Troy Kastigar, a 28-year-old from Minneapolis who converted to Islam several years ago, went by that nickname and when last heard from told his mother he was in Kenya.
Liars don't go to Paradise and get the seventy-two virgins or white raisins, y'know. Sorry, Mom.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
09/15/2009 12:59 ||
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i hope it was prolonged and painful. couldn't happen to a more deserving POS
Posted by: abu do you love ||
09/15/2009 15:26 Comments ||
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Send more from Minnesota. It's a win-win.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/15/2009 18:09 Comments ||
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Buh-bye, assh*le.
Enjoy eternity with your buddies in HELL.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/15/2009 20:58 Comments ||
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We have plenty of these MF in the UK, send them all back, they can kill whom they want with no restrictions back home.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
09/15/2009 23:35 Comments ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Two Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) members were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) yesterday after they were allegedly tortured by the members of Task Force for Interrogation (TFI) cell during questioning into the BDR mutiny case.
The ailing BDR members are Reazul Islam, 22, of Battalion-5 in Khagrachhari, and Mohammad Arafat, 24, of Battalion-13 in Dhaka.
Both the jawans were present at BDR Headquarters during the mutiny on February 25-26. DMCH sources said members of the TFI cell and New Market police admitted them at around 5:00pm. They bore severe injury marks on their knees, which indicate they suffered torture, sources added. While lying on the DMCH bed, one of the BDR jawans said, "We were tortured brutally during the interrogation since we had been taken to the TFI cell on Thursday."
New Market Police Station officer-in-charge told The Daily Star, "We were told from Pilkhana over phone about the sickness of two BDR jawans and then our men took the jawans to hospital." Asked about the sickness of the two jawans, Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Kahar Akand of CID said, "I heard about the sickness but yet to know the cause as they were being interrogated under TFI cell."
"We have taken 16 more jawans on Thursday for interrogation under TFI cell," Akand, also the main investigating officer of the mutiny case, added.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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"I heard about the sickness but yet to know the cause as they were being interrogated under TFI cell."
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il voiced confidence that his country will become a "thriving" nation during visits to modernized machine plants, Pyongyang's media said Tuesday.
You betcha, little man ...
Kim's visits to the Pukjung Machine Complex and the Rakwon Machine Complex in the North Phyangan Province, which borders China, came two days after he inspected a naval unit.
"You have to stand up to see that, sir."
"I AM standing up!"
Kim "stressed that the DPRK's (North Korea) cause of building a thriving nation is sure to be successfully accomplished thanks to such heroic workers as the (province's) workers", the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English language report.
The Pukjung complex originally started as a heavy oil engine manufacturer after the 1950-53 Korean War, but "has turned into a large machine-building center making a great contribution to the nation's shipbuilding industry and the development of economy," the report said. Kim "expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the workers of the complex produced efficient machines as required by the new century," it said.
Kim also praised workers at the Rakwon complex who have newly manufactured a "modern" oxygen plant.
It's not enough that they don't have food, the Norks don't even have enough oxygen ...
It's a "modern" factory. What it actually makes is moderns. Or maybe it's the "modern" brand of oxygen. Has an extra couple of neutrons or something. With the right advertising campaign, the customers will snap it up.
Kim was accompanied by Kim Phyong-hae, chief secretary of the North Phyongan provincial committee of the Workers' Party, Kim Ki-nam, a secretary of the party's central committee, and party department directors, Pak Nam-gi and Jang Song-thaek, the KCNA said. Kim had a photo session with the workers, it added.
Kim's latest trip was his 105th this year. He made 74 trips and 54 trips during the same period last year and in 2007, respectively, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
Wants to see all the sights before he kicks off?
Perhaps he is introducing the current #1 son, a.k.a. The Kid, hoping hard the Kim mystique will offset his severe lack of age and gravitas.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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What's he going to build it with? They've already eaten all the trees, haven't they?
