Saudi and Israeli diplomats jointly announced that they've held five meetings in secret since early last year in India, Italy, and the Czech Republic.
The reason? Iran. The Israelis and the Saudis have a common enemy in Tehran, and they're increasingly relying on each other now that the United States, contrary to the interests of both, might ease sanctions if a nuclear deal gets hammered out later this year.
Retired Saudi general Anwar Majed Eshki and Israeli diplomat Dore Gold shook hands in front of the cameras during their announcement at the Council on Foreign Relations‐a bigger deal than it seems.
...
Saudi general Anwar Majed Eshki:
He laid out a brief history of Iran since the 1979 revolution, highlighting the regime's acts of terrorism, hostage-taking and aggression. He ended his remarks with a seven-point plan for the Middle East. Atop the list was achieving peace between Israel and the Arabs. Second came regime-change in Iran. Also on the list were greater Arab unity, the establishment of an Arab regional military force, and a call for an independent Kurdistan to be made up of territory now belonging to Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
[DAWN] A primary school trust in east London banned Moslem pupils from fasting on school grounds during Ramazan, reported The Telegraph.
The Barclay Primary School, which serves London's Leyton area, told parents in a June 10 letter:
"We have sought guidance and are reliably informed that in Islamic Law, children are not required to fast during Ramadan," adding that previously, children at the school had fallen ill, fainted, or been "unable to fully access the school curriculum in their attempts to fast."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
now make em eat a Mooch Approved Lunch™
they'll wish they were fasting
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2015 9:16 Comments ||
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#2
How do you stop someone from fasting if they're determined to do it? I.V. tubes?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/13/2015 10:44 Comments ||
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#3
see: "Foie Gras"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2015 11:08 Comments ||
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[WASHINGTONPOST] North Korea is accusing the United States of targeting it with anthrax and wants the U.N. Security Council to look into they called America's "biological warfare schemes."
A letter from North Korea's U.N. ambassador to the council president and the U.N. chief, made public Friday, claims that the U.S. "possesses deadly weapons of mass destruction" that it is trying to use against them.
U.S. defense officials disclosed in late May that low concentration samples of live anthrax were shipped to labs in 19 states and four countries, including a U.S. military facility in South Korea.
The anthrax was supposed to have been killed with gamma rays before being shipped.
The front man for the current council president, Malaysia, said he had not heard of any initiatives on the council to take up the issue but would inquire further.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Targeting KOREA with anthrax, no biggie, more propaganda.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/13/2015 8:39 Comments ||
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#2
Juche Vaccine should stop that
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/13/2015 9:17 Comments ||
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[Ynet] In a small room close by the Sydney Opera House, 60 people representing a vast range of communities and industries are working feverishly to come up with ways to combat the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's online propaganda machine.
The United States and its allies have struggled to counter the digitally savvy group, but a pair of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are leading a grassroots-charge to take on IS in cyberspace, travelling around the world to host hackathon challenges.
The latest hackathon competition -- the fourth in the past five months -- is being held alongside a two-day countering violent extremism conference in Australia's biggest city, attended by high-level officials and experts and opened by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/13/2015 00:00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Bosnian fighters returning from Syria and Iraq are forming regional Lion of Islam networks that pose a direct threat to security in the Balkans and beyond, a study warned on Thursday.
The returnees have formed links extending to Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo, said the non-profit Sarajevo-based Atlantic Initiative, and may be radicalizing youngsters on the margins of society.
"Once a destination country for imported muscle in the 1990s, Bosnia is now the country of origin for volunteers in other people's wars," said Vlado Azinovic, a co-author of the report.
Drawing on both intelligence sources and open documents like court records, it said a total of 192 Bosnian adults and 25 children, aged 5 months to 17 years, had travelled to the conflict zones of Syria and Iraq from spring 2012 to the end of 2014. Of these, 156, mostly men, had gone there to fight, making Bosnians one of the larger contingents of foreign jihadists from Europe. More than a third of the 156 had previous criminal records, and their ages ranged from 18 to 74.
[al-Alam] The center-left Turkish daily, Cumhuriyet, integrated the videos in a Thursday report implicating the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in assisting the notorious Takfiri group.
The footage shows drivers admitting that they are “doing their duty to the state” by helping the militants bypass the territory near the heavily-defended Syrian city of Kobani.
One driver explains how vehicles would be accompanied by MİT agents during the trip, which would start from the Atme camp in Syria and end at the border town of Akçakale in Şanlıurfa Province, where the militants and cargo would reenter Syria.
One driver is seen saying, “They didn't allow us to leave the vehicle [once we had arrived at Akçakale]. One of them [militants] was waiting by our side. Another vehicle came and parked behind my coach and they started moving the cargo from my vehicle [into the other one]. There were 46 [militants] in my coach, and I learned later on that there were 27 in the other bus. They were bearded men, scruffy looking.”
