[Al Arabiya Latest] Sudan's parliament passed controversial national security reforms on Sunday in the face protests by the opposition and from southerners that they grant agents sweeping powers and could damage elections next year.
Activists have accused Sudan's powerful National Security Service (NSS) of carrying out torture and killings during the country's north-south civil war.
Sudan denies widespread abuses have taken place.
The new bill curbed the amount of time NSS agents could hold suspects, but approved existing powers of arrest, search and seizure.
The law has stoked tensions between Sudan's ruling northern National Congress Party (NCP) and its junior coalition partner -- south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- in the build-up to elections due in April.
"This law is going to have a serious impact on freedom and democracy in this country. It's going to affect the elections and intimidate voters. People are going to be afraid to go out and vote," senior SPLM official Anne Itto told Reuters.
The SPLM has argued that NSS agents should be authorized to carry out investigations, but only the police should have the power of arrest.
SPLM parliamentarians voted against the bill while opposition groups boycotted Sunday's vote in protest.
NCP official Ibrahim Ghandour defended the bill, saying the reduction in detention times marked a significant reform.
"We are living in a world where everybody is talking about terrorism. That is why we need a security authority with the powers of detention," he told Reuters.
"How do you gather information without detaining a person?"
The SPLM and NCP fought a two-decade civil war that ended in a troubled 2005 peace deal. That accord created the north-south coalition government and promised the elections.
Both sides have been wrangling over a series of laws seen as essential to preparations for the poll, and a more controversial referendum on southern independence due in 2011.
Last week, Khartoum and the SPLM announced they had agreed to bury their differences, jointly examine the national security law and submit their proposed reforms to parliament, ahead of national elections due in April 2010.
Human Rights Watch said in November that the old law had been used as a tool of state oppression "for years."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday elected a new executive bureau, but the vote revealed serious internal divisions that threaten to weaken the country's largest opposition group.
Some senior members said the elections were illegitimate because they violated the Brotherhood's internal rules. Most members of the group's shura, the council responsible for mapping policies, nonetheless agreed to go ahead.
"The opinion of the majority was that the elections to the guidance bureau be carried out now," outgoing leader Mahdi Akef said in a statement on the Brotherhood's website.
The results signaled an end to the reformist trend within the Brotherhood, political analyst Khalil el-Anani said.
"These results indicate an internal coup d'etat against the reformist camp of the Brotherhood," he told Reuters. "Most of the new members are over 50 years old and there is no representation of Brotherhood's youth."
The group's number two Mohammed Habib and reformist Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh were not among the new 16-member executive bureau known as Guidance Bureau, according to results published in a statement and obtained by AFP.
The list is made up of "the leaders of the conservative trend," Amr Shoubaky, an analyst with the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] The family of Libyan Abdul-Basit al-Miqrahi, who was given a life in jail sentence after the Lockerbie attack and returned to Libya in August after cancer spread in his body, have denied reports of deterioration in his health and his evacuation to Tripoli Medical Center after suffering from nausea and the spread of more cancerous tumors in his body.
Relatives of his and persons treating him said in a contact with Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday that he was at home and his health was stable, adding that his visits to the medical center "are a routine measure."
Al-Miqrahi, 57 years old, was convicted of involvement in the bombing of a Pan American plane in 1988, in which 270 persons were killed, the majority of them Americans. The Scottish authorities released him on 20 August for health reasons after his prostrate cancer reached its final stages and he was returned to Libya.
While members of Al-Miqrahi's family who asked to remain unidentified informed Asharq Al-Awsat that he was at home, Abdul-Hamid al-Miqrahi, Abdul-Basit's cousin, said he was in fact at home and his general health was stable and denied that the deterioration of his health forced them to take him to the Tripoli Medical Center or any other one.
A member of the medical team treating him said his visits to the center "are a routine measure to which he is subjected from time to time" so as to check the developments in his health and the extent of his response to treatment. He refused to provide any further information about his health at present and said only "his health condition is stable."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Careful, guys. Keep talking like that and Scotland may not be so interested in helping out next time.
