[AnNahar] Greece will speed up the relocation of thousands of migrants colonists from its overcrowded islands to the mainland before the onset of winter after reaching a deal with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , a key ally in helping to tackle Europe's migration crisis, government sources said Monday.
Athens persuaded Ankara last week to accept migrant returns, including Syrian refugees, from the mainland and not just from the Aegean islands as previously agreed under a 2016 EU-Turkey pact, a government source told AFP.
The new agreement -- reached during a strained two-day visit by Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... -- aims to reduce the more than 15,000 people packed into refugee camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros, another source said.
The camps are filled to triple their capacity, forcing many migrants colonists to sleep in tents and creating tensions with locals.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Monday evening presided a meeting "on the migration crisis and refugees" with his ministers for migration policy and justice as well as deputy foreign, defense and interior ministers, his office said.
Over a million people, mainly fleeing the civil war in Syria, crossed to Greece from Turkey in 2015 with the onset of the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II.
Last March, Ankara had pledged to take back illegal migrants colonists landing on Greek islands in exchange for sweeteners including financial aid and eased EU visa rules for Ottoman Turkish citizens.
The deal, criticized by rights groups, sharply reduced the number of migrants colonists trying to cross the Aegean Sea.
- Matter of life and death - However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... the pace of migrant returns to Turkey fell dramatically after a state crackdown on civil servants that followed an attempted coup against Erdogan last year.
Until now, Greece has only been relocating populations deemed "vulnerable" -- non-accompanied minors, single parents and victims of torture -- to the mainland, exempt under the EU-Turkey pact.
The other illegal migrants colonists are being kept on the islands until their deportation to Turkey, for fears that too many will try to travel north to wealthier EU nations.
Athens hopes that its deal with Ankara will help speed up the transfer of these people to Turkey via the mainland.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... Greece has already intensified its relocation of vulnerable persons to the mainland, transferring more than 1,000 in recent days.
In total over 3,500 people were moved between October and November, the migration ministry said.
According to Oxfam, 5,000 people are to be transferred from the islands in December, before temperatures drop.
Aid groups have repeatedly warned that transferring refugees to heated accommodation before winter is a matter of life and death.
Three refugees died last year in their tents on Lesbos from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning caused by makeshift stoves.
"This is a very positive step that will save lives," said Nicola Bay, the head of Oxfam in Greece. "Winter is just around the corner and thousands of refugees and migrants colonists are still sharing unheated tents exposed to the bitter cold."
[IsraelTimes] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... is planning to link together its border, visa and fingerprint databases to plug information gaps and better combat terrorism and international crime.
The European Commission is proposing to upgrade the 28-nation bloc’s information systems so that border officers or the Europol police agency can have fast access to more reliable data.
EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos says the plan aims "to close gaps and remove blind spots in our information systems."
It would allow visa, police, customs or justice authorities to use one search portal with access to all various databases they currently have permission to use.
The European Commission says the move wouldn’t compromise data protection safeguards while making it easier to cross-check information or catch criminals using multiple or fake identities.
h/t Instapundit
A wealthy ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has placed a bounty on the heads of two former U.S. military and intelligence officials as part of what U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon is an effort by the Turkish government to threaten and intimidate Americans who they believe are working to undermine Erdogan.
A bounty of three million Turkish lira, or nearly $800,000, was placed on the heads of former Pentagon official Michael Rubin and former top CIA official Graham Fuller for what Erdogan's allies claim is their role in a 2016 failed coup that nearly toppled Erdogan's ruling government. I guess times have changed - used to be something like this could've been a cause for war
Posted by: g(r)omgoru ||
12/13/2017 08:16 ||
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#1
bounty as in dead or alive? You got some 'splainin' to do, Tayyip....
[AnNahar] U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... on Tuesday signed a massive defense policy bill that he said would help America bolster its military might and modernize the services.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calls for nearly $700 billion of military spending for the coming fiscal year, but Congress has yet to fully fund it.
"With the signing of this defense bill, we accelerate the process of fully restoring America's military might," Trump said at a White House signing ceremony, where he was flanked by Pentagon top brass including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
"This legislation will enhance our readiness ... and modernize our forces, and help provide our servicemembers with the tools that they need to fight and to win."
While the NDAA passed Congress with bipartisan support, politicians have not agreed on how to fund the mammoth spending package, which amounts to more than that of the world's next seven militaries combined.
The rock on which good intentions founder.
Trump called on Democrats in Congress to get in line with Republicans and back a "clean funding bill."
"We must work across party lines to give our heroic troops the equipment, resources, and support that they have earned a thousand times over," Trump said.
The president also took aim at Obama-era budget caps known as sequestration, which Republicans in Congress love to hate.
"Congress must finish the job by eliminating the defense sequester and passing a clean appropriations bill," Trump said. "I think it's going to happen. We need our military. It's got to be perfecto."
Trump campaigned on the pledge of increasing military spending and has said America needs more ships, submarines, troops and missiles.
