Pakistani security guards have shot dead two protesters in Lahore during unrest over Western newspaper cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. The shots were fired by guards at a bank as crowds attacked Western targets, including fast-food outlets.
The shootings in Lahore took place outside the Metropolitan bank. Reports say crowds tried to set fire to the building housing the bank. Police also fired tear gas as crowds tried to set fire to outlets of McDonald's and KFC and placed burning tyres on some roads.
The Lahore deaths are the first but not the last in Pakistan since the controversy erupted.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
22:06 ||
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "The affront to the honor of the Prophet of Islam is in fact an affront to the worship of God, and to the seeking of truth and justice, and an affront to all the prophets of God. Obviously, all those who harm the honor of the prophet of Islam..."
Crowd: "Death to Denmark.
"Death to Denmark.
"Death to Denmark.
"Death to Denmark."
[...]
Ahmadinejad: "As the representative of the great Iranian people, I call upon all free people of the world - Christians and Jews - to rise together with the Muslims and not to let a handful of shameless Zionists, who have been defeated in Palestine, to harm the sanctity of the prophets.
"I call upon them not to let a few weak governments - which owe their rise to power to the support of the Zionists - support them in this ugly manner.
"As I have said before, as far as several aggressive European governments are concerned, and as far as the Great Satan [the U.S.] is concerned, it is permissible to harm the honor of the divine prophets, but it is a crime to ask questions about the myth of the Holocaust, and about how the false regime occupying Palestine came into being.
"On the basis of this myth, the pillaging Zionist regime has managed, for 60 years, to extort all Western governments and to justify its crimes in the occupied lands - killing women and children, demolishing homes, and turning defenseless people into refugees.
"When we protest to the [Europeans], they say: 'There is freedom in our country.' They are lying when they claim they have freedom. They are hostages in the hands of the Zionists. The people of Europe and America are the ones that should be paying the heavy price of this hostage-taking.
"How come it is allowed to harm the honor of the prophets in your country, but it is forbidden to research the myth of the Holocaust? You are a bunch of tyrants, who are dependent upon the Zionists and who are held hostage by them.
"We proposed the following: If you are not lying, allow a group of neutral, honest researchers to come to Europe, and to talk to people, examine documents, and let people know the findings of their research about the Holocaust myth. You have even prevented your own scholars from researching this issue. They are allowed to study anything except for the Holocaust myth. Are these not medieval methods?"
[...]
"Even today, a group of people convene and declare: 'We rule that the Holocaust happened, and everybody must think the same.' This is a medieval way of thinking. On the face of it, the technology has changed, but the culture and the way of thinking remain medieval. If you are looking for the real Holocaust, you should look for it in Palestine. Over there, the pillaging Zionists are massacring the Palestinian people every day. If you are looking for the crimes of the Holocaust, you should find them among the oppressed people of Iraq. Today, all the people throughout the world are familiar with your methods and your way of thinking. Your behavior is the essence of Western liberalism."
[...]
"Until now, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been operating, on nuclear affairs, within the framework of the IAEA and the NPT. But if we see that you are trying, on the basis of these regulations, to deny the Iranian people of its right, you should know that the Iranian people will reconsider its policies."
[...]
"You have destroyed the prestige of the NPT. You should know that the Iranian people will not give up its indisputable right. Hear this: This is the voice of the Iranian people. It is expressing its opinion about nuclear energy clearly. Hear this:"
Crowd: "Nuclear energy is our indisputable right.
"Nuclear energy is our indisputable right.
"Nuclear energy is our indisputable right.
"Nuclear energy is our indisputable right."
[...] "You've got to fight, for your right, to be stooooopid."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/14/2006 22:06
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#4
Among other things, the Lefties have no probs wid Dubya & America attacking and invading Iran - their prob is America winning in Iran, in Syria, North Korea/NK-Taiwan, etal. "quagmires" - WASHINGTON MUST EXPAND AND SOCIALIZE EVERYTHING DOMESTICALLY WHILST LOSING GEOPOLITICALLY. As O'REILLY says, the Far Left which curr controls the Democratic Party wants America to give up its sovereignty and be governed by a Coalition of International States, which undoubtedly will end up being dominated by Russia-China. THE COMMIES WIN BECUZ AMERICA IS EITHER DEFEATED OVERSEAS AND "VOLUNTEERS" TO GIVE UP ITS SOVEREIGNTY AND ENDOWMENTS, OR ELSE IS UNILAT "FORCED" TO BY INTERNATIONAL MILITARY COALITION. Clintonism > mainstream/Midwest America is allegedly predominately pro-Left, pro-Socialist, and pro-Communist anyways, and whom as a class desire to be ruled by anyone except an American. ANTI-US MILITARY FORCE = ANTI-US NATIONAL "VOLUNTEERISM = ANTI-AMERICAN AMERICAN SOCIALISM. Good Clintonians demand to be HOLOCAUSTED/GENOCIDED + GIVE UP ONE-HALF OR MORE OF CONUS FOR THE GOOD OF THE WORLD AND MOTHERLY SOCIALISM.