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is negotiating details of his visit to North Korea for the closing ceremony of the China-North Korea Friendship Year in Pyongyang early next month, the Mainichi Shimbun reported Saturday citing a diplomatic source in Beijing. Wen is likely to visit between Oct. 1, the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, and the three-way summit among South Korea, China and Japan in Beijing on Oct. 10, the daily said. It will be Wen's first North Korea visit as prime minister.
North Korea's Prime Minister Kim Yong-il attended the opening ceremony for the friendship year in China in March. "Because there has been continued exchange of high-profile personnel between the two countries, Wen's visit to North Korea will be a separate issue from North Korea's nuclear weapons issue," a diplomat told the Mainichi.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Probably looking to see if there's enough goodies to be worth Taking over?
Or if the losses outweigh the benefit?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/15/2009 12:31 Comments ||
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ION CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > DOES CHINA WANT WAR [agz USA]? Artic repeats comments of high-ranking PLA General that, as per any US-CHINA CONFLICT > the PRC will never accept formal Taiwan independence from the mainland, that iff the USA draws its weapons into the target zone of Chinese territory Chin may have to respond agz the USA wid nuclear weapons, that Chin is prepared to lose all its cities east of the Xian, and that America must be prepared to lose hundreds of US Cities in turn.
ALso, WMF > TENS OF THOUSAND OF US TROOPS MASSING IN PAKISTAN: SHOULD CHINA SEND TROOPS?
According to a high-level source on August 27, North Korea already produced a centrifuge, required to enrich uranium. North Korea was successful in producing uranium nuclear weapon in 2006.
According to the source, North Korea found a way to make a compound metal for centrifuge at an aluminum factory located in Bukchang, South Pyongan Province. A munitions factory in Kaechun, South PyongAn Province is creating centrifuges with this metal. However, a few electronic parts are smuggled into North Korea because North Korea cannot produce them.
The source informed that the engineer who contributed to the creation of the compound metal was elected as a representative, and was visited by Kim Jong-Il.
Open News for North Korea consulted a few experts on North Korean nuclear weapons as to whether it would be technologically possible. According to the experts, North Korea may be able to create the special metal for centrifuges. It is because North Korea has been producing aluminum and has been conducting research on compound metals at the national research center.
According to the expert, centrifuges come in two types- P1 and P2. North Korea imported blueprints for these two types of centrifuges from Pakistan. However, in order to create P1 type of centrifuge, bearing and other electronic parts are necessary. Even if North Korea can produce the special compound metal, trade in other electronic parts and bearings are controlled by international community. Therefore, it seems that North Korea has been smuggling them in.
P2 type of centrifuge is made of maraging steel, which is not a type of aluminum. In order to produce 25-30 kg of enriched uranium, which would be sufficient to make one nuclear weapon, North Korea would need 2,500-3,000 P1 type centrifuge, or 1,000-1,200 P2 type centrifuge. In other words, P2 type centrifuge is much more effective. However, there is no information that indicates that North Korea is producing maraging steel. Therefore, if North Korea is producing centrifuges, it is likely to be P1 type, and not P2 type.
If North Korea has been creating nuclear weapon with enriched uranium since 2006, it is likely that North Korea has already created 4-5 enriched uranium nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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The Norks celebrate Kwansa, right? Rahm and staff, please send along three more boxes of 'Hope & Change' and a case of 'hearts & minds' vintage 1967. Just make it go away.
[Kyodo: Korea] The United States will have no in-depth dialogue with North Korea outside the framework of the six-party talks on disbanding Pyongyang"s nuclear arsenal, the State Department said Monday. ""What we"ve said all along is that we will not have any substantive bilateral talks with North Korea that"s outside of the six-party context, that our goal is to get North Korea to return to the six-party context, six-party talks,"" department spokesman Ian Kelly said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Lashkar-e-Taiba has emerged as the main suspect behind the Friday night's rocket fire into Indian villages from Pakistan side after Pak Rangers claimed their troops had no role in the incident.
Four rockets had smashed into villages in Punjab, shattering the late night calm as they exploded in the fields and triggered a major scare. The attack had forced BSF -- perhaps for the first time -- to retaliate with machine gun and mortar fire.
