[Tolo News] British parliament has called on Washington and London to engage in direct talks with the Taliban leadership. The word "parliament" comes from the French word "parler," meaning "to bat one's gums."
Foreign affairs committee of British parliament has called the role of the United States essential in Afghan peace talks with the Taliban.
President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai has said this would take some time to reach a resolution with the Taliban.
But Karzai said his government and its western allies have made some contacts with the Taliban.
Foreign affairs committee of UK parliament warned that counterinsurgency military operations would not lead to victory.
Political settlements would root out present challenges in Afghanistan.
"Regretfully, once again we become victims of improper policies of countries involved in Afghanistan's crisis. Afghanistan requires a long- term strategy to overcome its dilemmas," Head of Afghanistan Civil Society Forum, Aziz Rafiee said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... President Hamid Karzai in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 News said his government and his western backers are in contact with the Taliban.
"The contacts are going on. The contacts don't get to a fixed address unfortunately, because that address is not there," President Karzai said.
Foreign affairs committee of UK parliament has said now is the time to step up more political efforts rather than combating Taliban to stop them from coming back to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
So the Taliban can go back to blowing up girls schools and statues of the Buddha? Beheading women?
cutting their noses off? what short memories some people have.
#2
So we will forgive the unrepentant Taliban for 9/11 as we forgave the unrepentant Gaddafi regime for Lockerbie.
And why not?
The diplomatic 'Grand Bargain' with Libya was a splendid success, wasn't it?
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Police are on high alert following terror threats by Somali militias.
Eastern provincial police officer Marcus Ochola said on Wednesday:
"We have intensified searches in bars, churches, mosques and bus parks where we are frisking passengers. Security officers in these places have been told to place themselves strategically to monitor everyone."
Those in places of worship will also be on the lookout for any terror threat.
He said security is on high alert at Muthaa in Mutumo district, Kitui, Tharaka, North Horr, Mwingi, Isiolo, Marsabit and Moyale where illegal Somali immigrants pass through on their way to Nairobi or in transit to southeren Africa.
In December last year, Eastern Provincial Commissioner Ms Clare Omolo said that the foreigners had discovered new routes to evade arrest as they enter through the upper parts of eastern province.
The police boss however said that a contingent of regular police, General Service and the Anti Stock Theft units identified these as entry points for the hard boyz adding that patrols and road blocks have been increased.
More than 500 foreigners entering the country through the northern border were nabbed and taken to court in December.
New cases have declined since then and he attributed this to increased road blocks and the arraignment in courts and repatriation of those convicted.
He called on the public to avoid going to places where security was not guaranteed.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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The Swiss government paid one of the sons of Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi 1.5 million francs, the department of foreign affairs confirmed yesterday.
The money was transferred in the name of Hannibal Gaddafi to a German bank following a dispute between Switzerland and Libya in the wake of his arrest at a Geneva hotel in July 2008.
Neither the Swiss nor the Libyans currently have access to the cash.
The payment was made in a bid to secure the release of Swiss businessman, Max Goeldi, who was held in Libya for two years.
Goeldi was detained after Libyan authorities reacted angrily to the publishing by the Swiss media of leaked mug shots of Hannibal Gaddafi, taken during his Geneva arrest. Not true! The Swiss citizens were taken hostage in July of 2008, the mugshots were published in September of 2009.
Geneva police arrested him and his wife after receiving a complaint of mistreatment by domestic workers.
The Swiss agreed that the money would be unblocked in favor of Libya if the person responsible for having leaked the mug shots is not found by Geneva authorities. There might be a connection to the nuclear standoff in 2009.
CAIRO Egypts new military rulers told visiting Turkish President Abdullah Gul Thursday they were committed to overseeing a democratic transition after the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces reiterated its will to manage a democratic transition, Gul told reporters. He was speaking after talks with the head of the military council and Egypts de-facto head of state, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi.
Gul said it was not enough to have a strong army, there must also be a strong political system and a healthy economic base.
It was his first visit to Egypt since Mubarak was toppled on February 11 after nearly three weeks of nationwide anti-government protests.
