[An Nahar] A Hollywood skin-care expert with celebrity clients including Jennifer Aniston and Nicki Minaj has been nabbed Book 'im, Mahmoud! for allegedly plotting to have a business rival killed, according to police.
Dawn DaLuise, 55, is accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill Gabriel Suarez after mistakenly concluding that he was behind cyber-stalking rape threats against her, Sherlocks said this week.
She remains in jug after being arrested last week, while a former friend of hers who Sherlocks allege was the real person behind the online threats was released on $150,000 bail.
DaLouise, a former model, runs "Skin Refinery" in West Hollywood. Among the "loyal clients" listed on her website were Hollywood actresses Alicia Silverstone, Christina Ricci and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Last July, she became aware of sexually-explicit flyers with her photo, as well as ads posted on online trading site Craiglist suggesting that she was looking for men to act out a rape fantasy.
"The ads included the home address, phone number, and a photo of Dawn DaLuise," said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department front man Mike Parker.
DaLuise came to believe that they were posted by esthetician Suarez, who had opened a shop a few doors down from "Skin Refinery" on Santa Monica Boulevard, offering facials and male body waxing.
Parker said DaLuise "began communications by text and phone calls with more than one person, in an effort to hire someone to kill the person she believed was trying to solicit rape against her."
Investigators arrested her on March 5 and she remains behind bars in lieu of $1 million bail. She is scheduled to be arraigned next week.
"She is culpable for soliciting someone to kill the victim," Shaun Mathers of the Sheriff's Fraud & Cyber Crimes Bureau said. "She believed it would be carried out."
Meanwhile Sherlocks allege that Edward Feinstein, a former friend who allegedly fell out with DaLuise, distributed the flyers, posted the Craiglist ads and sent out mass emails.
Feinstein was arrested this week and booked on suspicion of stalking.
That's a good deal more than stalking. The gentleman was soliciting major felonies.
He was released on bail on Thursday, and is due in court again on May 14.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A short, hairy "ape man" who tumbled into a pit in South Africa millions of years ago is back in the running as a candidate ancestor for humans, scientists said Friday.
A painstaking 13-year probe has "convincingly shown", they said, that the strange-looking creature named Little Foot lived some three million years ago -- almost a million years earlier than calculated by rival teams.
If so, it would make Little Foot -- so named for the diminutive size of the bones -- one of the oldest members of the Australopithecus hominid family ever found.
And it would bolster the status of South Africa's Sterkfontein cave complex as part of the "Cradle of Humankind", a U.N.-recognized World Heritage Site.
"Some have said South Africa is too young" to have given rise to modern man, said Laurent Bruxelles from La Belle France's National Institute for Archaeological Research (Inrap), who took part in the study.
"We are putting Little Foot and South Africa back in the running."
Another challenger for the title of human ancestor was "Lucy," a specimen of a different strand of Australopithecus -- the genus that had both ape and human features, walked upright, and is believed to have given rise to Homo sapiens, or anatomically modern Man, via Homo habilis.
Lucy's skeleton, uncovered in Æthiopia in 1974, has been dated to about three million years, although as always in fossils, there is a big margin of uncertainty.
"No longer are the Australopithecus of East Africa, like Lucy, the sole candidates" to have been our ancestors, said Bruxelles.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Took a while but found this artists rendition of Australopithecus Africanus not to be confused with Gluteus Maximus, Medius or Minimus Africanus :-O
An Egyptian official says armed men have seized 70 Egyptians in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atti said on Friday that men in military uniform took the 70 from their homes in Tripoli. Abdel-Atti says the Egyptians were taken to a police facility in Tripoli.
Details were sketchy and it was not known who the armed men were. Libyan authorities did not immediately comment on the incident.
Abdel-Atti says Egypts foreign minister is contacting his Libyan counterpart to get the Egyptians released.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[IBTIMES.CO.UK] A Saudi holy man named Saleh al-Fawzan has issued fatwa against all-you-can-eat buffets in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... . He made the statement on a Saudi Koranic TV station.
Fawzan said the value and quantity of the food sold should be pre-determined before hand.
"Whoever enters the buffet and eats for 10 or 50 riyals without deciding the quantity they will eat is violating Sharia (Islamic) law," Fawzan was quoted on al-Atheer channel.
The fatwa attempts to add plate piling eateries to the long list of things outlawed by religious edicts. It has been the subject of condemnation and debate on social media channels.
