[PRESSTV] Iran’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the French and Belgian ambassadors as well as Germany's chargé d'affaires to protest the arrest of an Iranian diplomat.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Wednesday that following the arrest of an Iranian diplomat in Germany at the request of French police, the French, Belgian and German envoys were summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
Qassemi added that Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with the French and German envoys to voice the Islamic Republic's strong protest over the arrest of the diplomat and emphasize that considering the immunity of diplomats stipulated in the Vienna Convention, the Iranian diplomat should be released “without any delay and condition.”
Araqchi said that the arrest was a plot in line with US and Israeli goals to damage Iran-European ties, especially at a time when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was in Europe and ahead of an upcoming meeting of the foreign ministers of Iran, Germany, the UK, France, Russia and China on Friday in Vienna to discuss how to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive after the US exit from the pact.
The Belgian ambassador was also summoned by the director general for Europe affairs at the Iranian Foreign Ministry to receive Iran’s protest over a request to transfer the diplomat from Germany to Belgium.
Earlier in the day, Qassemi had said Iran had summoned the French ambassador to protest the European country’s support for the terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
He said that the Foreign Ministry had told Bruno Foucher that France must not allow some extremist groups that are of a terrorist nature, albeit petty and worthless, to promote extremism and terrorism under the name of freedom of expression.
Qassemi said that Iran also blasted the presence in the gathering of a number of radical US officials who made meddlesome and divisive speeches against the Iranian nation.
On Saturday, the MKO held its annual meeting in Paris, which was attended by a number of American officials, including US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who called for the toppling of the Iranian government.
Several former European and Arab ministers as well as former Canadian premier Stephen Harper were in attendance.
Giuliani, the former New York mayor who became a cyber security adviser in the White House before being named as Trump’s personal lawyer in April, was one of a long line of American conservative hawks to attend the gathering.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. It fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it enjoyed the support of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The notorious group is responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and several officials after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
More than 12,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed at the hands of the MKO in different acts of terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
To me, this looks like cover for Iran trying to escape sanctions somehow, using this as an excuse to beg these diplomats not to turn those screws. Of course, I could be completely wide of the mark...
[DAWN] HYDERABAD: Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi has said that the TLP has decided to contest polls after giving sacrifice of its eight workers while protecting the Khatm-i-Nubuwwat laws.
Addressing a gathering of TLP activists at Bagh-i-Mustafa ground here on Monday night, he claimed that there were moves to make a non-Muslim eligible for the slot of president of Pakistan. He slammed those forces that had given up the ideology of the country.
He criticised religious and political parties for not adopting a clear stance on Khatm-Nubuwwat law.
Allama Rizvi said in the elections, the TLP had fielded people with integrity against those who could not recite Quran. He said TLP was formed after eight people laid down their lives for the cause of protect the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat law. He said he did not move an inch at the venue of the Faizabad sit-in despite the fact that 12,000 teargas shells were fired to disperse the participants.
The TLP chief also spoke at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The counsel for Rao Anwar argued before an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Wednesday that the suspended Malir SSP had no involvement in the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud — the Waziristan youth who was shot dead in an alleged fake police encounter earlier this year.
Anwar is the prime suspect in a case pertaining to the extrajudicial killing of Mehsud and three others in an alleged staged encounter.
Arguing on an application seeking bail for the former Malir SSP, Advocate Amir Mansoob Qureshi took nearly three hours to try and convince the court that Anwar had nothing to do with the episode that led to Mehsud's killing — starting from his kidnapping in Karachi to the fake encounter in which the aspiring model was shot dead along with others.
The lawyer also argued that his client had not been present at the site of the encounter, urging the court to grant him bail.
The court asked the counsel to explain why the victims were reported to have been shot dead from inside the room if the encounter wasn't staged. The court also wondered why the men were shot in their backs and not from the front, as would seem intuitive during an exchange of fire with suspected militants.
However, Advocate Qureshi maintained that as far as his client is concerned, he [Anwar] had not been involved in either picking up Mehsud or in the encounter that led to his killing.