Were in a phase in which Egyptians must act rationally, and should strive to satisfy popular demands during this transitional period, Gul told reporters. We have come (to Egypt) to share our experience and our expectations, with sincerity, in these critical moments."
Gul was visiting Cairo in what an aide said was a show of solidarity with the Egyptian state and people two weeks after a wave of massive protests forced president Hosni Mubarak to resign after three decades of rule. Turkey is often cited as an example of how Islam and democracy can co-exist, and Gul was one of the first Muslim leaders to call for Mubarak to step down during Egypts uprising.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
And then along comes AYMAN ...
To wit,
* TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > VARIOUS > VIDEO: ZAWAHIRI CALLS FOR ISLAMIC STATE/RULE IN EGYPT.
This is going to be intehwestin', as iff Muammar Qaddafi manages to survive agz the Rebels, + pro-Rebels US-NATO Milstrikes, + internal Threats, Break-up of Libya, etc. IN THE FACE OF ANY POST-REVOLT US-NATO/ALLIED OPPOSITION HE WILL WANT TO ALIGN HIS NEW REGIME WID POST-MUBARAK EGYPT + OTHER POST-JASMINE ARAB-MUSLIM STATES [Islamist? Nuclear?], ESPEC AS PER MAINTAINING TRADITIONAL, INDEPENDENT, ARAB-MUSLIM CONTROL OF ME OIL.
Muammar needs Oil-Gas field to help pay his Boyz in the present crisis, + he will need same or more to econ dev his New Regime + any POST-JASMINE, POST-BREAKUP? "NEW LIBYA".
The Man is not the type to resign + then quietly disappear - IN RULING POWER OR NOT, MUAMMAR DESIRES TO STAY AN ACTIVE + INFLUENTIAL POWERBROKER AMAP ALAP IN LOCAL, REGIONAL, + EVEN GLOBAL POLITIX.
[HUGH HEFNER + "THE DOORS" JIM MORRISON NAKED-N-DEAD IN A PARIS BATHTUB here].
IIRC, Uncle Muammar has publicly stated oer the years that he admires the work + lifestyle of HEF + JIMBO.
[Arab News] Egypt's military rulers said Thursday the prime minister appointed by ousted geriatric President Hosni Mubarak has resigned, meeting a key demand of the opposition protest movement.
Former air force officer Ahmed Shafiq was named prime minister by Mubarak shortly after the Jan. 25 outbreak of anti-government protests in a failed attempt to quiet the unrest. Mubarak stepped down Feb. 11 and the military took control of the country, but Shafiq remained in office at the head of a caretaker government.
A brief statement posted on the military's official website said it had chosen former Transport Minister Essam Sharaf as the new prime minister and tasked him with forming a new caretaker Cabinet to run the government throughout a transition back to civilian rule.
Leaders of the 18-day uprising that forced Mubarak to step down had been pressing the military to fire Shafiq, arguing that a prime minister sworn in by the ousted leader should not stay in office. They also argued that his Cabinet was filled with figures from the old regime.
The prompt acceptance by the military of Shafiq's resignation shows the sensitivity of the ruling generals to the demands of the uprising's leaders, but many in Egypt now believe the military should put its foot down and focus on restoring law and order in this country of 80 million people.
Egypt has been gripped by a crime wave it had not seen in living memory, with a marked rise in armed robberies, arson and street battles between rival criminal gangs over territory. Demoralized and hated by many for their perceived brutality against protesters, security forces have yet to fully take back the streets. They numbered around 500,000 on the eve of the protests.
The military police, meanwhile, has stepped in to fill the vacuum, but its personnel don't have the intelligence capabilities or the manpower to efficiently police the country.
Beside security, one of the main tasks now facing Sharaf is to revive the economy hard hit by the protests. The stock market has been closed for more than a month and foreign tourists have only begun to trickle back in small numbers. Investor confidence has been badly hit too by the dozens of criminal investigations into corruption allegations against bigwigs from the former regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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[Arab News] A senior Egyptian diplomat has dismissed reports on Wednesday in the Egyptian press about former Egyptian geriatric President Hosni Mubarak receiving cancer treatment in Tabuk as "baseless and untrue."