While some twitter users slammed the holy man's fatwa by using the hashtag "prohibiting-open-buffet" (in Arabic) others tweeted supporting it.
Here are some reactions for the fatwa against all-you-can-eat Buffets.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Several hundred supporters of the Venezuelan government staged a colorful rally in the capital Caracas on Saturday, as opponents called for more protests against President Nicolas Maduro and his leftist administration.
Venezuela has seen almost daily anti-government demonstrations over violent crime, shortages of essential goods such as toilet paper, and inflation, in the most serious challenge yet for Maduro since succeeding the late socialist-populist Hugo Chavez last year.
At least 28 people have died and 400 have been injured in the student-led protests that started on February 4 in San Cristobal, in the west of Venezuela, and later spread to Caracas and several other cities.
"The people and the armed forces are on the streets defending the Bolivarian revolution and the legacy of Hugo Chavez, the country and our constitution," thundered Diosdado Cabello, speaker of the National Assembly, sporting a coat in the yellow, blue and red colors of Venezuela.
Many of the pro-government supporters held up Venezuelan flags and wore red, the color closely associated with Chavez and his "Bolivarian revolution," while armed forces joined in the rally.
Meanwhile the Popular Will, a prominent Venezuelan opposition party, called for a rival demonstration in another part of the capital, "to repudiate the brutal onslaught of state security and pro-government (vigilante) groups against demonstrators."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
Another warning shot was fired before an all-out assault on the dollar system begins. This time, an official shot: Alexey Ulyukaev, Russias Minister of Economic Development and former Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, fired it. It was a major escalation, Valentin Mândrăşescu, editor of The Voice of Russias Reality Check, told me from Moscow.
Last time, it was Sergei Glazyev, an advisor to Vladimir Putin whod fired the shot. But he wasnt a government official. Anonymous sources at the Kremlin claimed he wasnt speaking for the government. As Mândrăşescu reported in his excellent article, From Now On, No Compromises Are Possible For Russia:
From the economic point of view, everyone should get ready for tough actions from Moscow. Sergei Glazyev, the most hardline of Putins advisors, sketched the retaliation strategy: Drop the dollar, sell US Treasuries, encourage Russian companies to default on their dollar-denominated debts, and create an alternative currency system (reference currency) with the BRICS and hydrocarbon producers like Venezuela and Iran.
Unlike radical-sounding Glazyev, Ulyukaev is part of Dmitry Medvedevs Cabinet. And as former Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, he doesnt take currencies lightly. He told Rossia-24 news channel about possible retaliatory measures if Washington adds economic sanctions to the political sanctions. Moscow wouldnt worry too much about political sanctions, he said, but if Washington tries to hurt Russias economy, Moscow would retaliate by targeting the US dollar.
Some of it is already happening
Washingtons decision to release a minuscule 5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve caused the price of oil to tank a direct attack on the main revenue source of the Russian government, and a sign that Washington is willing to hit where it hurts the most [read a traders lament.... Commodity Markets Will Be Used As A Weapon Against The Putin Regime, Starting Now].
Russia instantly retaliated, it seems. Suddenly, there was a mysterious mega-plunge of $104.5 billion in US Treasuries held in custody by the Federal Reserve during the reporting week ended March 12. It brought the balance down to $2.86 trillion. These securities are owned by foreign countries. As of the US Treasurys December statement, the most recent available, the Fed held $138.6 billion in Treasuries that belonged to Russia down by $22.9 billion from a year earlier. The mega-plunge of $104.5 billion? No data is available yet to confirm these securities belonged to Russia. And if they did, its unlikely that Russia dumped them on the market, but it could have transferred them to another banking center, such as Luxemburg, to get them out of reach of the US government, and be able to dump them at an opportune moment.
Getting out from under the dollar
Russia has been palavering with other countries about initiating alternatives to the dollar. Formal plans emerged from the Kremlin last May on how Russia wanted the BRICS to dismantle the dollar system. So now it was Ulyukaev, an official heavy-weight, who said that Russia would work on increasing the volume of international trade denominated in national currencies, thus bypassing the dollar (translation by Mândrăşescu):
Why should we have dollar contracts with China, India, Turkey? he said. Why do we need this? We must have contracts in national currencies. And this applies to energy and other spheres. The focus would be on Russian oil and gas companies. They must be braver in signing contracts in rubles and the currencies of partner-countries, he said. I think now there is an additional impetus to finally finish this job.