The BSF has lodged a strong protest with Pak Rangers and sounded an alert along the border late Friday night soon after the attack. The attack came the same day BSF deployed its first women contingent along the international border in the Punjab sector.
There was no damage or casualty on the Indian side, BSF inspector-general Himmat Singh said. The 107 mm rockets landed about 2 km inside the Indian side at Modhey, Rattan Kalan, Dalkae and Dhoneya Khurd villages, near Attari.
BSF commandant Baljit Dhillon held a flag meeting with Pakistan Rangers at 1 am on Saturday and lodged a strong protest with Rangers' leader wing commander Akbar Bhatt, who surprisingly denied knowledge of the attack or Pak army's role.
Sources said the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, whose armed men now operate in the Pakistani state of Punjab, could be behind the attack.
In July, Pakistani security forces had seized a cache of arms, including 107 mm rockets -- the kind used on Friday -- from the arrested LeT men at Dera Gazhi Khan.
Following the rocket attack, BSF retaliated with machine guns and mortar shells from Pul Kanjari, Attari. The IG said this was perhaps the first such retaliatory action by BSF in this sector.
The BSF described the projectiles as 107mm rockets with a range of 8 km. The BSF said it didn't have these kind of rockets.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Bwhahahah... while I'm as tired as the next guy of the Godwin's point, it's pretty funny to see this happening to a self-appointed leftist - a frenchie eco-loon with no military background, if you don't include his tourism industry diplomas (IIRC according to a resume/bio someone posted here a while ago, might need to check his probably already gone HRW background webpage, but, why bother?), as this has been a very busy NGO critter, and an "expert" quoted by many french newspapers and a repeat contriubtor the "monde diplomatique", IE the paleo-marxist vanguard rag of the international third-worldism.
Nice to see he's not just a boring, mundane holier-than-you moonbat, but a messed up puppy, a pacifist human rights fighter with an hard on for those darn nazis/scary germanic he-men , just as we like 'em. Are you engorged yet?
#1
Nope, I be confusing here, not the same french tourist expert critter, oh, well;, it would have been so funny.
http://www.hrw.org/en/bios/marc-garlasco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Garlasco
So, his nick was/is... Flak88. Ahahaha. I'm sure he's got no bias against jooooooos.
Ma'an -- The Hamas movement said on Monday that it would continue to view Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) institutions as illegitimate until they are reformed through elections.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said that recent elections for the PLO's Executive Committee were "a real farce, and they represent intrusion and violation of the Organization's law."
Abu Zuhri said he was taking into consideration remarks by Palestinian People's Party official Abdul Rahim Mallouh, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, who said earlier that there may have been legal problems with the election in August, which took place during a meeting of members of the Palestinian National Council (PNC).
During the meeting, Mallouh said, PNC non-members voted, while members of the council were not invited to the meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
For Abu Zuhri, this was further evidence of violations of an agreement that called for reform of the PLO: "Based on this and other violations of the Cairo Agreement in 2005, Hamas confirms its position that since everything based on the recent national meeting of the [National] Council is legally invalid, and all the existing PLO institutions are illegal until its restructuring through the ballot box."
Hamas and other Islamist parties are formally excluded from the PLO, the organization that represents the Palestinians in international organizations such as the United Nations. In the past Hamas leaders have also called for the PLO to be replaced with a more inclusive organization.
The issue of elections is especially sensitive, as Hamas, Fatah, and other factions spar over a previous agreement to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza in January.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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COLOMBO: Sri Lankan experts on terrorism have said that the LTTE maintained a front company in Karachi to arrange arms smuggling and a safe house in Peshawar for contacts with Taliban. Like runs with like...
According to Shanaka Jayasekara, who carried out research on terrorism at the Macquarie University of Australia, LTTE's arms procurer Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP travelled from Bangkok to Kabul via Karachi on May 19, 2001, and met Taliban leaders to discuss matters relating to the so-called 'Sharjah network', an arms supply line run by the Russian dealer Victor Bout who operated three to four flights a day to Kabul to transport weapons.