Nabeel Baker, front man for the Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh, said on Wednesday that Mubarak was still in Sharm El-Sheikh.
A report published in the state-owned Egyptian daily Al-Akhbar claimed Mubarak was currently in a military base hospital in Tabuk and receiving treatment for colon and pancreatic cancer, undergoing chemotherapy every five days. However, The infamous However... no official from Egypt's interim military government was quoted in the report. Al-Akhbar also claimed that Mubarak's wife Suzanne and his two sons Alaa and Gamal, the latter long considered his father's possible successor, were also living on the Tabuk military base.
News of Mubarak's arrival in the Kingdom was widely published by several online media. According to reports, which have been rejected by the Egyptian Embassy, Mubarak left for the northwestern Saudi city days after he resigned on Feb. 11 and handed power to a military council after nearly three weeks of anti-regime protests.
The rumors about Mubarak being in Soddy Arabia had been greeted with skepticism by observers across the region on the ground that it would cause uproar in Egypt.
Cairo has imposed a travel ban on Mubarak and his family, and he has not been seen in public since he was ousted from power. Mubarak had gone to the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh after quitting.
Prior to his resignation, Mubarak had said he was determined to stay in the country and would die in his homeland.
In March last year, Mubarak spent three weeks in Germany after an operation to have his gall bladder removed, amid widespread rumors he was suffering from cancer.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] People in North African and Middle Eastern countries are set to join massive "Day of Rage" protest rallies planned Friday against their unpopular regimes.
Demonstrations are to take place in Tunisia and Egypt, where popular revolutions have already toppled the decades-long autocratic rule of their Western-backed dictators, setting off a whole host of anti-government protest movements in a number of other Arab countries.
Forces against Libya's ruler Muammar Qadaffy have also called for protest rallies in the capital Tripoli. The 42-year-long regime of the Libyan dictator has fiercely opposed the uprising that began February 15, reportedly killing thousands of the anti-government demonstrators so far.
In Soddy Arabia, where prisoner abuse and rights record have recently attracted an unprecedented wave of anger, online human rights ... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you... campaigners have rallied support for a public display of outrage in the Eastern Province's Al-Ihsaa governorate, AFP reported.
The protest is to be held in condemnation of Riyadh's recent arrest of a Shia holy man, in line with the kingdom's age-old suppression of many followers of the faith in the country.
The street actions are planned to take place following Friday Prayers and are also expected to take place in the streets of Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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He is America's hated poster-boy of Islam. He is the angry face of separatism in Kashmir. He is the vigorous organizer of protests on the streets of Srinagar. Thirty-one-year-old Shakeel Ahmad Bhat, tagged as the Islamic rage boy in the West, has again been slapped with Public Safety Act, 9th t
ime in a row since November 2008 when he was arrested in old city Srinagar, in the aftermath of Amarnath Land agitation.
The bony cheeked and unkemptly bearded, Shakeel shot to infamy in 2007 after his jaw-drooping, crooked teeth, closed-fist, eye-bulged-out pictures were carried by many international media outlets during a protest in Srinagar. He was quickly dubbed as Islamic Rage boy and Poster boy. Soon his pictures made it to spoof cover of Time magazine, on T-Shirts, posters, mouse-pads, boxer shorts, bumper stickers and beer mugs.
[An Nahar] Cyber activists have created a group on Facebook calling for a "Day of Anger" on Friday in the eastern Shiite-majority Saudi region, following the arrest of a Shiite holy man.
The group of more than 500 members is calling for protests after Friday prayers in Al-Hufuf, in Eastern Province's Al-Ihsaa governorate, to demand the release of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer.
Amer was nabbed after calling for a "constitutional monarchy" in the Sunni-dominated kingdom, according to the Rasid website, which specializes in Shiite Saudi news.
It said that Amer has been held several times in the ultra-conservative absolute monarchy over his calls "for giving Shiites further freedom to exercise their religious rights."