And the currency reserve policy would need some adjustment with maximum focus on local currencies; it was the normal way, he said. In Mândrăşescus analysis, Ulyukaev was outlining an attack on the petrodollar system and the enormous advantages it confers on the US, with the goal of creating parallel petro-currencies.
Media blackout in the US
The warning, issued officially and publicly by a Cabinet member, to target the dollar, has been vigorously ignored by the mainstream media in the US. Its a touchy subject here. The dollar reigns supreme. Its status as the sole world reserve currency, which has provided the US with enormous economic advantages, remains unquestionable forevermore. Or so wishes the Fed, which has done such a wonderful job of managing the dollar for the last 100 years that it has lost most of its value, though its still a heck of a lot better than the ruble.
I have a suspicion the Western media don't want to report on this, Mândrăşescu said. It could be a bit unpleasant for the S&P 500 and the nanobots trading the US stock market. Better keep them in the dark.
[An Nahar] An alternative meeting for the Group of Seven most developed economies could be held in London if Russia is expelled from the G8 for its aggressive policy in Ukraine, a German weekly reported Saturday.
Britannia has proposed hosting the summit with Germany, Japan, La Belle France, Canada, Italia and the United States, Der Spiegel said, citing an unnamed source close to the German government.
Initially, a Group of Eight meeting including Russia was set to be held in June in Sochi, where the Russians had successfully hosted this year's Winter Olympic Games.
But Russia's expulsion from the rich countries' club is one of the international sanctions to be imposed if Moscow persists in its support for Crimea to quit Ukraine and join Russia, the subject of Sunday's referendum in the flashpoint peninsula which Kiev and Western powers have said is illegal.
The German government, however, issued a statement saying that the only decision that has been made is to stop preparations for a G8 meeting.
"Other than that, no other decision has been taken," the statement from Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... 's office said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Thousands of people rallied in central Moscow Saturday in protest at Russia's intervention in Ukraine, a day before the Crimean peninsula is expected to vote on switching to Kremlin rule.
Waving Ukrainian flags and shouting slogans heard during the Maidan protests in Kiev, the demonstrators urged Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President 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... to pull troops back.
Marchers carried placards reading "Putin, get out of Ukraine" and others comparing Russia's move on Crimea with the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland as Europe rushed headlong into World War II.
University professor Yelena Orlova, 47, whose sign read "Ukraine is a sovereign state", said she did not expect the rally would change her government's position, but believed it was her duty to speak out.
"I don't agree with the policy of Putin," she told AFP. "I am against the annexation of Crimea. I think Russia should respect the borders of Ukraine."
An AFP team at the rally estimated there were up to 20,000 people.
An earlier estimate from the police put the number at 3,000. Russian police frequently downplay the size of opposition demonstrations.
Some leftist protesters were waving the black and red banners of the hugely controversial Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which fought both Soviet and Nazi forces during World War II.
A helicopter buzzed overhead as some chanted "The main enemy is in the Kremlin. No to fascism ...a political system developed in Italy symbolized by the Roman fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about... , no to imperialism."
At a rival demonstration in central Moscow, which appeared to be well-organized, police estimated 15,000 people had gathered in support of Putin.
Television cameras, which swooped over the heads of demonstrators, showed uniform lines of people wearing red and carrying red flags as speakers lashed out at "fascists" in Ukraine they say are targeting ethnic Russians.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#4
Funny how the real fascists, Putin and his goons, are spreading propaganda to gullible idiots (looking at you From) to get them inflamed about actions that are no more real than were the ones for the Germans in the Sudeten. I guess a lot of Russians are as much moronic sheep as we have her win the US for Obama followers.
[DAWN] Russia vetoed a Western-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum at a UN Security Council emergency vote Saturday, but China abstained, isolating Moscow further on the Ukraine crisis.
The draft resolution, which says Sunday's referendum would have no validity, got 13 votes in the 15-member council. But it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto.
The resolution declares that the referendum on whether the semi-autonomous region should come under Kremlin rule "cannot form the basis for any alteration of the status of Crimea."
China often backs Russia at the council, especially on Syria-related votes, and Western powers presented its abstention as the best possible outcome from the seventh UN emergency session since the crisis began.
"Russia, isolated, alone and wrong, blocked the resolution's passage," US ambassador Samantha Power told the council.