#2
Relatives of his and persons treating him said in a contact with Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday that he was at home and his health was stable, adding that his visits to the medical center "are a routine measure."
Translation: His gummit pension checks and Swiss bank dividends are still arriving and we are cashing them.
North Korea on Monday designated a "peacetime firing zone" along the inter-Korean border in the West Sea. "To counter the reckless military provocative maneuvers by the warmongers in the South Korean military, our Navy declares the waters near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the West Sea as a peacetime naval firing zone of coastal and island artillery units" of the Army, a spokesman said.
The sea border was delineated unilaterally by North Korea and lies a way south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto inter-Korean border. That means the firing zone overlaps South Korean territorial waters, raising fears of a threat to South Korean ships. "All fishing boats and naval vessels must take their own safety measures to avoid possible damage within the peacetime naval firing zone."
At inter-Korean military talks right after the first Yeonpyeong Sea Battle in June 1999, the North Korean military called for a new maritime border in the West Sea. The North Korean Army General Staff in September the same year declared the NLL null and void while unilaterally setting a "maritime military control zone."
In the latest statement, the North said, "We once again declare at home and abroad that only the maritime MDL set by us not the illegal NLL exists in the West Sea of Korea."
A South Korean security official said this appears to be a psychological pressure tactic. "They've apparently sought ways to get revenge for their crushing defeat" in a skirmish in the West Sea last month, he said, but added the North will find a physical provocation more difficult.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Ahh. My heart bleeds.
As long as they don't do anything that could lead to a mistrial or an acquittal.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/22/2009 16:05 Comments ||
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#2
The lead lawyer for Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said Monday that he believes the Army is violating Hasan's religious rights because it prohibited him from praying from the Quran in Arabic with a relative.
And so it begins. Just wait until the GITMO Illegal Combatants (1) get here.
Heart bleeds indeed.
(1) I am not going to refer to them as 'detainees' anymore - I want to make it perfectly clear that they are ILLEGAL combatants and do not deserve Geneva Convention protections.
#3
Once again, gimme a break. This human piece of garbage was able to inflict his misery on dozens of good young men and women because we were afraid of insulting his religious sensibilities.
Let's put a koran in his bedpan and sponge bathe him in pork grease every day before we hang his sorry a@@.
#5
He's mentally ill and not responsible for his actions.
All sarcasm aside, I am actually more concerned with addressing the mind-set among the heirarchy that allowed him to be in the position to carry out his attack.
And his legal representation should only be to see that he is tried fairly - not to attempt to get him off through legal tricks and maneuvers.
And hanging is more appropriate than firing squad.
#6
ION RUMORMILLNEWS > {FoxNews}WOMAN HELD IN HAWAII FOR THREATENING TO KILL MICHELLE OBAMA [ Obama cancels Hawaiian vacation]???
Alleged perp is one Kristy Roshia, Age 35.
D *** NG IT, I know I've heard that chika's name before, but right now I can't fully remember. Will try to find a pic on the Net.
* ION VARIOUS NET POSTERS > opine that HASAN CASE = may prove to be LEGAL DOOR/GATEWAY for "CREEPING SHARIA" in USDOD-GOVT, espec iff the litigation is a long process.
#7
OOOPSIES, also from RUMORMILLNEWS > [WND.com]YAHOO IS SPYING ON YOU! ALLEGED PROXY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT, INTEL AGENCIES, in the for-profit covert collection of all your nasty Round-the-Net deeds, profiles, transactions, exchanges, and linky links, etc.
The Wall Street Journal reports this week that U.S. investigators are discovering that more and more young Muslims are vanishing from mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centers.
Note: I searched the Wall Street Journal as best I could, and could not find anything about this, which means either it wasn't there or my searching skills are not very good. If someone else could check, I'd appreciate that.
2nd note: This is not to say I don't believe there is a flow of radical American Muslims to jihad fronts abroad, whether for training or to fight.
The disappearances, the Journal notes, are raising grave concerns among FBI and Homeland Security officials who fear that an onset of jihadist activity will take place on American soil in the near future.
Hundreds of Muslim men are also missing from Islamberg and this is not a propitious omen.