The Shiites, who are mainly concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province, and make up about 10 percent of the Saudi population as a whole, complain of marginalization in the kingdom.
The Eastern Province has common borders with Shiite-majority Bahrain, where protests, also organized via social networking site Facebook, against the ruling Sunni dynasty have raged since February 14 demanding reforms.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
See also FREEREPUBLIC > SAUD ARABIA DRAFTS UP TO 10,000 TROOPS AHEAD OF PROTESTS.
Increasing numbers of wives of North Korean soldiers are fleeing the Stalinist country despite its "songun" or military-first doctrine, Open Radio for North Korea said Thursday. Quoting a source in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, the Seoul-based shortwave station said the wives of active-duty servicemen "are bravely deciding to flee the North, leaving their husbands behind, because they find it impossible to eke out a living there."
The source claimed a broker of his acquaintance helped four women who are married to soldiers flee the North in February alone. "They suffered even more severe hardship than ordinary people," the source added.
According to the source, platoon leaders (second lieutenant) and company leaders (first lieutenant) are paid a mere 2,000 won (approximately W750 in South Korean currency, US$1=W1,120) a month. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for their wives to buy even a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes. Lieutenant colonels and majors commanding a battalion are paid about 5,000 won, just enough to buy 1-3 kg of rice.
Despite this the regime has banned soldiers' spouses from engaging in any independent business, so the only thing they can do is tend kitchen gardens, the source added.
Besides these hardships, these women are also apparently motivated by privileged information their husbands can provide, especially by news about South Korea and China from traders who visit military units.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Not good when women can't shop.
* ION PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > JAPAN: NO PROTEST [Diplomatic] TO BE LODGED OVER CHINA WARPLANES APPROACHING CLOSE TO THE DAOYUS ISLANDS.
* WMF > CHINA FINALLY UNDERSTANDS THE DARK TRUTH OF THE RUSSIA-JAPAN SOUTH KURILES DISPUTE: SINO-RUSSIAN STRATEGIC RELATIONS SINKING INTO THE ABYSS OF RUSS FEAR + ENVY. NEW PRIORITY FOR US-VS-CHINA ANTI-CARRIER WAR IN TAIWAN STRAITS + WESTPAC TO BREAK THE "FIRST ISLAND CHAIN".
#9
Rosetta Stone doesn't offer an authentic Joe M package. It's too difficult with only a 10 DVDs limit. Don't buy one off CraigsList. It's not likely to work
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2011 22:49 Comments ||
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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) said that turmoil in north Africa and the Middle East was behind the fresh spike in the price of wheat and cooking oil, with many governments hoarding food.
#1
Those 6 star hotels will make grand castles for those with money, where they can reflect that if there is no food to buy it really does not matter how much money you have.
[Arab News] Turkey's government on Wednesday rejected a demand by a pro-Kurdish party to move the imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan from a prison island and into a house arrest, indicating the government is not ready for any major concessions even as it seeks to reconcile with minority Kurds.
"Our answer is very clear. Such a thing is out of question," Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin told news hounds.
"It is not possible under existing laws."
The demand by pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party, the leading Kurdish political movement in the country, was also echoed by Ocalan's Kurdish rebels.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch... a court in the southeastern city of Siirt ordered 13 Kurds jugged Wednesday, pending trial on charges of membership in the youth wing of Ocalan's Kurdish rebel group, the Anatolia news agency said Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 to seek an independent Kurdish state. It has since changed demands and says it is fighting for an autonomy within Turkey.
Ocalan is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali. He was captured in Kenya in 1999, before a Turkish court sentenced him to death, which was later commuted to life in prison.
While Turks consider Ocalan responsible for nearly 40,000 deaths since the conflict began, he is still revered by his Kurdish supporters who often brace festivities with police for carrying his posters or shouting his name, which is illegal in Turkey.
The government has taken several steps to improve the rights of Kurds, including allowing a Kurdish-language television broadcast but Kurdish politicians insist on broader rights such as education in Kurdish. Turkey opposes this out of fear that it could divide the country along ethnic lines. Kurds comprise up to 20 percent of the country's 74 million people.