"This is a sad and remarkable moment."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
.."alone" Ms. Power? Someone may not be in consideration of a not-so-deeply concealed meaning of a Chi(formerly com)nese abstention.?
#3
China often backs Russia at the council, especially on Syria-related votes, and Western powers presented its abstention as the best possible outcome from the seventh UN emergency session since the crisis began.
Something akin to voting 'present', then boarding a flight at National Airport for Chicago.
#5
So, Russia says 'mind your own business', and China goes "I might want a come back on this'.
So, possibility: the creation of 'The Crimean Republic', with a big treaty tie to Moscow. (Sort of pretends to satisfy everybody.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/16/2014 11:03 Comments ||
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[Pak Daily Times] North Korea has threatened to demonstrate its nuclear deterrence in a move analysts say could indicate the regime is preparing to carry out a fourth atomic test amid long-stalled disarmament talks.
The powerful National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, said on Friday that the North would continue efforts "to bolster up its nuclear deterrence for self-defence".
"And additional measures will be taken to demonstrate its might one after another as long as the US nuclear threat and blackmail persist as now", it added in a statement carried by Pyongyang state media.
North Korea and its main ally China want a resumption of six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons programme, but Washington and Seoul both insist that Pyongyang must first demonstrate some tangible commitment to abandoning nuclear weapons.
"The US had better roll back its worn-out hostile policy towards the DPRK (North Korea) as soon as possible and shape a new realistic policy before it is too late," the NDC statement added.
"This would be beneficial not only to meeting the US interests but also to ensuring the security of its mainland."
In March last year, North Korea's military put its "strategic" rocket units on a war footing and threatened to strike targets on the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam, as well as South Korea as tensions soared.
Despite a successful long-range rocket launch in December 2012, most experts believe North Korea is years away from developing a genuine inter-continental ballistic missile that could strike the mainland United States.
Analysts in Seoul said the NDC statement on Friday indicated North Korea was mulling three options -- a fourth nuclear test, the firing of a long-range rocket and the unveiling of progress in its programme of enriching uranium.
North Korea carried out nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and in February last year.
"This warning is not about an imminent action but an expression of frustration with Washington, which refuses to budge an inch despite Beijing's efforts to draw it back to dialogue", Professor Yang Moo-Jin told AFP.
Professor Kim Yeon-Chul of Inje University said the North might consider carrying out a test using enriched uranium it has been developing for the past two years in addition to its plutonium-based weapons.
The NDC stressed the North would never make a first, unilateral move towards giving up its nuclear weapons programme despite US pressure to do so.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.CNTV.CN] Ukraine's Constitutional Court has declared unconstitutional a planned referendum in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea on joining Russia. It comes one day ahead of the scheduled referendum by the Parliament of Crimea.
The decision means the Crimean Parliament's decree to hold the vote carries no power - according to the court. The Court has ordered Crimea to halt all preparations for the referendum vote, and to destroy voting-papers and promotional material across the Crimean Peninsula. Under Ukrainian law, the Constitutional Court's decision cannot be appealed, and must be implemented.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth ordered the space pirate fleet to attack Zemblonia... the UN Security Council is expected to convene an emergency meeting on Saturday to vote on a draft resolution on Ukraine, drawn up by the United States and backed by Western countries.
The council meeting comes after talks in London between US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Ukrainian crisis made no progress on Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
..can someone tell me where in the progression towards armed conflict lawfare enters.?
#4
Lawfare, or more appropriately justification for war, is as old as western civilization (not saying all civilization, just what I am most familiar with.
Let's go back to the Second Punic War. Carthage was turning into a thorn on Rome's west. There were those who called for war, not only as a check vs. Carthage but also as an opportunity to expand into Sicily. There were those who were against war, noting that by the potential capture of Sicily the grain produced there would compete with native farmers. There were similar issues going on in Carthage, perhaps fueled by the political calculation that war with Rome would solidify the power of the Barkar family, already given loose rules to occupy and improve Hispania.
It all came down to a dispute in a small Spanish town and the legal interpretation of the treaty which ended the First Punic War.
More recently would be the legel interpretations of treaties and obligations which led to the alliances in WWI.
[An Nahar] U.S. Senator John Maverick McCain ... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... called for massive military assistance to Ukraine Saturday, while warning that Russia's actions in its former Soviet neighbor could lead to unprecedented measures by the United States and it allies.
"Ukraine is going to need a long-term military assistance program from the United States," McCain told news hounds following a U.S. senate delegation visit to the Ukrainian capital, voicing what he said was a personal opinion.