He said the NDAA would give troops their biggest pay increase in eight years.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi military has denied coordination with Syria over controlling troops between the two countries.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said "there is no coordination between Iraq and Syria. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... the meeting between the commander of Jazirah Operations with the commander of Syrian Democratic Forces on the borders was for coordination."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/13/2017 00:00 ||
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Salahuddin (Iraqinews.com) A team from the Human Rights office of the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) paid on Tuesday a visit to Tuz Khurmatu city in Salahuddin province to investigate reports of human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations.
The team is due to investigate reports of punitive destruction of property of residents who have been displaced by the festivities in the area in October and reports of intimidation to prevent the safe return of the displaced to their homes, UNAMI said in a statement, quoted by Baghdad Today on Tuesday.
"This visit has been prompted by repeated reports about indiscriminate targeting of civilians, forced evictions and destruction of property prior to but notably after 16 October 2017," the statement read.
At least 150 houses belonging to Turkmen and Kurds were reportedly set ablaze and there were other reports of acts of violence, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Iraq Ján Kubiš said in a briefing to the UN Security Council meeting in New York on November 22.
Moreover, the United Nations expressed concern about the festivities in the town which have inflicted casualties, and triggered a new wave of displacements primarily from the Kurdish community.
Last week, a UNAMI team visited several areas in the town and met with a number of officials. UNAMI officials also met in Erbil with a number of representatives of Tuz Khurmatu displaced residents and listened to their accounts about the circumstances surrounding the alleged attacks.
UNAMI also expressed its concern about the recent repeated indiscriminate mortar attacks, which have inflicted losses, including civilian casualties from among the Turkmen community in the town.
It called for an immediate end to acts that threaten the security and the safety of Kurdish and Turkmen communities and their civilian residents and called upon the Iraqi government to take all necessary measures to end violence and violations of human rights in Tuz Khurmatu.
[FIRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... TPOST] Amid global calls to restore peace and stability in Myanmar's northern Rakhine, the Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... 's (LeT) charitable wing, the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), has reached out to the Moslem population in the troubled state and has reportedly distributed millions in cash.
According to a report in The Indian Express, propaganda material released online by the organization claimed that FIF volunteers had distributed "millions in cash money and blankets among more than 300 besieged Rohingya Moslems".
Shahid Mahmood, FIF’s head of foreign operations said in an online statement that the FIF intended to "start its relief activities in all areas of Burma where Moslems are besieged".
The claim was backed by Bangladesh-based intelligence officials, who told The Indian Express that "the group had been operating in refugee camps near the town of Cox’s Bazaar, with the help of local Islamist groups".
Rohingya leaders based in Dubai and Pakistain are now enlisting the support of Lashkar-e-Taiba affiliate Jamaat-ud Dawah (JuD) towards the cause of the Rohingya settlers in Pakistain and other countries including India, according to latest intelligence reports, The Times of India said.
The report states that Firdous Sheikh, the Dubai-based president of Rohingya Federation of Arakan, had visited Pakistain last month and had attended seminars in support of Rohingya Moslems.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] The first group of Russian troops deployed to Syria returned home on Tuesday, the army said, beginning a partial withdrawal announced by President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... "The battalion of military police from the southern military district (of Russia) deployed to the Syrian Arab Republic has been flown by two military planes to Makhachkala (the capital of Dagestan ...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca... ) airport," the Russian army said in a statement.
State television broadcasted images of soldiers marching out of the aircraft onto a sunny runway in the small republic in Russia's North Caucasus.
The crews of Tu-22M3 bombers also returned to a military airport in North Ossetia before flying out to their permanent bases, the army said.
On a visit to Syria on Monday, Putin ordered the partial withdrawal of Russian troops from the war-torn country, saying their task had been largely completed.
It was the third announcement of a partial withdrawal since troops were deployed in 2015. Putin did not clarify how many soldiers will be returning home this time.
Putin, who announced last week he would seek a fourth term in a poll in March, was welcomed at Russia's Hmeimim airbase by Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... on his unannounced stopover.
Russia first intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015, staging air strikes in support of its ally Damascus targeting both 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 and other jihadists as well as rebels fighting government troops.
The size of the Russian deployment in Syria is not known but independent Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer has told AFP that up to 10,000 troops and private contractors could have taken part in the conflict.
Putin said both Russia's airbase Hmeimim and naval facility in Tartus would continue to function.
[AnNahar] In a rehabilitation centre in northern Syria, young men huddle over an innocuous game of chess and some cigarettes -- activities they once brutally suppressed as Islamic State group jihadists. Based in the rebel-held town of Marea, the Syrian Centre for Countering Extremist Ideology is home to around 100 one-time IS fighters from Syria, the Middle East and even Europe.
"I used to dream of establishing an Islamic state... but now, we take courses that clear up what's wrong with what we once believed," 23-year-old Mohammad Haj Ahmad says.
Ahmad hails from Raqa, the northern city that served as the de facto capital of a now-collapsed jihadist "caliphate" sprawling across Syria and Iraq. He joined IS in 2014 and took part in one of its most gruesome battles at Tabqa airport near Raqa, where jihadists executed more than 200 army troops.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Why isn't every one of these people dead or in real jails? Easy prediction - this will come back to bite them in the ass, hard.
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.
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
...the 
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
