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Taliban bombing near GHQ kills 13
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
2 arrested at Tex-Mex border in Target credit card fraud case
Account information stolen during the Target security breach is now being divided up and sold off regionally, a South Texas police chief said Monday, following the arrest of two Mexican citizens with 96 fraudulent credit cards.

McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez said Mary Carmen Garcia, 27, and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez, 28, both of Monterrey, Mexico, used cards containing the account information of South Texas residents to buy tens of thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise at national retailers in the area. Rodriguez said he did not know whether they were the first arrests related to the Target breach.

The Minneapolis-based company said last week that it has stopped more than a dozen operations that sought to scam breach victims by way of email, phone calls and text messages. McAllen police began working with the U.S. Secret Service after a number of area retailers were hit with fraudulent purchases on Jan. 12. The Secret Service confirmed that the fraudulent accounts traced back to the original Target data breach from late last year. Rodriguez also alluded to a link with Eastern Europe or Russia, but did not provide additional details. He said he expected Garcia and Guardiola to eventually face federal charges.

Investigators believe the two were involved in both the acquisition of the fraudulent account data and the production of the cards, but only part of what must have been a much broader conspiracy. Garcia and Guardiola were both being held on state fraud charges. It was not immediately known whether they had retained lawyers.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why is the Secret Service now a police agency? Their purpose is to protect the President and Vice_President but they are not a police agency. We know the FBI is run by a Marxist but there is still some excellent agents in the bureau.

There are to be no Secret Police in this country.
Posted by: Omavising Ebbemp9815 || 01/21/2014 12:43 Comments || Top||

#2  History 101 - With a reported one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit at the time,[14] the Secret Service was created by President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, the day of his assassination, five days after Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. It was commissioned on July 5, 1865, in Washington, D.C. as the "Secret Service Division" of the Department of the Treasury with the mission of suppressing counterfeiting. - wiki

Whether coin, paper, or as today digital, counterfeiting is within their realm since its inception. The presidential protection mission came later (unfortunately for Lincoln).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/21/2014 13:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The Secret Service has has Procopius noted long been a police agency. This Agency saved America from the Henning Nickel. The Henning nickel is a true story of what can happen when an expert machinist doesn't have basic bookkeeping skills. A perfect crime. A close cost analyst of the Henning Nickel recons it's cost of production at 11 cents. Not good. Not good at all.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/21/2014 14:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Why is the Secret Service now a police agency?

You don't do US History, do you?

As P2K and Shipman mentioned, the Secret Service was started in 1865; its initial and still primary mission was investigating threats to the payment and financial systems of the United States.

The protection mission wasn't started until 1901, after the assassination of President McKinley. That mission was assigned at the direction of Congress.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/21/2014 15:07 Comments || Top||

#5  The Secret Service has been responsible for presidential guard after the FBI, ATF, ICE, etc, took over other police responsibilities. Now everyone, even the Social Security girl are being militarized by Zero, soon the TSA pat down pervert, will be sporting hollow point bandaleros.
Posted by: Lionel Snirt6165 || 01/21/2014 17:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Let's give these people amnesty! They're just stealing the credit cards American's won't steal!
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 01/21/2014 20:54 Comments || Top||

#7  WTF?

The FBI was established in 1908.

The ATF was formed in 1926 and became a separate agency in 1927.

The ICE was formed from combining various other agencies in 2011

Friggin' Ron Paul on a pogo-stick. Crack open a book or look it up on the intertubes before you post. That took one minute of research. Two, tops.

Are you morons or just playing them? Don't answer that - I couldn't stand any more inanity.

Posted by: Pappy || 01/21/2014 20:57 Comments || Top||

#8  This Agency saved America from the Henning Nickel.

Fascinating story, Ship! Maybe Henning figured he could make it up on volume.

Being part of the Treasury Dept, I suppose the S.S. has also saved us from the scourge of hobo nickels
Posted by: SteveS || 01/21/2014 21:55 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
British School Runaways Found in Caribbean Sun
[An Nahar] Two 16-year-olds who bravely ran away from a top British boarding school have been found safe and well in the Dominican Republic, police and the school said Monday.

Edward Bunyan and Indira Gainiyeva disappeared from the highly-regarded Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, northwest England, on January 13.

They took a taxi to Manchester Airport, swapping the English winter weather for the Caribbean sun.

A Lancashire Police front man said: "The students have thankfully been located safe and well at a hotel in the Punta Cana area of the Dominican Republic," a beach resort popular with tourists.