Following the hearing, which was adjourned until Thursday, the counsel representing Mehsud's family, Salahuddin Panhwar, told media persons that he has proofs showing Anwar's involvement in the kidnapping, the fake encounter and his failed attempt to flee the country.
Panhwar said he would present all evidence before the court tomorrow, when he will continue his arguments against the bail plea filed by Anwar and other accused.
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07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday issued a detailed verdict in a case pertaining to controversial amendments made to the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat oath in the Elections Act 2017 last year, observing that a Law Ministry draftsman deliberately changed the affidavit in the oath to benefit the Ahmadi community.
The judgement authored by IHC Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui observed that the Parliament had overlooked the mistake, but later restored the original affidavit.
The detailed order said that the the court, "in the larger interests of the country", is avoiding disclosing the names of many who held high positions in the bureaucracy, judiciary, military, naval, and air forces and other sensitive and important institutions while hiding their real religious identities as part of the Ahmadi community as it would "bring a bad taste", adding that the practice "has to be brought to a halt".
The order went on to say that "Every citizen of the country has [the] right to know that the persons holding the key posts belong to which religious community, the persons scheming syllabus for their children profess what religious beliefs, the persons formulating their policies tend to hold their beloved Prophet (PTUI!) in what esteem, the persons believed to be the ambassadors and representatives of their Islamic ideology... last but not the least, the defenders in whose hands the defence of Islamic Theocratic Republic of Pakistain rests belongs to which religion? This was the responsibility of the State, and the Federal Government in particular, but it has badly failed to discharge it."
Regarding the change in the affidavit related to the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat oath, the court noted that it appears that a deliberate and motivated effort was made by the draftsmen of the bill to bring the Ahmadi community into the loop of majority in order to "diminish their separate identity as non-Moslems".
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07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] ERBIL, Kurdistan Region ‐ An official observing the manual recount of votes in Kirkuk has told Rudaw the number of votes parties achieved according to the electronic count is different to the outcome now emerging.
"The manual recount of just 23 ballot boxes was done [Tuesday] and there is a difference in the number of votes per the manual and electronic count," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Rudaw.
"For example, according to the previous count, the PUK had obtained 213 votes in a box, but it fell to just 103 according to the manual recount," the source said, referring to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
This is the case with other boxes as well, the source added.
According to the electronic result, the PUK won half the seats in Kirkuk.
Rebwar Taha, a winning PUK candidate in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... disputed the emerging result, accusing "militias" of breaking the lock on the boxes at the warehouses and tampering with the ballots prior to the manual count.
On the first day of the manual recount, the barcodes on the boxes were found to be different from those of the electoral commission, he claimed.
Arshad Salihi, head of the Turkmen Front, also made the allegation in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
"Following the opening of the appealed ballot boxes in Kirkuk and digital matching between the barcode and electronic verification, large differences in results are shown," said Salihi.
The election commission and its officials had called on the government to protect ballot boxes in Kirkuk, saying commission employees and the ballot boxes had been under threat by gangs, without specifying who.
The manual recount of votes began on Tuesday at the Kirkuk Sports Activities Center. Only ballot boxes from polling centers where allegations of fraud were made are being recounted ‐ numbering 522.
Only Iraq’s state TV has been granted access to the recount. Other media have been denied entry, AFP reports.
On Sunday, a suicide kaboomer detonated a boom-mobile outside the gate of a warehouse storing ballots in Kirkuk. None of the ballots were damaged, according to officials.
The parliament ordered a full manual recount of 100 percent of ballots after complaints of electoral fraud in the May 12 vote.
Nine judges were appointed to oversee the process following complaints about the electoral commission. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... the judges ruled the recount will only apply to polling stations subject to complaints by political parties.
The former parliament’s term expired on June 30. A new government cannot be formed until the election results are ratified.
Oil-rich Kirkuk is at the heart of the dispute between Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, with Kurds labeling it the "Jerusalem of Kurdistan". Peshmerga forces withdrew from the city on October 16.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Iraq has started expanding an airbase in Anbar province, a senior Iraqi army office was quoted saying on Tuesday, adding that the expansion is likely to receive U.S. troops.