The sentry post is gone and no guards are in sight at the entrance to the 70 acre Islamic settlement located in the dense forest between Deposit and Hancock in upper New York State.
Young men in Islamic garb no longer congregate before the makeshift mosque, and no students are in attendance at the one room shack that serves as Sheikh Gilani's "International Quranic Open University."
Gunfire no longer can be heard from the firing ranges along the eastern parameter of the property -- and no grunts come from new recruits at the obstacle course.
A new sign at the entranceway reads, "Welcome to Holy Islamberg: The International Quranic Open University." Next to this sign, which features the image of a mosque emerging from the mountains, is a pot of plastic carnations. Another sign proclaims that the community is home to the "United Muslim -- Christian Forum."
Such statements of welcome are offset by the "No Trespassing" signs that have been nailed to trees throughout the compound.
On the opposite side of the road leading into the community is a rack of metal mailboxes bearing such names as Abdul-Haqq, Abdul Jalil, Mumim Roberts, Abdullah Simonds, and Salam Insan.
What has happened to this once bustling complex of radical Islamists -- a place where the cries of muezzins were accompanied by the incessant rat-tat-tat of machine gunfire? Where are the Arab dignitaries that used to visit this remote community in chauffeur-driven limousines? Where are the armed sentries who warded away all intruders?
A handful of children play in the mud and muck before rows of rusty old trailers, and a few women in full burkas walk along the rutty dirt road that leads to the heart of the squalid Muslim compound.
The few residents who remain in the settlement are not environmentalists. Sewage seeps from septic tanks and outhouses into the creek that flows at the base of the settlement. Bags of rotting garbage remain stacked between the trailers. And the once pristine countryside is now littered with junk cars, moldy mattresses, empty tanks of propane, and old appliances.
Where are the men?
What has happened to this bustling center of jihadi training?
Why has Islamberg become a ghost town?
The same phenomenon of vanishing Muslim men is taking place at mosques, madrassas, and other Islamic communities throughout the country and at other Jamaat ul-Fuqra paramilitary compounds, including one in Red House, Virginia.
U.S. investigators have now discovered that many of the missing Muslims are showing up in the killing fields of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Five American Muslims recently were arrested in Pakistan following a raid at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001.
The five American Muslims -- identified as Ahmed Abdullah, Waqar Hassan Khan, Eman Hassan, Yasir and Rami Zamzam -- were planning to join forces with the Taliban to fight the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Zamzam is a graduate dental student at Howard University, where he served as president of the Muslim Student Association.
David Coleman Headley, another Muslim who disappeared, is a native of Chicago who attended Lashkar-e-Toiba-operated terrorism training camps in Pakistan and helped Lashker-e-Toiba members and others plan and execute the attacks in Denmark against the newspaper which published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, which Muslims found offensive, as well as the violent attack in Mumbai, in about 170 people died.
At the same time Headley was taken into custody, U.S. investigators discovered that 20 Somali immigrants, who were reported missing from a mosque in Minnesota, had joined the Islamist insurgent group, al Shabaab, and were engaged in fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government.
And there is the case of Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old resident of Denver, who made a trip to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2008 for the stated purpose of visiting his wife only to show up at an al Qaeda training camp where he received instruction in making and detonating explosives. In September, Zazi was collared by federal officials as he made his way to New York City to carry out attacks with the same back-pack bombs that were used to blow up a train station in Madrid and several subway stations in London.
Where are the Muslim men from Islamberg?
The answer comes from a heavy-set woman in a long black burka who stops to check her mail box. "The men -- all gone," she says in halting English. "All -- in Pakistan."
Islamberg was established in 1980 by Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who served as the imam of the Yasin Masjid in Brooklyn. A quack practitioner of something called "Koranic psychiatry," Sheikh Gilani presented himself to the Brooklyn congregation as "the sixth Sultan ul Faqr," with a lineage that dates back to the prophet Mohammed. He claimed to have supernatural powers that came from his regular reception of visits by jinn and "non-human beings."
Sporting ammunition belts, Gilani called upon members of a Black Muslim street gang known as Dar al-Islam (DAR) to take part in the holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Hundreds answered the call and headed off to training camps in Pakistan, which had been established by Osama bin Laden, and other members of the mujahadeen.