"When (Ukrainians) ask for some modest means that can help them resist, I believe we should provide it... it's simply the right and decent thing to do."
His comments came shortly before Kiev accused Russia of invading a region in southeast Ukraine, neighboring Crimea.
McCain said he was "deeply concerned" about previous reports of Russian troops moving closer to Ukraine's eastern border and conducting snap military drill there, after having effectively seized Crimea at the start of the month.
He said an all-out Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine "will be a breach of such enormous consequence that the United States of America and our European allies will be contemplating action that we have not ever (contemplated) in our relations with Russia."
So far, Washington has vowed to impose travel bans and asset freezes on targeted Russians in what has turned into the worst East-West faceoff since the Cold War.
Ukraine is meanwhile headed for a breakup as southern Crimea prepares to vote on Sunday in a referendum that is widely expected to favor reattachment to Russia.
McCain however refused to accept reports that Kiev might sacrifice the Black Sea peninsula in exchange for keeping its eastern majority Russian-speaking region.
"The last thing we want to do is send any message to the people in Crimea that we have abandoned them," he said.
"We do not agree that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President 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... has the license to invade a sovereign nation."
The U.S. senators -- who met with Ukraine's new leaders and members of the Maidan protest movement in Kiev -- did not mince their words on the eve of the Crimean referendum, organised by the self-appointed pro-Moscow regional authorities but slammed as illegal by the new authorities in Kiev and foreign capitals.
McCain spoke of a "phony referendum" while his colleague Richard Durbin described a "Soviet-style election in Crimea. We know the outcome, we always knew the outcome of those elections long before they took place."
Ukraine on Saturday accused Russian forces of invading the village of Strilkove off the northeastern edge of the Crimean peninsula, and vowed to use "all necessary measures" to ward off the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
..I don't know that this party is one we need attend quite yet. Until all peaceful avenues are exhausted, the failure of diplomacy means send other real diplomats, not arms. It appears that Mr. McCain is pushing towards a real war unprecedented measure.
Although I love Sarah Palin, maybe it is good that Capt. McCain did not become CiC. We need leaders respectful of war, yet determined to avoid them until no other course is possible (keeping in mind our national and hemispheric interests.). Or maybe this is what he is saying.?
#6
Sort of like sending Mr Nagin loads of Mercedes buses while his sat underwater in the motor pool? If they didn't have the resources to maintain and train on their own old equipment, why send them anything they're unfamiliar with now?
#8
McCain spoke of a "phony referendum" while his colleague Richard Durbin described a "Soviet-style election in Crimea. We know the outcome, we always knew the outcome of those elections long before they took place."
#12
Yeah. McShame. Send a bunch of military stocks we are short of with airlift we cannot spare, using borrowed funds, lowering our readiness. Grrreat plan.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/16/2014 17:14 Comments ||
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#13
The best the US could hope to do would be to put s$%t in the Russian Crimean sandwich under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, we aren't operating under the best leadership.
#14
I sugest we aid our own military first, starting with troop strength in the Army, and giving the Army those A-10's the USAF fighter mafia is trying to dump. Cut welfare, Obamacare, etc, instead.
#15
If I remember, the last time the USAF tried to retire the A-10s the Army offered to take them and then 'upon further review,' the AF transferred them to the ANG and Reserves. Bet the current Army leadership doesn't even make the ask....
[An Nahar] Two people were killed in festivities that broke out between pro-Moscow and pro-Kiev supporters in Ukraine's Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv, police said on Saturday, the second such deadly incident in as many days in the country's tinderbox east.
One pro-Russia protester and a passerby were killed when Ukrainian nationalists opened fire on a group of men trying to storm their headquarters in the city late on Friday, police sources told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The deaths were likely to further fuel tensions in the region, coming less than a day after Russia warned that it reserved the right to protect compatriots in the whole of Ukraine.
Police said events leading to the deaths on Friday began when a group of nationalists opened fire from inside a car at a pro-Russian protest being held on Kharkiv's central Svoboda (Freedom) Square.
No one was reported seriously hurt in the incident and a group of several dozen pro-Russian protesters chased the car, tracking it to the headquarters of the Patrioty Ukrainy (Ukrainian Patriots) nationalist group.
The pro-Russians tried to storm the building and the nationalists opened fire, killing one of them along with a passerby, police said.