On June 5, the opposition daily had likewise accused Turkish authorities and intelligence agency of helping smuggle ISIS and other Takfiri terrorists into Syria from Turkey.
Cumhuriyet had also posted a video on its website on May 29, purportedly showing trucks belonging to Turkey’s intelligence agency carrying weapons to the Takfiri terror groups operating in Syria.
Syria has been struggling with an implacable militancy since March 2011. The US and its regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[THEGUARDIAN] Canada has offered to take in Raif Badawi,the nabbed You have the right to remain silent... Saudi blogger who faces flogging, listing him as a priority immigrant on humanitarian grounds so that he might rejoin his family already living here.
The province of Quebec cleared the way for his coming to this country by offering Badawi a so-called immigration selection certificate.
These are issued "in exceptional circumstances to foreigners in need of protection," Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Better Quebec than anywhere else in Canuckistan. He'll be "the flogged blogger who's cannon fodder and now a plodder" in Quebec.
Just when you thought this administration couldn't be any more absurd...
WASHINGTON -- An internal State Department assessment paints a dismal picture of the efforts by the Obama administration and its foreign allies to combat the Islamic State's message machine, portraying a fractured coalition that cannot get its own message straight.
The assessment comes months after the State Department signaled that it was planning to energize its social media campaign against the militant group. It concludes, however, that the Islamic State's violent narrative -- promulgated through thousands of messages each day -- has effectively "trumped" the efforts of some of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations. We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them with hashtags!
#1
It loses a lot of 'effectiveness' when you refuse to acknowledge that it is Islamic and carries with it all the attraction to its audience. From the people who constantly play the 'class card', you'd think they'd grasp the implications.
David Wright of Everett and Nicholas Rovinski of Rhode Island could face up to 15 years.
Confronted by FBI agents hours after Usaamah Rahim was killed by police, David Wright admitted that he was the one who got Rahim interested in the terrorism perpetuated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, according to a complaint filed in federal court this week.
Wright and a second man, Nicholas Rovinski, face charges in federal court accusing them of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The same day Rahim was shot, Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, was interviewed by agents. He said he converted to Islam two years ago, and he changed his name to "Nuh Amriki." The Islamic State group appealed to him "because they represent the most pure and honest form of the religion," according to investigators.
He said he supported violent resistance against "crusader governments," and he was in favor of the Islamic State group's well-publicized beheadings, according to the complaint.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 ||
06/13/2015 01:46 ||
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Washington, DC, is reeling from revelations that the Office of Personnel Management, the Federal government’s HR hub, has been extensively hacked. OPM is an obscure but important agency since it holds the personnel records of Federal workers, past and present, and even more, it conducts background investigations for security clearance holders across many Federal agencies.
Based on available information so far, the records of some four million Federal workers, going back to 1985, have been compromised, of whom 2.1 million are currently serving. In what has become the custom inside the Beltway, OPM had repeated warnings about its slipshod computer security practices but not much was done despite the enormously rising threat of foreign hackers. The extent of this needless debacle is truly disastrous, as I explained in a series of tweets the other day.
#2
Thanks Noose, good read.
Blaming this on Chinese, Russian or the East Estonians is diverting attention from the act itself. Many times acts such as these are performed by anarcharist mercenaries or contract workers, enabled by insiders, that put what was collected out to bid. Sometimes they are given a shopping list for a specific customer.
[DAWN] Inspector General of Police Nasir Khan Durrani has said that the law and order situation has improved compared to the last five years, but the fight against Death Eaters would continue till elimination of the last terrorist.
He said that Death Eaters had been denied shelters inside the city due to which they were adopting 'hit-and-run' tactic.
The police chief said this while talking to media persons after offering funeral prayer for the two police constables, Ibrar from Mardan and Lal Bahader from Swabi, at Malik Saad Shaheed Police Lines, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , on Thursday. The two constables were killed in a suicide kaboom on deputy commandant FRP Tariq Malik earlier in the day.
He said that extreme threat alerts were received during the local government election and some calls were also intercepted. He said that in the light of these threats extensive search and strike operations were carried out in which explosives and suicide jackets were recovered.
Answering a question, Mr Durrani said that some terrorist groups involved in an attack on the army and police forces had been identified, while some of these Death Eaters have been nabbed Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! . He said that the police force was ready to combat terrorism.
The two constables were killed in a suicide attack at Hayatabad on Thursday. Deputy commandant FRP Tariq Malik and two other constables, Ismail Shah and Noor Bahadar, were maimed in the attack.
Earlier, funeral prayers for both the constables was offered with full official honour.
A contingent of police presented a guard of honour to the coffins. Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and the IGP laid floral wreaths on the coffins. A large number of high-ranking police and civil officers also attended the funeral.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... in a key foreign policy speech on Thursday said his government would protect national interests in the face of increased Indian bellicosity and that resolution of the Kashmire dispute would remain a priority.
Addressing the concluding session of a three-day envoys conference, Mr Sharif said: "We will protect our vital interests at all costs. This message must be heard loud and clear."