On Monday, PKK called off a unilateral six-month-long cease-fire, accusing the government of not responding to their demands -- including improvement of Ocalan's prison conditions and an end to military operations. It also called for an end to prosecution of dozens of elected Kurdish mayors on charges of separatism.
"The present situation is a no-solution situation," the rebel group said in a statement e-mailed to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named on Wednesday. It said that only the government was benefiting from the lull in the fighting in the run up to general elections in June.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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I don't think Obama means a military solution, either...
The Obama administration is preparing for the prospect that Islamist governments will take hold in North Africa and the Middle East, acknowledging that the popular revolutions there will bring a more religious cast to the region's politics.
The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region.
"We shouldn't be afraid of Islam in the politics of these countries," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal policy deliberations. "It's the behavior of political parties and governments that we will judge them on, not their relationship with Islam."
Hello, accommodation. That worked really well with the old Soviet Union, didn't it.
Islamist governments span a range of ideologies and ambitions, from the primitive brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan to Turkey's Justice and Development Party, a movement with Islamist roots that heads a largely secular political system.
Which the Islamist roots are working to change in every possible way...
None of the revolutions over the past several weeks has been overtly Islamist,
Not true. Yemen clearly is. Egypt may well be in the end, we just need to see how phase 2 plays out.
but there are signs that the uprisings could give way to more religious forces. An influential Yemeni cleric called this week for the U.S.-backed administration of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to be replaced with Islamist rule, and in Egypt, an Islamist theoretician has a leading role in drafting constitutional changes after President Hosni Mubarak's fall from power last month.
So the Post reporter is trying to say what I'm saying, but he needs a lot more words to not-quite-say it.
A number of other Islamist parties are deciding now how big a role to play in protests or post-revolution reforms.
They need to decide whether they are scorpions or pythons...
Since taking office, President Obama has argued for a "new beginning" with Islam, suggesting that Islamic belief and democratic politics are not incompatible.
Which is what George W Bush said, so it's not exactly a 'new beginning'...
But in doing so, he has alarmed some foreign-policy pragmatists and allies such as Israel, who fear that governments based on religious law will inevitably undercut democratic reforms and other Western values.
He also managed to alarm just about everyone else who has been paying attention.
Some within the U.S. intelligence community, foreign diplomatic circles and the Republican Party say Obama's readiness to accept Islamist movements, even ones that meet certain conditions, fails to take into consideration the methodical approach many such parties adopt toward gradually transforming secular nations into Islamic states at odds with U.S. policy goals.
That's one of the things we think, exactly. Look at Erdogan in Turkey as an example. He's smart enough not to want to end up in front of a Turkish military firing squad, and he's political end to know just how hard he can push on any given day.
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories have prospered in democratic elections and exert huge influence.
One man, one vote, one time. You haven't seen either subjecting themselves to an election in which they could possibly lose.
Neither party, each with an armed wing, supports Israel's right to exist, nor have they renounced violence as a political tool.
Hamas explicitly endorses violence except when the uppity Jooooz get the better of them, which is nearly always...
And while many in the region point to Turkey as a model mixture of Islam and democracy, the ruling Islamist party is restrained by the country's highly secular army and court system, a pair of strong institutional checks that countries such as Egypt and Tunisia lack.
A restraint that the Islamists are working to erode.
"The actual word and definition of Islamism does not in and of itself pose a threat," said Jonathan Peled, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, citing Israel's relationship with the Turkish government, among others.
But Peled said Israel fears that "anti-democratic extremist forces could take advantage of a democratic system," as, he said, Hamas did with its 2006 victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. Israel allowed Hamas to participate only under pressure from the George W. Bush administration as part of its stated commitment to promote Arab democracy.
"We obviously have concerns that are different than the administration's," Peled said. "We live in the neighborhood, obviously, and so we experience the results more closely."
I'm not sure that any American, other than the citizens of Berkeley, Madison and Massachusetts, would allow themselves to be rocketed more than once before going total postal on the perpetrators. The Israelis are a model of restraint.