Lakbima News online quotes Mr Jayasekara as saying that the LTTE operated a cargo company in Dubai, 17kms from the offices of the Sharjah network.
The company named 'Otharad Cargo' was headed by Daya, younger brother of Nithi, a Canada-based member of LTTE's arms procurement unit under KP.
Otharad Cargo is believed to have acquired several consignments of military hardware as part of consolidated purchase arrangements with Taliban's Sharjah network.
Mr Jayasekara claims that information recovered from a laptop computer of an LTTE procurement agent, now in the custody of a western country, has provided detailed information on LTTE's activities in Pakistan.
The LTTE had registered the front company in Karachi which procured several consignments of weapons for the LTTE as well as Pakistani militant groups.
A shipment of weapons procured by the company was intercepted and destroyed by Sri Lankan navy in September 2007, he says.
Lakbima News cites a Jane's Intelligence report of November 2002 on terrorist financing in South Asian states which says that LTTE's shipping fleet provided logistic support to Harakatul Mujahideen for transporting a consignment of weapons to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines.
The LTTE used a merchant vessel registered by a front company in Lattakia, Syria, until 2002 to service most of its 'grey/black charters'.
According to Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan expert on terrorism with the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism in Malaysia, the LTTE had links with jihadis in the NWFP and had a safe house in Peshawar.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said recently that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had told him in Tripoli that elements in Sri Lanka were linked with terrorist incidents in Pakistan, including an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3.
Influential Iranian cleric Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani has called for an epic turn-out on al-Quds day to foil world power's plot to sow discord among Muslims.
"World powers are ready to add to their crimes by taking advantage of weak alliances among Muslims, their ignorance, and especially the disputes between Palestinian fighters themselves," Rafsanjani said in a statement.
The recognized cleric pointed out that the al-Quds day rallies throughout the world would be a "never-ending warning call to those who have gone astray."
"God forbid that al-Quds day, which the [1979] Islamic Revolution's wise old leader called the day of Islam's awakening, be forgotten because of these disputes," added the cleric addressing Iranians and Muslims worldwide.
"God forbid that that the rifts (among Muslims) provide an opportunity for the enemy to make a gain- an enemy which has waited years in the hope of erasing the true Islamic identity of al-Quds," he said.
Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani issued the statement on Monday night, four days before the last Friday of Ramadan.
The last Friday of Ramadan is the day that Muslim's hold al-Quds Day rallies each year, heeding a call by the late leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for demonstrations in support of Palestine.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran on Monday resumed the mass trial of those arrested during the post election demonstrations amid protests by prominent reformist clerics who opposed the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri -- once tipped to succeed Islamic republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- both spoke out as six protesters went on trial.
The official IRNA news agency said those in the dock included student leader Abdollah Momeni, but later reported that the judge ordered media not to name the defendants.
Fars news agency then reported remarks made by an accused it referred to only as A.M., a former student activist.
"I consider myself to be involved in the events that followed the election," Fars said A.M. told the court.
"Prior to the election, we were talking about issues like fraud and were also advocating massively against the officials of the regime. We also staged a rebellion against the regime... the election was just a pretext to hit at the symbol of the regime, the (supreme) leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Fars also said A.M. had apologized and asked to be pardoned.
Around 140 protesters have already been put on trial for opposing Ahmadinejad's re-election in the June 12 poll, which the opposition alleges was massively rigged.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/15/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Friends of Mohamoud Hassan got the call nine days ago that he had become the latest Somali-American from Minneapolis to die in his homeland. Buried the same day, they were told, was a companion who went by the Muslim nickname "Abdirahman."
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il voiced confidence that his country will become a "thriving" nation during visits to modernized machine plants, Pyongyang's media said Tuesday.
According to a high-level source on August 27, North Korea already produced a centrifuge, required to enrich uranium. North Korea was successful in producing uranium nuclear weapon in 2006.