The Patrioty Ukrainy group then took several hostages from other offices inside the building as the police arrived, the police sources told AFP.
Six people were maimed in the ensuing shootout, including a police offer who suffered serious wounds.
The nationalists eventually agreed to give up their arms and surrender. Police said they made 30 arrests.
It marked the second death in two days in Ukraine's tinderbox east, where a pro-Kiev supporter was stabbed to death in the city of Donetsk late on Thursday.
Tensions have spiraled in the region ahead of Sunday's vote in Ukraine's southern peninsula of Crime on whether to secede from Kiev and switch to Kremlin rule.
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03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[IRISHTIMES] Ukraine has accused "Kremlin agents" of fomenting deadly violence in Russian-speaking cities and urged people not to rise to provocations its new leaders fear Moscow may use to justify a further invasion after its takeover of Crimea.
From his speaker's chair in parliament, acting president Oleksander Turchinov referred to three deaths in two days in Donetsk and Kharkiv and said there was "a real danger" of invasion by Russian troops across Ukraine's eastern border.
Addressing members of the party of the pro-Moscow president who was ousted in last month's Kiev uprising, Mr Turchinov said: "You know as well as we do who is organising mass protests in eastern Ukraine - it is Kremlin agents who are organising and funding them, who are causing people to be murdered."
Two men, described by police as pro-Russian demonstrators, were rubbed out in a fight in Kharkiv late last night. A Ukrainian nationalist was stabbed to death when pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine demonstrators clashed in Donetsk on Thursday.
Mr Turchinov, quoted by local media, closed the parliamentary session by saying: "The situation is very dangerous. I'm not exaggerating. There is a real danger from threats of invasion of Ukrainian territory and we will reconvene on Monday at 10."
Other members of the Western-backed interim administration, which Russian president Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President 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... says supports Ukrainian ultra-nationalists hostile to ethnic Russians, urged people in the east not to be drawn into violence stirred up by Moscow.
Russian forces occupied Crimea two weeks ago, triggering an ominous confrontation with Western powers, after Mr Putin said he would protect Crimea's ethnic Russian majority and compatriots elsewhere in Ukraine. As Crimeans vote in a referendum tomorrow that could bring annexation by Moscow, Kiev fears Russia could widen the scope of its takeover by moving troops into the east.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Light starts to down? The "international law is whatever we say it is" community can't protect you?
The bear you've been baiting is not actually chained?
#2
ION PRESS TV > US SENATORS: WE MUST STAND UP TO RUSSIA.
Despite the outcome of the Crimea referendum this AM, Putin as Russian leader can still stall or NOT formally annex the pro-Russia Crimea in order to prevent US-Western sanctions.
ANALYSTS = the real danger is that Obama will once again fail to uphold his own "red line" iff Putin does become emboldened enough by US, NATO-EU inaction on the CRimea to attempt to unilater force the partition of the Ukraine [Eastern? All?] proper back into Russia.
IFF OBAMA = USA DOES NOTHING AGZ PUTIN AS PER THE UKRAINE-CRIMEA, WHY SHOULD HE BE EXPECTED TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT CHINA OVER IN EAST ASIA + PACIFIC, OR IRAN IN THE ME + PERSIAN GULF.
Lest we fergit, GOOD OWG GLOBALISM = IFF PUTIN, ETAL. CRITICIZE OR DEMAND CONCESSIONS, ETC. AGZ THE SOLE SUPERPOWER USA + OTHER TRADITIONAL GREAT POWERS, OBAMA S AN ALLEGED ANTI-US MARXIST-ANARCHIST-GLOBALIST [Muslim?] POL IS TO LET THEM GET AWAY WID IT, ALBEIT PCORRECTLY-DENIABLY.
OWG Globalism = subjectively says or requires that Putin will win, China will win, Iran will win, etc. US geopol rivals, NOT THE USA.
And this, Virginia, we learn once again why our long-dead ancestors were correct when their spirits warned that as the US falls back or retreats across the Pacific, it may decide to sink or destroy Guam + other strategic/key Pacific islands via "Earthquake/Tectonic Bombs".
[Pak Daily Times] Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said a teenager who died this week after sustaining a head injury in anti-government protests last summer was linked to "terrorist organizations", in comments likely to fan political tensions.
The death of 15-year-old Berkin Elvan on Tuesday after nine months in a coma sparked Turkey's worst unrest since nationwide anti-government demonstrations last June, compounding Erdogan's woes as he battles a graft scandal that has become one of the biggest challenges of his decade in power.