The choice between stability and democracy has been a constant tension in U.S. foreign policy, and in few places has it been more pronounced than in the Middle East.
Many of the fallen or imperiled autocrats in the region were supported by successive U.S. governments, either as Cold War foils to the Soviet Union or as bulwarks against Islamist extremism before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Something that Dubya foresaw and was working to change until he lost his mojo in 2005...
In his June 2009 address at Cairo University, Obama acknowledged the controversy that the Bush administration's democracy promotion stirred in the region.
"That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people," he said, adding that "each nation gives life to the principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people."
In the Arab Middle East, those traditions include Islam, although Obama did not directly address the religion's role in democratic politics. He said the United States "will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people."
Fine words but then we didn't back it up when the Iranian elections of 2009 demonstrated that the Mad Mullahs would do whatever it took to keep power. One might forgive the average resident of the Middle East from wondering if Obama lied to him/her the same way as the local thugs do.
The goal of Islamist movements after taking power is at the root of concern expressed by Republican lawmakers and others in Washington.
Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA analyst who now teaches at Georgetown University, said, "Most of the people in the intelligence community would see things on this topic very similarly to the president - that is, political Islam as a very diverse series of ideologies, all of which use a similar vocabulary, but all quite different."
As the Arab revolutions unfold, the White House is studying various Islamist movements, identifying ideological differences for clues to how they might govern in the short and long term.
The White House's internal assessment, dated Feb. 16, looked at the Muslim Brotherhood's and al-Qaeda's views on global jihad, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States, Islam in politics, democracy and nationalism, among others.
The report draws sharp distinctions between the ambitions of the two groups, suggesting that the Brotherhood's mix of Islam and nationalism make it a far different organization than al-Qaeda, which sees national boundaries as obstacles to restoring the Islamic caliphate.
Idiotic: the Brotherhood has a branch wing in Gaza and affiliates elsewhere. They're just smart enough not to advertise their belief in a single caliphate right now.
The study also concludes that the Brotherhood criticizes the United States largely for what it perceives as America's hypocritical stance toward democracy - promoting it rhetorically but supporting leaders such as Mubarak.
"If our policy can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, we won't be able to adapt to this change," the senior administration official said. "We're also not going to allow ourselves to be driven by fear."
We shouldn't allow ourselves to be driven by fantasy, either...
After Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the United States and Israel led an international boycott of the government. But Obama administration officials, reviewing that history with an eye toward the current revolutions, say the reason for the U.S. boycott was not Hamas's Islamic character but its refusal to agree to conditions such as recognizing Israel.
Which is what Bush said at the time.
In a speech Monday in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to draw on that lesson, implicitly inviting Islamist parties to participate in the region's future elections with conditions. "Political participation," Clinton said, "must be open to all people across the spectrum who reject violence, uphold equality and agree to play by the rules of democracy."
Good luck finding anyone in power or about to be in power North Africa who would buy into that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2011 14:04 ||
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#1
Also read, NUCLEAR-ARMED ISLAMIST REGIMES + MILITANT-TERR GROUPS.
#2
WAFF > BAHRAIN MAY BE AN UPRISING TOO FAR FOR SUADIS AVOIDING IRAN'S GRIP.
D *** NG IT, BAHRAIN CAN'T DO THAT - DATS US-BASE-TOO-FAR QATAR'S JOB!
Of course you know this means War = SCOTT WALKER + WISCONSIN LABOR UNIONS HAVE TO BE INFORMED OF BAHRAIN'S WILY DASTARDLY USURPIOUS DEED [But first a Taco Bell QUAD STEAK]!?
[Geo News] Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Thursday noting important role of media in defeating designs of bully boyz urged it to educate people in the right direction.
He was talking to representative delegation of National Press Club led by its president Muhammad Afzal Butt here at the PM House.
Gilani said the brutal murder of Federal Minister Shahabaz Bhatti was yet another attempt of enemies of the State to defame Pakistain and the philosophy of tolerance, envisaged by the founder of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The Prime Minister said in Islam murder of anyone was a condemnable act and clearly shows that elements behind this heinous crime were enemies of humanity and the State.