Accident my eye. Or rather, Harry Whittington's eye.
If you believe it was just an accident that Vice President Dick Cheney shot his hunting companion last weekend, you obviously have never seen "The Godfather" movies.
Just as surely as a fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest means "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes," that shotgun blast to Whittington's face was meant to convey that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had better bite his tongue and forget about testifying against Cheney, his former boss, in the Valerie Plame spy case.
What'll it be, Scooter: a case of amnesia or lead poisoning?
The woman who owns the ranch on which the shooting occurred said Whittington shot a bird, went to retrieve it and then snuck up on Cheney.
The vice president, she said, was shooting at a covey of quail when he hit the tall, orange-vest-wearing lawyer. Oy.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, recently told a grand jury that leaking Plame's identity as a spy was authorized by his superiors who were angered by Plame's husband's public criticism of the war in Iraq.
That revelation had many questioning how low this administration would go to quash dissent.
Now we know.
A vice president who'll shoot an ally to get across his message of omerta -- that's mobspeak for "hush up" -- may be considered a national disgrace by some.
Not by me. I embrace the prospect of a lead-slingin' veep. Think of the impact Cheney's shot heard 'round the world will have on America's diplomatic efforts. When obstinate countries declare their unwillingness to negotiate with Secretary of State Condi Rice, all we have to do is roll out Deadeye Dick.
The prospect of having to sit across the table from Cheney, in orange vest, Elmer Fudd hat and a chaw of Red Man in his cheek, will, for instance, make Iran give up its plans to develop plutonium.
Shooting a hunting companion in the face, intentionally or not, is not Dickie Boy's worst gun-related transgression. Remember a few years ago when he went hunting at an exclusive resort in Pennsylvania and reportedly shot 70 ducks and pheasant?
That was "hunting" in the way that raising fish in a barrel and then tossing in a baited line is fishing. Conservationists objected because the birds, raised in pens, didn't know that, after a lifetime of being cared for and fed, they must suddenly flee for their lives.
Imagine a couple of the domesticated pheasants lounging around Pennsylvania's Rolling Rock club, awaiting dinner.
Phred: I say, old bean. This is the life. They keep us caged up and just bring us three squares a day. No flying south for us.
Philip: I'll say. It doesn't get any better than this. They were a little tardy with the food yesterday, but here they come now. Good. I'm hungry ... POW!
Phred: Hey! What the ... are they shooting at us? Well, I'll just walk right over there and give that baldheaded one with the glasses a piece of my -- Ugggghhhhhh. He got me.
Not very sporting, eh?
Cheney's fascination with hunting is puzzling because when he had a chance to take up arms for his country during the Vietnam War, he sought every deferment under the sun.
Of course, ducks and quail don't detonate roadside bombs.
THE DRUDGE REPORT has obtained an email sent Monday evening by Democratic National Committee (DNC) research director Devorah Adler that contains ten opposition research packets on potential 2008 GOP presidential contenders.
In one packet titled Newt Gingrich: 08 Watch February 2006 a picture of the former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) appears with --- him holding two full plates of food!
The quote underneath the Gingrich photo reads In His Own Words: Gingrichs Solution To Childhood Obesity: Turn off the TV, cut the fatty diet and get exercise. [AP, 2/8/06]
The ten Republicans picked by the Democrat Party include: Sen. George Allen (R-VA), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), Gingrich, Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Gov. George Pataki (R-NY) and Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA).
One Republican strategist who had seen the opposition research packets said: 'We should expect nothing less than name-calling and referring to ones political opponents as fat from Howard Deans Democrat Party.' I'm reminded of the scene from end of the movie "Hot Shots", where Topper loses both wings and the tail of his aircraft and still is trying to land it on the deck of the carrier.
I know I saved Rantburg when I cleaned out my cookies last night. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/14/2006 19:42
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#3
The quote underneath the Gingrich photo reads In His Own Words: Gingrichs Solution To Childhood Obesity: Turn off the TV, cut the fatty diet and get exercise. [AP, 2/8/06]
Can someone explain to me why this is part of their "opposition research"? That statement's only controversial if you're the kind of person who cannot take responsibility for yourself...