Erdogan made his remarks, his first about Elvan, late on Friday at a campaign rally in southeast Turkey ahead of nationwide municipal elections on March 30.
"This kid with steel marbles in his pockets, with a slingshot in his hand, his face covered with a scarf, who had been taken up into terrorist organizations, was unfortunately subjected to pepper gas," Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in a speech broadcast on state-run TRT-Haber news channel.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] India's Supreme Court on Saturday stayed the death sentence of two of the four men convicted of the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi, an attack that horrified the country and sparked weeks of protests.
The court suspended the execution of the two men, Mukesh Singh, 27, and Pawan Gupta, 20, while an appeal of their conviction is heard and asked officials to "communicate the order to prison authorities".
The two court judges held an emergency sitting Saturday to hear the appeal for the stay of execution. It was not immediately known when the executions had been slated to be carried out.
The two convicts had appealed to the Supreme Court after the High Court earlier this week upheld the death penalty handed out last September to the four men convicted of gang raping and murdering the 23-year-old woman.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] MUZAFFARGARH: Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday suspended regional police officials and directed to arrest the DSP, SHO and investigation officer concerned over negligence in the gang rape case probe.
RPO Dera Ghazi Khan, Abdul Qadir Qayyum and DPO Muzaffargarh, Usman Akram Gondal were suspended for not taking action against the investigations officer concerned during the chief minister's visit to the residence of the rape victim, who died after she set herself ablaze in protest against a police report which helped her alleged rapist obtain bail.
Sharif visited the house of the dear departed in Basti Lundi Patafi here and condoled with her parents. He directed immediate arrest of the DSP, SHO and the investigations officer of Thana Bait Meer Hazar.
A local court had granted bail to the main accused in the alleged rape on Thursday, following which the girl went to the Bait Meer Hazar cop shoppe and lodged a protest with an investigation officer for favouring the accused in his report.
She later doused her clothes with petrol and set herself on fire outside the cop shoppe in the presence of her younger brother. Some passers-by and coppers had taken her to Jatoi Civil Hospital. She had been later shifted to Nishtar Hospital in Multan because of her critical condition.
Nishtar Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Shaukat Malik said the girl had sustained 80 per cent burns.
According to sources, the 18-year-old girl was returning home from her college on Jan 5 when the accused, along with his four accomplices, allegedly raped her in a deserted area.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[INDIANEXPRESS] Expressing its disappointment over the US re-indicting IFS officer Devyani Khobragade on visa fraud charges and calling it an unnecessary step, India Saturday said that any step taken consequent to the decision would hurt efforts on both sides to build a strategic partnership between the two countries.
Sources in New Delhi said the "second indictment" takes the situation back to where it was earlier this week before a US court quashed the first indictment of Khobragade on the ground that she had diplomatic immunity.
The MEA's official spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said that as far as India was concerned, the case has no merit and now that Khobragade has returned, the court in the US has no jurisdiction in India over her and the government will therefore no longer engage on this case in the US legal system.
"We are disappointed that the relevant office of the United States Department of Justice chose to obtain a second indictment against Devyani Khobragade, despite the fact that the first indictment and arrest warrant were dismissed earlier this week," Akbaruddin said. "This was an unnecessary step. Any measures consequent to this decision in the US, will unfortunately impact upon efforts on both sides to build the India-US strategic partnership, to which both sides are committed."
The 21-page new indictment, filed by the office of US attorney Preet Bharara, said the diplomat "knowingly made" multiple false representations and presented false information to US authorities in order to obtain a visa for a personal domestic worker.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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[The Peninsula] The Philippines has agreed to allow the United States access to its military bases under a new security deal being negotiated by the two allies, amid mounting concern over China's increasing assertiveness in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The offer was made during a sixth round of talks held in Washington last week, Filipino officials said yesterday. The two sides hope to finalise terms before US President Barack Obama Dreams of My Sainted Father... embarks on a visit to Asia, including the Philippines, next month.
"Consensus was arrived at on many provisions of the draft agreement," Pio Lorenzo Batino, defence undersecretary told a news conference, adding the deal is 80 percent done.
"The proposed agreement will allow the sharing of defined areas within certain AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) facilities with elements of the US military."
The United States plans to "rebalance" its forces in Asia-Pacific region, and has similar arrangements with Australia and Singapore, as part of its strategy to counter China.