"Plans are now being made for their safe return to the UK.

"They will be given a welfare de-brief by police following their arrival back in this country."

Gainiyeva, who hails from Kazakhstan, turned 17 on Friday.

Stonyhurst College, a day and boarding school, was founded in 1593, and bills itself as one of Britannia's leading Catholic boarding schools.

Full boarding fees cost £29,439 ($48,400, 35,700 euros) per annum.

"We are absolutely delighted to be able to report that the two missing pupils have been found safe and well," said its head Andrew Johnson.

"They are currently in the care of the police and a family member.

"Over the coming days we will be having discussions with the two young people and their families about what has happened and also what happens next.

"However,
women are made to be loved, not understood...
it is simply too early at the moment to speculate about the future."
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At least it's not Syria, or LA.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/21/2014 5:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Aw Edward, you're okay. And deh question arrise.... hummm.. are you have a good time? If you catch muh drift.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/21/2014 9:32 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Tunisia dismantles international drug trafficking ring
[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisian security services dismantled an international drug trafficking network in the region of Beni Mtir, Jendouba governorate on the border with Algeria, Tunisie Numérique reported on Sunday (January 19th).

El Gorjani authorities arrested fifteen suspects and freed a Spaniard and Colombian hostages.

Large amounts of money, guns and jewellery were recovered in the operation.
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Narcos


Africa Subsaharan
Mugabe Appears in Public to Mourn Sister
[An Nahar] Zim-bob-we President Bob Muggsy Mugabe
Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case...
has made his first public appearance this year, quashing speculation about his health as he mourns his sister's death.

State television on Monday showed images of Mugabe greeting government officials and members of his ZANU-PF party at his official residence in the capital Harare.

The veteran leader, who turns 90 next month, did not show signs of declining health as he greeted those paying their condolences at State House on Sunday, after his younger sister Bridget passed away in a Harare hospital.

His appearance quashed recent speculation about his health, with some media even claiming he died while on holiday in Singapore.

Presidential George Charamba last week dismissed the reports, saying the long-time president, in power for 33 years, was on his annual leave and in good health.

Mugabe takes a month-long-holiday each January, and has made several stays in southeast Asian countries.
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
BNP offers olive branch again
[Dhaka Tribune] BNP Chairperson the loathesome Khaleda Zia
Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ...
yesterday condemned the the loathesome Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums..
-led government for the January 5 election and the misdeeds during its previous term, and also asked it to initiate a dialogue immediately for an inclusive election.

Khaleda also questioned the join force's drive in Satkhira and the law enforcers' role in Gaibandha clash with Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
saying that people were sceptical about their operations. She also criticised the government for closing the daily Inqilab and arresting its three journalists.

In her speech at the post-election rally in the capital's Suhrawardy Udyan, the three-time former premier refrained from declaring any fresh agitation and asked the party supporters to observe programmes peacefully.

The alliance after the election they had boycotted declared black flag processions across the country for January 29, the day when the first session of 10th parliament sits.

Khaleda said the BNP did not want instability, rather peace and development. "I am not urging you to do any war. You just wage peaceful movement." She hoped that the government would not obstruct the programme.

Though Khaleda earlier announced that the alliance will hold the rally, on Sunday night, the party announced that they would organise it alone. Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote
... a political party in Bangladesh. In the 2001 elections the party won 2 out of 300 elected members in an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It has a focus on building an islamic state, and has used the madrassas to gain support...
, Khelafat Andolon and Jamaat-e-Ulamaye Islam leaders were not seen at the venue even though a huge number of activists of Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir
... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh...
attended the alliance's rallies in the past.

The BNP, which apparently fails to resist the January 5 polls even sponsoring non-stop agitations resulting in violence and destruction, has been sticking to pre-poll position on resolving the political crisis through a dialogue.

Addressing a rally after nearly two and a half months at the historic Suhrawardy Udyan, Khaleda thanked people for "boycotting" the "farcical" election and urged the government to hold fresh poll. The previous rally took place on October 25.

She said it was necessary to initiate a dialogue immediately with a view to hold an acceptable election to bring peace in the country.
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Europe to Ditch Climate Protection Goals
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/21/2014 13:16 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  European survival instinct kicks in. That's the problem with the Left in the US -- they haven't got one.
Posted by: Iblis || 01/21/2014 16:10 Comments || Top||

#2  What's Obama going to do, the world is against him?