Oh. Wait. I see it now.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 19:47
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#4
I'm NOT fat, I'm big-boned, dammit! How many times will I have to say it, for Christ's sake!? And besides, I'm not even a republican.
#5
This sounds a lot like some Australian Labour Party ads that ran. Clearly dreamed up by Leftists whose world view consists almost entirely of conspiracies by evil capitalists and neocons. The ads showed quotes from leading Liberals and intended to show them as heartless nasty people.
The rest of us saw politicians prepared to tackle dfficult issues with sensible policies.
#6
RC - lol! Didn't you know - it's the governments responsibility to assure that we are fit. Because we eat too much, we need government funded fitness centers.
Three more countries said on Tuesday they had detected cases of deadly bird flu in wild swans, with Germany, Iran and Austria the latest to find the virus that has killed 91 people worldwide.
Austria and Germany became the third and fourth European Union countries to report H5N1 bird flu, just three days after the bloc's first instances were confirmed by Italy and Greece...
#2
Dick Cheney is doing his part. Not a single case of bird flu in quails has been reported. Ok go ahead and laugh, but quail huntin with Dick in Texas is still safer than driving with Ted in Mass.
#2
I disagree with Anonymous especially that last paragraph is right on. I dont agree 100% and I personally believe Bush will do what has to be done with or without the rest of the west. But the basic point especially from the point of view looking mainly at Europe side makes perfect sense.
I fully agree that if the US takes action now we will not get the support. If we wait a year we will get the support but it will cost a heavy price.
It is an unfortunate European fact that in twentieth century they have acted late and their dithering has cost millions of lives.
I would like to say the Western world would stand together as the goliath it is but I fully expect the US with a handful of willing to do the dirty work. If we are lucky we way get some money and a UN vote OKing some 3rd world peacekeeper assistance, maybe even some NATO peacekeepers in Iraq or more in Afghanistan. Although I would say the most likely is that we will just get silence then depending on how it goes either words of we were always with you or jeers of our failure or faults.
NEW DELHI: The opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday stepped up pressure against a government-sponsored survey of Muslims in the military, petitioning President A.P.J. Kalam to have it immediately halted.
"It's a very serious issue. Nobody has ever thought of holding this kind of an exercise which this (United Progressive Alliance) government has done," former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L.K. Advani said after a meeting with Kalam, who is supreme commander of the armed forces.
Advani also termed the survey a "shameless attempt to woo the communal vote".
A seven-member panel appointed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had in March 2005 asked the armed forces to provide data on the number of Muslims in their ranks, the positions they held and their role in some key operations.
The BJP-led NDA said in its memorandum to the president: "For the committee to start inquiring into religious denominations of the personnel of the armed forces and further probing the kind of postings being given to each one of them is fraught with dangerous consequences."
The army has objected to the survey, saying it would send out wrong signals in what has traditionally been a secular and apolitical organisation.
Indian Army chief Gen. J.J. Singh reiterated his objection on Monday, saying: "We're an apolitical, secular and professional force. That's the way I would like to look at it."
Rajinder Sachar, a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court who heads the survey team, has defended the exercise, which he said was not limited to the armed forces and covered all government services.
#2
It is the Hindu hardliners that want the count stopped.
The imam of Delhi's main mosque is all for the count.
He and the Congress party want to create yet another affirmative action programme and create reserved places for muslims in the army.
All for the votes of the muslim masses
Posted by: john ||
02/14/2006 17:24
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#3
The Indian president Abdul Kalam is himself a muslim
Posted by: john ||
02/14/2006 17:28
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Ahmadinejad says time has come for world to bow to Allah
By Ryan Jones
February 12th, 2006
PRINTABLE VERSION
If the West fails to peacefully remove the Zionist entity from the Middle East, the Palestinians and their Islamic allies will do so through violent fury, warned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a mass demonstration in Tehran Saturday.
Addressing the hundreds of thousands who turned out to mark the 27th anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution, the virulent leader, as reported by WorldNetDaily, said regarding Israel:
We ask the West to remove what they created sixty years ago and if they do not listen to our recommendations, then the Palestinian nation and other nations will eventually do this for them. Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations.
Islam dictates that formerly-Muslim dominated lands cannot revert to permanent non-Muslim control. It is this cornerstone of their faith that drives the murderous anti-Israel policies of Hamas and most of the Jewish state's Middle East neighbors.