He said minorities and women were his constituency. He said for the first time he as Prime Minister celebrated Christmas at a Church with the christian community and recalled that the event was organized by late Shahbaz Bhatti.
The President NPC Muhammad Afzal Butt said the media would continue to play its due role in projecting the soft image of Pakistain and would not shirk in its responsibilities.
The Prime Minister handed over a cheque of Rs. 10 million for the NPC as announced on the occasion of the oath taking ceremony of the office bearers of the Club.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr.Firdous Ashiq Awan was also present on the occasion.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Like Saudi look at your school/mosque education to realise why your country has a major problem with the rest of the world!
Posted by: Paul ||
03/04/2011 12:20 Comments ||
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[Geo News] Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has warned Interior Minister Rehman Malik against fanning provincialism by relating terrorism to any province, Geo News reported on Thursday.
Talking to media after condolence meeting with the family of deceased federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti here.
He said that the whole nation was sad over the liquidation of Shahbaz Bhatti.
Shahbaz Sharif stated that there should not be politics in the name of killing, adding that provincial government would fully cooperate in the investigation into liquidation of Shahbaz Bhatti.
The Chief Minister expressed displeasure over the term "Punjabi Taliban' used by Interior Minister Rehman Malik in the federal cabinet.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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[Arab News] A senior US official held separate meetings on Wednesday with Jordan's King Abdallah and Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit to relay Washington's support for the political and economic reforms recently pledged by the two leaders, according to a US embassy statement.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Michael Posner "emphasised the strong, long-term American commitment to the well-being of Jordan and the US appreciation of Jordan's many decades of work toward regional peace and prosperity", the statement said.
He also underscored the "US support for the king's call for sustained, serious and comprehensive program of political and economic reform as the key to realizing the enormous potential of Jordan and Jordanians", it added.
King Abdallah recently asked his new government of Bakhit to carry out "real and speedy reforms" that would lead to the formation of cabinets by political parties or coalitions with majorities at the parliament.
The monarch earlier fired the cabinet of former Prime Minister Samir Rifai in response to a series of demonstrations that drew inspiration from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
On Friday, thousands of Jordanians demonstrated in Amman and other major cities demanding the dissolution of the newly elected lower house of parliament and going to early polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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[Arab News] Syria has agreed to allow UN nuclear inspectors into an acid purification plant where uranium concentrates have also been made, a source familiar with a stalled inquiry into alleged covert Syrian atomic work said.
Syrian and ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna met earlier this week to set out a date and visit plan, the source said on Wednesday. An IAEA report last week said such cooperation could be a "step forward" in its investigation.
But the agreement to visit the plant at Homs, in the country's west near Leb, is unlikely to satisfy Western concerns about Syria, which is blocking IAEA requests for prompt access to a desert site seen as crucial to resolving the matter.
For over two years, Syria has refused IAEA follow-up access to the remains of a complex that was being built at Dair Alzour in the Syrian desert when Israel bombed it to rubble in 2007.
US intelligence reports said it was a nascent North Korean-designed nuclear reactor intended to produce bomb fuel. Inspectors found traces of uranium there in June 2008 that were not in Syria's declared nuclear inventory, heightening concerns.
Syria, an ally of Iran, whose nuclear program is also under IAEA investigation, denies ever concealing work on nuclear weapons and says the IAEA should focus on Israel instead because of its undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Late last year, after repeated entreaties to Syria's nuclear agency went nowhere, IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano appealed directly to its foreign minister for cooperation with his agency and access to Dair Alzour and other locations.
"Agreement was reached for the date and program of the visit to Homs," the source said, adding it was a positive step. The source gave no further details, but the agency has made it clear it wants unrestricted access to Homs.
The Homs plant produces uranium concentrates, or "yellowcake," as a by-product. The IAEA has sought to examine the material, which if further processed could be used as nuclear fuel. Syria says the plant is for making fertilizers.
At Homs, inspectors were likely to check for any links with a Damascus research reactor where they earlier found uranium traces that had not been declared to the IAEA as required.