Lie harder? More often?
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/21/2014 21:19 Comments || Top||


EJC: Anti-Semitism an acceptable prejudice in soccer
[Ynet] Jewish groups slam Polish authorities after a municipal prosecutor in city of Poznan concludes that chants by soccer fans which made reference to Jews going to Auschwitz gas chambers were not anti-Semitic
"You Jews are so thin skinned about that kind of thing!"

Posted by: trailing wife || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just like saying all Poles should be under the German's heel because they can't shoot straight?

Not anti-polish at all!

Stupid fucks.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/21/2014 0:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Quite uncivilized. Why can't they just enjoy a good natured Richard Sherman and Michael Crabtree post-game NFL rant with trash talk, street gang death symbols and hate filled media interviews ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/21/2014 2:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Why do you think Germans build extermination camps in Poland instead of Germany itself---fear of carbon footprint?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/21/2014 5:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Ease of transport, grom.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/21/2014 9:02 Comments || Top||

#5  You sure?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/21/2014 9:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Poles are anti-Semite as hell. They are hard-headed, nothing changes them. This is their least admirable trait IMO.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/21/2014 9:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Shipman, not all Poles. Counterexample: St. Maximilian Kolbe, who took the place of a Jew at Auschwitz. He had been arrested for sheltering 2000 Jews at his Franciscan friary.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 01/21/2014 10:28 Comments || Top||

#8  Why do you think Germans build extermination camps in Poland instead of Germany itself---fear of carbon footprint?

For the same reason the Russians always propagandized about Poland and the holocaust: The Germans were interested in turning Poland into Germany, just like the Russians want Poland to be Russia. It's why they cooperated in carving it up in the first place.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 01/21/2014 10:44 Comments || Top||

#9  Perhaps because there were a large amount of Jews in Poland to begin with. Also there would be few objections from the highly antisemetic population.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/21/2014 13:45 Comments || Top||

#10  RE post number 9: should be antisemitic not antisemetic.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/21/2014 13:50 Comments || Top||

#11  I am painting with a broad brush here Rambler. You of course are correct to note there are many exceptions. This peculiar streak is one of their very few less than admirable traits. That said, I'll take Poles on my flank anytime in lieu of Turks.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/21/2014 14:27 Comments || Top||

#12  I was wondering if this is just one of those not for polite company sports deals, or a real problem. Sounds like the latter. The former being, "Kansas City's zone defense vs. The Colts was so loose, the corners had prostitutes."
Posted by: swksvolFF || 01/21/2014 16:37 Comments || Top||


Pitched Battle Turns Kiev Street into Virtual Warzone
[An Nahar] In normal times, Grushevsky Street is one of the nicest avenues in Ukraine's capital Kiev. But now its cobble stones have been ripped out by demonstrators to use as weapons in their standoff with police.

Separated by twenty meters (yards) of no-man's land and protected by meters-high barricades, protesters and the Ukranian security forces are engaged in a pitched battle that has turned an area in the center of Kiev into a virtual warzone.

The protesters protect themselves behind barricades built around the burned-out wrecks of police buses torched on Sunday night.

Police stand on the upper part of Grushevsky street, forming several lines and covering themselves with their riot shields.

The festivities of the last two days have devastated a central area of the city, with one of the streets littered with used stun grenades and the wreckage of buses burned by the protesters.

The violence has shredded the years of peace that the wide boulevards of the capital had known following Ukraine's momentous 2004 Orange Revolution.

Near the recent battle scene is one of the most famous landmarks of Kiev: the stadium of the Dynamo Kiev football side named after the great Soviet and Ukrainian football coach Valeriy Lobanovsky.

On Monday some protesters managed to climb atop the stadium gate, pelting the police below with Molotov cocktails.

"We are going to stay here until our demands are met on the annulment of the laws" restricting rallies, said one demonstrator, Yaroslav Putilin, 46.

Protesters equipped themselves with ad hoc shields made of metal sheeting and wooden sticks in anticipation of further festivities with police.

Some even built a giant catapult to allow them to fling heavier rocks at the security forces.

The area echoed with the thud of stun grenades and the deafening drumming of groups of mostly elderly protesters with sticks on metal.

At one point, heavily armed riot police entered the no man's land area between the barricades to hurl the stones thrown by demonstrators back up them.

They also hurled stun grenades and on occasion used tear gas and rubber bullets against the protesters.

Police also used water cannon. With temperatures at minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), the water froze on the street, further complicating movement.