Under Gilani's direction, the DAR transformed into Jamaat ul-Fuqra ("the community of the impoverished") and continued its prison ministry under Muslims of the Americas, a new, non-profit corporation. The sheikh soon came to realize that it would be financially advantageous to train new recruits for the holy war on American soil rather than shelling out the freight of sending them to Lahore and Peshawar. He purchased a 70-acre parcel of land near Green Haven, set up a firing range and an obstacle course, purchased a slew of old single-wide trailers and created a paramilitary compound called Islamberg.
When released from the federal prison, former convicts now received not only the customary $10 and a suit of clothes but also a one-way ticket to Gilani's compound.
What took place at Islamberg and the International Quranic Open University?
The answers came from Sheikh Gilani in his recruitment videos: "We give [students] specialized training in guerilla warfare. We are at present establishing training camps. You can easily reach us at Open Quranic offices in upstate New York or in Canada or in South Carolina or in Pakistan."
Similarly, in a handbook, published by the university, Gilani wrote that the foremost duty of all students is to wage war against "the oppressors of Muslims." The students are expected to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."
Now that the recruits at Islamberg have been trained in the basics of guerilla warfare, they have been deployed to Pakistan for advanced courses in explosives and weapons of mass destruction.
Anti-terrorism court!! LAHORE, Pakistan -- A Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off after they did the same thing to a young woman whose family spurned one of the men's marriage proposal, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
The anti-terrorism court in the eastern city of Lahore said it was applying Islamic law by ordering the punishment.
The court on Monday also sentenced each man to 50 years in prison and told them to pay fines and compensation to the woman amounting to several thousand dollars, the prosecutor said.
Thousands of supporters of Pakistan's largest religious party have held anti-US rallies in major cities across the country. It would be a good idea not to forget that lots of Paks want to change sides - or have always been on the other side.
Addressing the crowd at the 'Go America Go' rally in Rawalpindi on Sunday, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader Syed Munawar Hassan said the US and its allies were pursuing a military agenda in the region, a Press TV correspondent reported. He went on to say that the US military operations are undermining Pakistan's sovereignty.
Hundreds of people, many of them civilians, have been killed since 2006 in CIA-operated drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan.
The demonstrators demanded that the Pakistani government keep a strict eye on Blackwater/Xe and other 'US terrorists' operating in the country. The ralliers said that the US is trying to create a state of anarchy in the South Asian country in order to provide a pretext to take away its nuclear assets.
JI is running an anti-US campaign and has staged several rallies across the country's major cities over the past month.
This article starring:
Syed Munawar Hassan
Jamaat-e-Islami
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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#2
Or, we put out the spin that they are supporting us: "go America go! fight the Talibastards!". It wouldn't even take a Green Helmet Guy. Just a thank you from the Ambassador thanking them for their support in the WOT. Pak jihadi heads and fatwas in 5...4...3..
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/22/2009 18:49 Comments ||
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#3
DAILY TIMES.PK > INDIA MAY FACE BATTLES AGZ CHINA, PAKISTAN IN FIVE YEARS [simultaneous wars].
Alarmed by the possibility that a prisoner exchange agreement with Israel will bolster Hamas's popularity among Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority has stepped up its measures against the movement's leading figures and members in the West Bank. Over the past 48 hours, PA security forces arrested 14 Palestinians in the West Bank on suspicion of being affiliated with Hamas, sources close to the movement said on Monday.
The sources said the latest crackdown was clearly linked to reports that a prisoner exchange agreement will soon be reached between Hamas and Israel. "The Palestinian Authority is very nervous because of the talk about a deal," the sources said. "They know that the release of hundreds of prisoners from Israeli jails would boost Hamas's popularity."
As the "forum of seven" Israeli cabinet ministers continued their deliberations in Jerusalem about the release of prisoners whom Hamas was demanding in return for St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit, Azzam al-Ahmed, a Fatah official and close aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, called for an "intifada" against the Islamist movement.