Speaking to the London-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, the office said construction work as well as expansion at Ain al-Assad base have started on an area of several kilometers. “The expansion included the northern and western parts of the airbase.”
The expansion, according to the source, “takes place under strict security measures.” The officer did not clarify the real reasons behind the expansion, saying it’s likely “to receive more troops in the base, located in a desert region, which still has havens of Islamic State members.”
The source did not rule out that the expansion of the military base could be “to receive U.S. troops, especially with news on surveillance operations by the U.S. forces near Iraqi-Syrian borders.”
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Replacing a lot of what Incirlik does perhaps?
Just remember to crater and demolish all US structures and runways when we leave Incirlik and this place.
Posted by: Albert Gray3362 ||
07/05/2018 4:55 Comments ||
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[PRESSTV] Former Israeli minister Gonen Segev, who is accused of spying for Iran, is slated to stand trial in Jerusalem al-Quds on Thursday.
Segev, tossed in the calaboose Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! last month, has been charged by Israel's security apparatus Shin Bet with "aiding the enemy during a time of war, spying and transferring secret information to the enemy."
On Wednesday, the prosecutors released a heavily redacted version of the indictment against Segev, which included a number of details not previously shared with the public.
They claim that Segev passed "dozens of reports" to Iran.
This is tantamount to "aggravated espionage," which is a more severe form of the crime of espionage in Israeli law, the indictment stated.
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[Jpost] Various initiatives to cut funding to the Paleostinian Authority over its policy of paying salaries to security prisoners and their families will cause limited economic harm to the PA, Paleostinian officials and experts said Tuesday.
However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... they warned that if Israel carries out its threat to deduct the payments from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Paleostinians, this would seriously deepen the deficit the PA budget is already suffering from.
The PA Finance Ministry said on Tuesday that Israel was already deducting NIS 120 million each month (from the tax revenues) to cover the costs of electricity and water that Israel supplies to the Paleostinians, in addition to medical treatment Paleostinians receive in Israeli hospitals.
The ministry pointed out that the PA government and its agencies were paying the prisoners and their families about NIS 100m. every month.
Paleostinian officials warned that any financial sanctions would have a negative impact on relations between the PA and Israel, aggravate tensions on the Paleostinian street and embolden Lion of Islam forces, including Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, and other terror groups.
The PA leadership stressed on Tuesday that it will not be deterred by these initiatives, including US threats to cut the funding, and will continue to pay salaries to the prisoners and their relatives.
Earlier this week, the Knesset passed into law a bill that allows the Israeli government to deduct the payments the PA makes to the prisoners and their families from the taxes Israel collects on behalf of the Paleostinians.
The Paleostinians received another blow on Monday when Australia announced its decision to cut direct aid to the PA over the payments to the security prisoners and their families.
The two moves have drawn sharp criticism from the PA and several Paleostinian officials, who claimed that the "punitive" measures were aimed at exerting pressure on the Paleostinians to accept US 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... ’s yet-to be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.
"Suspending the funds [to the PA] will not have a severe impact on the PA because only 15% of its budget comes from international aid," a Paleostinian official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post.
Another official said the PA leadership was not particularly worried about US threats to cut the funds "because they are anyway irregular and intermittent."
The PA, he said, has learned over the past years that it can survive even without American financial aid.
According to the official, the big challenge will be if additional countries decide to follow suit and cut financial aid to the PA. "The Paleostinian Authority will then be in big trouble," he warned. The PA government will then have to seek loans from the World Bank and other international institutions, he predicted.
The PA government, which discussed the new Israeli law and its repercussions during its weekly meeting on Tuesday, condemned it as a "flagrant violation of international laws and conventions and Israeli obligations under the terms of agreements signed between the PLO and Israel, including the Gay Paree Economic Protocol," which was signed in 1994 and serves as the framework for establishing the interim-period economic relations between Israel and the PA.
"The Paleostinian leadership, headed by President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , will not abandon the prisoners and the families of the deaders, who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their homeland," the PA government said.
The government said it was planing to take action against Israel in various international forums to force it to backtrack on its decision to deduct the payments from the tax revenues.