Enriched uranium can be used to run nuclear power plants, but also provide material for bombs, if refined much further.
During a 2004 visit to the Homs plant, which the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society helped construct in the 1990s, agency inspectors observed hundreds of kilograms of yellowcake, according to a confidential IAEA report.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Due to the demand in that part of the world, I'd say an "acid plant" over there is probably working 24/7/365 even without the nuke stuff...
[Iran Press TV] Iran's Leader of the Islamic theocracy says the Islamic awakening underway in the region has been inspired by the nation's Islamic theocracy and the resistance they waged against arrogant powers. This sort of thing is known in the psych trade as "delusions of adequacy."
"The arrogant front, led by the United States, is well aware that Iran's Islamic theocracy is the role model for these popular movements," said Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Thursday in a visit to the country's Ministry of Intelligence.
The Leader emphasized that while the arrogant powers are making efforts to portray this (Islamic theocracy) model as "an unsuccessful and failed experience," the magnificence of millions of people that participated in the February 11 march, celebrating the anniversary of the victory of the revolution, has frustrated them.
Ayatollah Khamenei made the comments during a six-hour visit to the Intelligence Ministry, where he reiterated the need for intelligence services to exercise vigilance in the wake of recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa.
"The current developments in the region will definitely influence future events across the globe, thus these events should be actively monitored and their diverse aspects should be closely studied," said the Leader.
During his visit, Ayatollah Khamenei also hailed Iran's achievements in the field of security and intelligence and praised the Intelligence Ministry personnel for being fully home-grown and not taking leads from any foreign intelligence services.
The Leader further called on Iranian intelligence employees to adopt a position that goes beyond "sectarian and factional differences," urging them to remain vigilant against the "enemy's infiltration attempts and deviatory trends of thought."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Al Haig ... said Wednesday that Iran is communicating with Hizbullah in a bid to shape events in the Arab world.
It was the first time that Clinton detailed alleged efforts by Tehran to meddle in the three-month wave of Arab revolts that has toppled presidents in Tunisia and Egypt, convulsed Libya and shaken Yemen, Bahrain and Oman.
"They are doing everything they can to influence the outcomes in these places," Clinton told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"They are using Hizbullah... to communicate with counterparts... in (the Paleostinian movement) Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, who then in turn communicate with counterparts in Egypt," the chief U.S. diplomat said.
"We know that they are reaching out to the opposition in Bahrain. We know that the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen," she said.
Clinton told Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. should continue to fund the Lebanese army despite concerns that recent political gains by Hizbullah might influence its leadership and pose a threat to Israel.
She said U.S. support for Leb's armed forces was in American and regional security interests.
Clinton added that the annual U.S. funding of about $100 million to the armed forces is important to stability in Leb, particularly along its border with Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"2012" = ADVENT OF NUCWEAPS = NUC IRAN, + NUC MILTERRS + now the Islamist-desired future OWG NUC CALIPHATE.
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.
[Tolo News] British parliament has called on Washington and London to engage in direct talks with the Taliban leadership.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Police are on high alert following terror threats by Somali militias.
The Swiss government paid one of the sons of Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi 1.5 million francs, the department of foreign affairs confirmed yesterday.
[Arab News] Egypt's military rulers said Thursday the prime minister appointed by ousted 
[Arab News] A senior Egyptian diplomat has dismissed reports on Wednesday in the Egyptian press about former Egyptian 
Cyber activists have created a group on Facebook calling for a "Day of Anger" on Friday in the eastern Shiite-majority Saudi region, following the arrest of a Shiite 
[Arab News] Turkey's government on Wednesday rejected a demand by a pro-Kurdish party to move the imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan from a prison island and into a house arrest, indicating the government is not ready for any major concessions even as it seeks to reconcile with minority Kurds.
Yusuf Raza Gilani
Punjab
[Arab News] A senior US official held separate meetings on Wednesday with Jordan's King Abdallah and Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit to relay Washington's support for the political and economic reforms recently pledged by the two leaders, according to a US embassy statement.
North Korea
[Iran Press TV] Iran's Leader of the 
Hillary Clinton