The new agreement on enhanced defence cooperation will allow the United States increased deployment of troops, ships, aircraft and humanitarian equipment.
US military access in the Philippines is currently limited to during annual joint-exercises and port visits. The Philippines kicked the United States out two large military bases, including Subic Bay, in 1991.
While that ended a special relationship going back 40 years between the United States and its former colony won its independence in 1946, an alliance has endured.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/16/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
..gotta protect the Obama Presidential Choom Wagon Library from east and west, right.?
#4
At last check, a news source was claiming that Manila has agreed to allow the US access under the PHIL Armed Forces to the former Clark AFB + other Milfac areas, but NOT Subic Bay???
#5
Odd, I seem to remember that the bases were US built (Primarily to fight the Japanese,), now we're "Given" Permission to use them, Did you ask the Japanese first?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/16/2014 20:09 Comments ||
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#6
Subic is an economic port now. The mil could use some of it but most of it is commercial now. Clark was destroyed by the volcano and then ransacked after we left. Not much there either. They will nod their heads yes to America and then after they take the USAID and FMS monies they will find a constitutional problem with it and say no. Even the Philippines will play Obama as the fool he is....
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/16/2014 20:41 Comments ||
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#7
Meanwhile, not to be outdone by Macalanang = PHIL Govt. ...
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [Defense News] ANALYSIS: CHINA BACKS MANILA INTO A CORNER, LIMITED OPTIONS FOR THE US.
ARTIC = The fact that China controls the SCS is illustrated by the PHIL being forced to airdrop supplies to its personnel on Ayugin Shoal = China's Renai Reef, not by seaborne delivery; EXPERT SAME BATEMAN ARGUES IT IT BE FOOLISH FOR THE US TO CONTEMPLATE OR PROVIDE OPERATIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE PHILIPPINES.
Late night comedian Bill Maher told his HBO "Real Time" audience on Friday that God was a "psychotic mass murderer." He made the comments during a conversation on the biblical story of Noah and the upcoming Hollywood version of it that's about to hit the big screen.
"But the thing that's really disturbing about Noah isn't the silly, it's that it's immoral. It's about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and his name is God," Mr. Maher said, adding, "What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie." That is why Hollywood doesn't do Noah or Biblical stories accurately. To distort the complexities of God. Accurately, men, even given the ability to live hundreds of years, were inherently violent. May as well be God who just shuts down the human experience and make significant changes to nature while at it if that is how they will end up. Don't blame Him, Billy.
#1
..imho, Maher is a talentless hack with only (1) good writers/idea persons and (2) a child's uncorrected propensity towards incivility. My parents would have drowned him before he got out of his private grade school..
#2
Notice he does not deny God, he only passes judgment upon God's behavior.
If it would help Mr. Maher's understanding, perhaps he should think of man's earthly existence in light of the greater span of eternity. A very crude analogy, but something akin to pre-natal "choice."
#4
one line of thought goes that, yes, the people of Noah's generation were thoroughly corrupt, all of them but that was while they were required to be vegetarian; after the flood they were permitted to eat meat and since then no mass extinction was required
take away lesson: vegetarianism is bad (see, for example, Hitler)
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/16/2014 8:16 Comments ||
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#5
No non-metaphorical dinosaurs could be reached for comment. Bill and the rest of us would still be furry little creatures in our ground holes (and, no, not hobbits). Sometimes extinction has its up sides.
#9
Yo! Gawd!
Do you know why the human crossed the road? (stop me if you've heard this)
Oh, you have.
Well then, why the fuck did the human cross the road?
Eggs? WTF?
Damn, are you sure?
Eggs is the punchline?
GAWD: It's a dark matter joke.
I bet my soul that whatever the hell made us has a huge sense of houmor when I was 12. All the house money is still on that bet.
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.
[An Nahar] A short, hairy "ape man" who tumbled into a pit in South Africa millions of years ago is back in the running as a candidate ancestor for humans, scientists said Friday.
...Second and fourth President 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...
North Korea
John 
[An Nahar] Two people were killed in 
Fuc* you Americans! Uncultured, crass Americans! We hate all of you! Fu- the Germans are here! Hello Americans! We love you!
Late night comedian Bill Maher told his HBO "Real Time" audience on Friday that God was a "psychotic mass murderer." He made the comments during a conversation on the biblical story of Noah and the upcoming Hollywood version of it that's about to hit the big screen.