The Paleostinian Commission for Prisoners Affairs said that providing financial aid to the prisoners and their families was within the framework of Article 22 of the Paleostinian Basic Law, which is considered the constitution of a future Paleostinian state. "The money that is being paid to the families of the prisoners goes for food, housing, education and healthcare," the commission said, adding that this practice has been effective since the "launching of the Paleostinian revolution in 1965."
[Jpost] Operation "HeartBreaker" was launched to uncover the cell behind the suspicious online actions targeting IDF soldiers.
The IDF has uncovered another Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, network posing as attractive young women and men on social networks in order to lure in IDF soldiers in order to access as much information and intelligence on the army that they can.
In January, a year after the Israeli Army first uncovered Hamas attempts to honeypot male soldiers online, military intelligence began receiving new reports from soldiers of suspicious online activities.
A new Military Intelligence operation dubbed "HeartBreaker" was launched in March to uncover the cell behind the suspicious online actions targeting IDF soldiers.
"We know who is behind this," said one senior military intelligence official who stated that while the damage done was minor "there was of course, a potential of serious harm to national security."
The Hamas applications had "wide capabilities," a senior military intelligence officer said, adding that the Hamas network was more believable than the previous attempt despite still writing in Hebrew with visible spelling and grammatical errors.
According to senior intelligence officials, soldiers had been approached by suspicious figures on social networks as well as on messenger applications such as Whatsapp using Israeli numbers to get soldiers to download applications from Google’s official store.
An investigation by the IDF’s Military Intelligence found that the 11 suspicious individuals (three who approached soldiers on WhatsApp, another eight approached soldiers on Facebook) were an intelligence network of the Hamas terrorist organization which asked the soldiers to download applications which compromised their cell phones with Trojan horse viruses.
The applications used by Hamas included two social networking applications, WinkChat, and GlanceLove, and an application for fans of the World Cup-GoldenCup. All applications had between 400 to 500 downloads before being removed from the Google App store.
But a quick search online show both GlanceLove and WinkChat are still available to download and a Facebook page for GoldenCup remains open.
"WinkChat is an app that lets you poke everyone, anywhere whom [is] in your friends list and to be in contact with them in a romantic way, also it refreshes friends relations and builds new relations with any person you like," reads the description of the application on the APKPure store.
Once on the phone, the virus would give Hamas operatives access to all pictures, the soldier’s location, text messages (including the history of sent messages), and the soldier’s contact list. The virus would also be able to download files, access the phone’s camera and microphone, take pictures and record conversations remotely, without the soldier knowing.
Nevertheless, most of the soldiers who were approached by the Hamas operatives demonstrated a high awareness of the IDF’s information security directives and acted in accordance to the guidelines. The soldiers did not cooperate with the suspicious individuals, instead they informed their commanders who reported the attempts to military intelligence.
According to the senior intelligence officer, while both male and female soldiers were approached, sometimes in romantic ways, the female soldiers would cut off communication faster than their male counterparts.
Military Intelligence has reiterated to soldiers to follow the IDF’s caution guidelines for the use of social networks by soldiers: only confirming friendship requests from people one knows personally, to not upload any classified information to any social network, and to only download applications from the original App Store (rather than downloading applications from links).
The military has also recommended that if a soldier is approached by a stranger online, be aware that it might be an attempt to honeypot them, especially if the suspicious individual is unable to meet in person.
The IDF has urged all soldiers, including reserve soldiers, to report to their commander and security officials if the suspicious individual asks them to download applications and if they feel that their phone may have been compromised.
[PRESSTV] An Iranian lawmaker says the Islamic Republic is considering a plan to purchase goods only from countries that buy its oil.
MP Assadollah Qarehkhani was quoted by media as saying that a special committee had been formed in the Parliament that would deal with bartering oil with goods, adding that this was meant to help Iran overcome the impacts of upcoming US sanctions.
“The formation of this committee means that we will make purchases of goods conditional to purchases of Iran’s crude oil and this would limit the impacts of reductions in Iran’s oil exports [once the sanctions return],” added Qarehkhani who is the spokesman of the Energy Committee of the Iranian Parliament.