But this did not discourage the most radical Ukranians who hid right behind the barricades and emerged occasionally to lob projectiles at the security forces.

Dozens of police buses appeared behind the main contingent of the riot police Monday evening, raising the prospect they could try and boost their numbers and oust the protesters.

In a stark warning, prosecutor general Viktor Pshonka declared that the mass riots were a "crime against the state".

The main protest hub remains on Independence Square some five minutes walk away from the scene of the festivities.

The square and the adjacent Khreshchatyk street are now covered in tents erected by protesters. The smell of the smoke from the wood used to heat them hangs heavy in the air.
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The only thing better than Ukrainians killing each other is Poles and Ukrainians killing each other.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/21/2014 5:39 Comments || Top||

#2  A very small but important revenge for BabiYar. Wish the same for Romania, which was the "official" occupier of that region.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/21/2014 14:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Curious the article makes no real mention of the cause for the festivities. Maybe, being from Lebanon, they figure this is just business as usual.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/21/2014 17:23 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
India Minister's Wife Died of Drug Overdose
[An Nahar] The wife of Indian minister Shahshi Tharoor, found dead in a luxury hotel after accusing her husband of being unfaithful, appeared to have died of drug overdose, news agency Press Trust of India said Monday.

Tharoor, 57, the junior human resources development minister, found his wife Sunanda Pushkar dead on Friday in her five-star hotel room in New Delhi after he returned from a Congress party meeting.

An autopsy report, which was submitted on Monday to a magistrate charged with investigating her death, cited a drug overdose as the cause of death, PTI reported.

According to PTI, Magistrate Alok Sharma refused to elaborate the details of the report, saying he would study it along with recorded statements of others, including that of Tharoor.

"On this basis I will conclude what was the cause of death and submit a report to the police whether a case is made out or not surrounding the death and whether police should carry out further investigation or not," Sharma was quoted as saying by PTI.

Tharoor recorded his statement on Sunday, hours after he pledged full cooperation with investigations and urged a speedy inquiry into his wife's death, which came after she exposed his alleged affair on Twitter with a Pak journalist, Mehr Tarar.

The death was a tragic twist in a tale of apparent marital strife that has played out in full view of the public's gaze, both in India's newspapers and on social media.

Sunanda Pushkar, 52, died an "unnatural, sudden death", said doctors who performed an autopsy on Saturday, adding that more tests were needed to determine the exact cause.

Pushkar's body had "some physical injuries", but it was unclear whether they were related to her death, Sudhir Gupta, one of three doctors who performed the autopsy, had said.

Her body was cremated according to Hindu rites on the weekend.
Posted by: Fred || 01/21/2014 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Very sad. If applied to France all females would leave their earthly home.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/21/2014 13:54 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
27[untagged]
6Arab Spring
6Govt of Syria
4Boko Haram
3TTP
3Govt of Pakistan
3Salafists
2Jamaat-e-Islami
2Taliban
1al-Qaeda in Pakistan
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant
1Lashkar e-Jhangvi
1Moro Islamic Liberation Front
1Narcos
1al-Qaeda in North Africa
1al-Qaeda in Sinai Peninsula
1Thai Insurgency
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Sudan

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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2014-01-21
  Taliban bombing near GHQ kills 13
Mon 2014-01-20
  Explosion kills 20 in Bannu; TTP claims attack
Sun 2014-01-19
  Iranian diplomat shot dead by gunmen in Sana'a
Sat 2014-01-18
  Suicide Bomb Rocks Downtown Kabul
Fri 2014-01-17
  Car Bomb Kills 3, Hurts Dozens in Hermel, 'al-Nusra in Lebanon' Claims Attack
Thu 2014-01-16
  Syria Opposition Says Army Attacked Rebels with Poison Gas
Wed 2014-01-15
  Sharia begins in Libya
Tue 2014-01-14
  Three militants gunned down in Sopore encounter
Mon 2014-01-13
  Iran, world powers agree to nuclear deal terms
Sun 2014-01-12
  Djotodia seeks exile in Benin
Sat 2014-01-11
  Tribes, Police Retake Parts of Iraq's Ramadi
Fri 2014-01-10
  At Least 45 Syrian Rebels Killed in Homs Regime Ambush
Thu 2014-01-09
  'Prisoners Executed by Jihadists' in Syria's Aleppo
Wed 2014-01-08
  34 jihadists dead after rebel clashes in Syria's Idlib
Tue 2014-01-07
  10-Year Old Girl With Suicide Vest Detained in Helmand


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