Ahmed's appeal to the Palestinians reflected growing concern among the PA leadership in Ramallah over attempts by Hamas to extend its control to the West Bank. He and other Fatah officials expressed fear that Hamas was planning to exploit the return of prisoners to their homes in the West Bank to organize anti-PA rallies in some cities, villages and refugee camps.
Hamas responded by calling for an "intifada" against the PA in the West Bank. Yahya Musa, a top Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, urged Palestinians to launch a "popular intifada against the PA because of the suffering of the Palestinians in the West Bank as a result of the actions of its security forces that operate under the supervision of the CIA."
A PA official in Ramallah condemned the Hamas call as an attempt to stage a coup against the "legitimate representatives of the Palestinians." The official warned that the Palestinian security forces would take severe measures against any individual or party involved in efforts to undermine the PA.
Almost all the Hamas figures and members who were arrested in the past two days have been detained by the PA security forces in the past.
In Nablus, the PA security forces arrested ex-detainees Lafi Hijazi, Firas Musmar, Abbas Fatayer and Hasan al-Zagha. In the nearby village of Tal, PA security officers arrested brothers Ja'far and Muaz Rihan, ex-detainees known as local leaders of Hamas. Another two Hamas supporters from the same village, Osama Ramadan and Hamed Saleh, were also taken into custody.
In Kalkilya, the PA security forces arrested three university students for allegedly being affiliated with Hamas. They were identified as Ahmed Hasan Ghanem, Muhammad Jihad Ghanem and Radwan Atiyeh.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The United Nations has asked Sri Lanka to come clean about allegations that government forces killed some Tamil rebels who were about to surrender.
Colombo said Monday that the UN is seeking explanation about the fate of three senior Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders and their families who wanted to surrender back in May.
The news follows reports that Sri Lankan defense minister ordered all the rebels to be killed.
Russia and China have vetoed attempts by Western nations to have the UN launch a war-crimes investigation into Sri Lanka's civil war.
The 37-year war ended in May when the leaders of the Tamil Tigers were killed in a major government offensive.
The UN estimates that up to 7,000 civilians died in the final stages of the war. Sri Lanka, however, has challenged the UN estimate.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 00:00 ||
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They had been fighting for years and hadn't gotten around to surrendering. What's a couple minutes more?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/22/2009 0:17 Comments ||
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No, no. You don't understand. Now it's SAFE (for these self-important UN tranzi assholes) to criticize (from a distance, of course). 'You there! Expect a series of sternly-worded memos!'
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/22/2009 3:30 Comments ||
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[ADN Kronos] Jihadist websites were flooded with messages of condolences to Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri over his mother's death. Umayma Azzam, died from a heart complaint in the Egyptian capital, Cairo on Sunday, at the age of 75.
She died at Cairo's al-Salam hospital, where she was admitted earlier last week.
In a message posted to the Arabic news website Moheet, Azzam's brother Mahfouz al-Azzam said he was proud of his nephew al-Zawahiri who he said "defends the principles of Islam".
Al-Azzam announced his sister's death and said she was buried on Sunday in a high-security ceremony at a local mosque in the Cairo suburb of Halwan. Almost everyone in the town attended the funeral, according to witnesses.
The Azzam family is one of the most prominent in Cairo. Mahfouz al-Azzam, a retired judge, was recently appointed the leader of the local Socialist party.
Al-Zawahiri's maternal grandfather, Abdel Wahab Azzam, was rector of the University of Cairo and Egypt's ambassador to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/22/2009 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.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday elected a new executive bureau, but the vote revealed serious internal divisions that threaten to weaken the country's largest opposition group.
North Korea on Monday designated a "peacetime firing zone" along the inter-Korean border in the West Sea. "To counter the reckless military provocative maneuvers by the warmongers in the South Korean military, our Navy declares the waters near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the West Sea as a peacetime naval firing zone of coastal and island artillery units" of the Army, a spokesman said.
LAHORE, Pakistan -- A Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off after they did the same thing to a young woman whose family spurned one of the men's marriage proposal, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Thousands of supporters of Pakistan's largest religious party have held anti-US rallies in major cities across the country. 