But the threat is not only to Israel and other non-Muslim nations that have regained their sovereignty. Reconquering them is only the first step.
According to the Muslim faith, jihad must be waged until the entire world is under the thumb of Islam. Ahmadinejad declared that now is the time for the West to bow to this reality and submit to Allah:
On the anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation, numbering in the millions, calls upon those governments to worship Allah.
Similar sentiment was expressed by Iran's Hamas allies in the Palestinian Authority last week.
Speaking at a Damascus mosque on February 3, overall Hamas political leader Khaled Mashal declared:
We say to this West... By Allah, you will be defeated... Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. This is not a figment of the imagination, but a fact.
#5
We are casting a remake of the Wizard of Oz. Straw is the tin man. Chirac the cowardly lion. Merkel as Dorthy. Kofi as wicked witch. Hamas as the Munchkins.
#7
Ahmadinejad says time has come for world to bow to Allah
OK, but you're not gonna like how we do it. Ever seen "Braveheart"?
Over at NRO, Geraghty (I think) was bleating about how the radical Muslims (ie, most of them) "win" if they convince the West that Islam is not compatible with Western culture.
Unfortunately, it's not the actions of the "radicals" that convinced me -- it's the inaction of the supposed moderates. The occasional op-ed, anonymous website, or sad statement doesn't do much when your mosques still take money from the Saudis and still circulate hate literature targeting everyone who isn't Muslim. It doesn't do much when no one steps up to replace the "radicals" as spokesmen, or when the reaction to the exposure of "radical" imams is denial, evasion, covering, and -- only after convictions are obtained -- reluctant disavowal.
When an imam is shown to have had a national reputation among Muslims for his fund-raising for madrassas in Pakistan, and the Muslim community acts shocked when the general public learns of his ties, it doesn't do much for my trust of the Muslim community.
When "radicals" shut down a play that is already biased towards the Palestinians because it's not pro-Palestinian enough, and the general Muslim population is silent, it doesn't do much for my sense of the Muslim community's dedication to Western values.
The cartoon riots helped inform people primarily because the supposed cause was so fricking trivial. It's sad that a dozen drawings did more to inform people than either Submission or Theo van Gogh's death -- though maybe it was just a matter of the information reaching a critical mass. Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back, for the west, and people are finally taking notice.
Doubt it. Cheney was involved in a hunting accident, and the White House Press Corps wasn't briefed as it happened. That's infinitely more important than nuclear-armed people who can't decide whether they want to exterminate or enslave us.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 20:15
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#8
So what will it take for the scales to tip and the world can get on with kicking the MMs and their little mad dog Ahmadinejad a$$es from here to Sunday? A nuke hit? A bunch of suicide bombers hits? This is just like Hitler and the 30s all over again. Iran has stated its aims: Spread jihad throughout the world, destroy the Great Satan US, wipe Israel off the map.
So we either look at them as harmless fruitcakes and ignore them, or we take their threats seriously. I would go for number 2, but the rest of the world better pay attention, or somebody is going to get hit by these nutcases and lots of people will be killed. It is so frustrating sitting on the sidelines and seeing the same WW2 scenario unfolding before my eyes.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/14/2006 21:43
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#9
STRATFOR has a new aerticle on the alleged new Cold War in the ME - glitch is, there can be no Cold War becuz for ONE, anti-US world Leftism-Socialism and aligned are desperate to both miantain their power + stop the hyperpower USA from expanding to new heights; and TWO, super-PC Hillary, Hillaristas, and aligned domestic Anti-Americans have nothing except new 9-11's and global-enviro "brinkmanship". The Status Quo > the Failed/Angry Left becomes the Super-Failed/ Super-Angrier Left, with Hillary per se being forced for the duration of her life-ambitions to accept remaining as a surreal, future "Senior" Senator from Naw Yawk. Billary themselves are already positioning themselves as RINOS-for-ANTI-RINOism, GOP-for-Ani-GOPism, Conservatives-for-Anti-Conservativism, Fascists-for-Anti-Fascism,............etal PC Public Relations-Perceptions Management. THE COLD WAR IS TRULY OVER BECUZ THE FAILED/ANGRY LEFT ITSELF CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT AND WILL NOT ACCEPT/TOLERATE ANYMORE THE "STATUS QUO". CLINTONS > in the end, both the GOP + Democrats, LIKE AMERICA, WEST, + WESTERN DEMOCAPITALISM, MUST BE DISCREDITED, DEFEATED AND ULTIM DESTROYED.