“We cannot transfer dollars and euroes [for oil sales] into Iran due to banking problems. Therefore, we will import goods from oil clients such as India, China and South Korea as we did during the previous round of sanctions.”
In May, US President Donald Trump announced that he would pull America out of a 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and re-impose the sanctions that the deal had envisaged to be lifted.
He has already emphasized that the sanctions which would be imposed on Iran would be “at the highest level”.
The sanctions would include a universal ban on Iran over buying or acquiring US dollars as well as restrictions over purchases of crude oil from the country and investing in its oil sector projects.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
....Good.
"Oil for Goods" ends up with the elite getting theirs while everybody else keeps struggling on and pushes them just a little bit closer to losing it every day.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/05/2018 6:11 Comments ||
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An interesting rumour. Even more interesting that it’s being openly discussed....
[IsraelTimes] Unnamed French source tells London-based Arab daily that Israel and the Lebanese terror group are in a de facto ceasefire
As much as half of Hezbollah’s fighting force in Syria has reportedly returned to Leb with the terror group having become "exhausted" by several years of fighting on behalf of Iran and the Assad regime.
The al-Hayat daily, which is published in London, cited an unnamed French source in a report Wednesday about the withdrawal, according to which roughly 3,000 to 4,000 of the group’s fighters have been recalled to Leb.
Al-Hayat’s source also claimed that Israel and Hezbollah have been refraining from attacking each other, in an informal ceasefire of sorts.
A de facto ceasefire would seem to mark a departure from Israel’s policy thus far in the Syrian conflict, which included repeated Arclight airstrikes against Hezbollah weapons shipments and supply convoys, as well as efforts by Israel to prevent Hezbollah and Iranian forces from entrenching near the Israeli Golan Heights.
The French source also claimed that Israel fears Hezbollah has been significantly strengthened by the fighting in Syria, despite the loss of many of its fighters and the resentment at home generated by its involvement in the war.
"Israeli strikes in Syria are limited to Iranian positions because Hezbollah has heavy weapons and has gained great military experience through the war in Syria," the source said.
Israel now believes that a war with Hezbollah would mean "a disaster for Leb and for Israel alike," claimed the source, who was not named.
The report came just five days after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, insisted a "big victory" over "terrorist forces supported by the US and Israel" was near in Syria, a statement that may have been meant to prepare the ground for any announcement of withdrawal.
Nasrallah said rebel groups in the Daraa area were "collapsing" and he expected wide parts of southern Syria would be under government control "within days" as ceasefire agreements were reported with some of the groups.
"Many of these groups are reassessing, starting to ask for settlements and entering into reconciliation deals," he added.
He said Hezbollah was creating a mechanism to help Syrian refugees in Leb return home, in coordination with Lebanese authorities and Damascus.
Leb hosts just under one million registered refugees from the conflict in neighboring Syria, although authorities say the real number is much higher.
[IsraelTimes] Russia says demands for Iran’s complete withdrawal from Syria are "unrealistic."
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Wednesday after meeting with his Jordanian counterpart that Iran is one of the key powers in the region, and that it would be "absolutely unrealistic" to expect it to abandon its interests. He says regional powers should discuss mutual complaints and negotiate a compromise.
Russia and Iran have provided crucial military support to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... ’s forces, helping them turn the tide in the civil war.
Israel has said it will not tolerate an Iranian military presence in Syria and has launched military strikes against Iranian targets there in recent months.
Lavrov says Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. 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 him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... and US 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... would discuss the situation in southern Syria, where government forces are waging a new offensive, at their July 16 summit. He says a ceasefire in the region brokered by Russia, Jordan and the US had envisioned the withdrawal of non-Syrian forces and the deployment of Syrian troops along the frontier with Israel.
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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.
[DAWN] The counsel for Rao Anwar argued before an anti-terrorism court in Karachi on Wednesday that the suspended Malir SSP had no involvement in the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud — the Waziristan youth who was shot dead in an alleged fake police encounter earlier this year.
[Rudaw] ERBIL, Kurdistan Region ‐ An official observing the manual recount of votes in Kirkuk has told Rudaw the number of votes parties achieved according to the electronic count is different to the outcome now emerging.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. 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 him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