The conference attended by Pak envoys posted in Saarc, ECO and Gulf countries was convened to discuss the prospects of regional connectivity projects and frame recommendations for the government in this regard.
Mr Sharif, in his speech before an audience comprising the country's senior diplomats which was also telecast live, responded to some of the hostile statements made by the Indian leadership, including a couple by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi accusing Pakistain of "promoting terrorism", and creating "nuisance", besides reminding it about the sad events of 1971 which led to creation of Bangladesh, and boasting about the Indian role in the separation.
"The entire nation is dismayed by the recent irresponsible and, I must say, imprudent statements from the Indian politicianship. This vitiates the atmosphere and takes us farther away from our goals of regional peace and stability," the prime minister said, adding that Indian provocations would not make Pakistain abandon its "high moral ground".
Referring to his meeting with UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... earlier this week in which he renewed the call for implementation of the Security Council's resolutions on Kashmire, Mr Sharif said: "The issue of Jammu and Kashmire cannot be relegated to the backburner of history."
Kashmire has once again taken the centre stage in the strained Pakistain-India ties.
In an allusion to India, he said that "externally sponsored terrorism" along with violent extremism posed the gravest threat to national security.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Five Thai students detained in Pakistain for trying to board a plane with a pistol and ammunition have no links to the self-styled Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... bully boy group or any criminal organization, a Thai government front man said on Friday.
The men, who had been studying at a religious school in Pakistain, were trying to catch a flight on Monday night when they were intercepted.
"We have no evidence that there are any links at all between the students and any criminal organization, so news that there is a link between IS and the students is not true," Major General Sansern Kaewkamnerd, a deputy government front man, told Rooters.
On Friday, Thai newspaper the Bangkok Post reported that two of the five were suspected of having links to Islamic State, which is also known as IS. The report cited intelligence sources.
Officials from Thailand's embassy in Islamabad had visited the students and an investigation by embassy officials was underway, Sansern said.
An investigation into the students' families found no links with violence in Thailand's southern region, where there has been a long-running Moslem separatist insurgency, Army Chief Udomdej Sitabutr told news hounds on Friday.
Some of the detained men are from Thailand's south.
The students are in detention in Lahore, according to Thailand's foreign ministry.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Pakistain has rejected the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's (EU) concerns over the death penalty and said Pakistain is not violating international laws, the Foreign Office said on Friday.
"Only such convicts are being hanged who are involved in heinous crimes," said FO front man Qazi Khalilullah during a news briefing in Islamabad.
The awarding of death sentences comes under international laws and it is Pakistain's internal affair, the spokesperson added.
Yesterday, the EU had expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over increasing executions in Pakistain and demanded of the government to reinstate the moratorium on death penalty and fully respect all of its international obligations.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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"...Kerry was hospitalized after breaking his right femur in a bicycle accident while in Switzerland last month, after meeting with his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif." Dunno. I'm more likely to believe, owing to events of late, the bicycle accident was a cover for him having his femur changed to a hemur. Next? In this pic Kerry looks like 'Syndrome' in The Incredibles...
Posted by: Blossom Unains5562 ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] Al Qaeda's Syria wing, the Nusra Front, with other three rebel groups operating in eastern Qalamoun have formed their own version of Fatah Army as fighting with ISIS enters new stage after Palmyra takeover where the hardline group is pressing hard to seize control of Syria desert and Qalamoun region, activists said on Thursday.
Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... , Ahmed al-Abdo Gathering and Islam Army refused to join the new alliance while Jaysh Tahrir al-Sham, Rejal al-Malahem, Mujahedi al-Baddiya joind the Nusra Front.
Army of Fatah, a reference to the conquests that spread Islam across the Middle East from the seventh century, has seized swathes of territory northern Syrian since late of March 2015 including Idlib city, Jisr al-Shughour and Ariha towns.
Two days ago, Nusra Front, in statement posted online, urged rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta suburbs near Damascus to form Ghouta's version of Fatah Army, like what Nusra did in Idlib province and Qalamoun region.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung... festivities between ISIS and Islamist groups are still underway to control the strategic region of Qalamoun that will enable the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... to open a supply route for besieged fighters in western Qalamoun on the Lebanese border.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 00:00 ||
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[EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] The Syrian government says it has come through worse phases in the four-year-old conflict than the latest advances by bully boyz across the country and is confident its army can hit back with the help of its allies. Ummm... When?
Western officials believe losses in recent months by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's government could signal a shift in momentum after a long period of stalemate in the four-year-old conflict.
Assad's government has lost ground in recent months both to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... fighters that are being targeted by U.S.-led air strikes and to other bully boys, some of which are supported by Arab allies of the West.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/13/2015 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.
North Korea
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
"...Kerry was hospitalized after breaking his right femur in a bicycle accident while in Switzerland last month, after meeting with his counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif."
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