#10
I think one of the problems in the West is that we just can't accept anything at face value, anymore. We've been so thoroughly indoctrinated to presume ulterior motives and deep dark conspiracy BS that something this obvious, this plain, just doesn't compute, lol.
#15
And his point was made on O'Reilly, today. He was bashed by an MSM Dhimmi for choosing not to make Cheney one of his stories yesterday. O'Reilly said it was because, ultimately, the event actually affected no one other than Cheney and the lawyer.
Of course the MSM Dhimmi belabored the notion of the press's right to know, lol. Trumps everything, doncha know.
Aircraft carriers from the navies of India and the United States will rendezvous off the coast of Sri Lanka on Feb. 14 for passage exercises.
Indian Defence Ministry officials said the exercise between Indias INS Viraat and the USS Ronald Reagan was decided on quickly and comes ahead of U.S. President George W. Bushs visit to India later this year.
Exercises off the coast of Goa, India, last year between the Indian Navy and a U.S. carrier group led by the aircraft carrier Nimitz took months of planning, officials said.
The Viraat, which is en route to its homeport Mumbai from Visakapatnam in southern India, will lead a group of seven warships from the Indian Navys western fleet in the exercises with the Reagan.
India and the United States have held several exercises in air, on land and at sea since Washington lifted sanctions against New Delhi in September 2001.
Posted by: john ||
02/14/2006
15:30 ||
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#2
Navy plans major Pacific exercises in summer
Following the directions of the recently released defense review to shift its focus westward, the Navy plans to hold a series of major exercises involving four different aircraft carriers in the Pacific this summer, the Pacific Fleet commander said Tuesday.
This summer we will see significant activity, including multiple carriers, Adm. Gary Roughead told an Asian Society luncheon.
Roughead said it has been at least 10 years since four carriers have operated in the Pacific Ocean at one time.
One of the carriers that will be involved in the summer exercises will be the San Diego-based Ronald Reagan. Another will come from the Atlantic Fleet, perhaps the first time since the Vietnam War that an East Coast carrier will have operated in the western Pacific, Roughead's spokesman, Navy Capt. Matt Brown, said.
The San Diego-based hospital ship Mercy also will be deploying to the western Pacific this summer, to repeat the well-received humanitarian assistance it provided following the destructive December 2004 earthquake and tsunami, Roughead said.
Brown said the exercises will start in June in the western Pacific with three carrier strike groups, including the Reagan, the Japan-based Kitty Hawk and another Pacific-based carrier. A carrier strike group has at least three warships, an attack submarine and a support ship.
In July, at least two U.S. carrier groups will participate in the Pacific Rim exercises, the large multi-national naval maneuvers held near the Hawaiian Islands every two years. Ships from Australia, Chile, Japan, South Korea, Peru and perhaps other nations will take part, Brown said.
The summer's activities will conclude with another western Pacific exercise in August, with the Atlantic Fleet carrier participating, he said.
Roughead said the increased activity was in keeping with the directions from the Quadrennial Defense Review, officially released Feb. 6.
The review said the Navy will have greater presence in the Pacific Ocean, consistent with the global shift of trade and transport.
Although the QDR noted that China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States, Roughead said he did not consider China a threat.
In assessing possible threats, the admiral said, military planners look at a nation's capabilities and intent.
There is no question that the Chinese Navy is modernizing and expanding, but its intent is more of a mystery, Roughead said.
The Pacific Fleet is committed to increasing its friendly contact with the Chinese Navy, but also is increasing its capabilities to counter any challenge, he said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 18:04
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#4
HHHHHmmmmmmm, its the Navy's ambition that all of its major warships, current + future, possess some form of GMD/BMD capability. Since the ENTERPRISE is the Navy's oldest nuke carrier, wouldn't surprise me a bit iff she was selected to be "Testing/Training Carrier" for the Navy's sea-borne UAVS and other New Technologies [Arsenal Ship?]. GMD/BMD, Lasers and UAV min-robots for Navy TacAir???
#5
Wonder if they're gaming carrier-on-carrier battles. There hasn't been a real carrier vs. carrier battle since the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot (well, Cape Engano counts, sort of, but the Japanese had no aircraft to speak of in that one), and we're a far way away from the days of SB2Cs and TBFs and 40mm Bofors.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 22:38
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#7
The Navy is a bit sensitive about UAV's. The flight distances (carrier to operational area) are much greater than ground based, and UAV aireal refueling really hasn't caught on just yet.
#8
POint of interest: since the navy retired the Intruders several years ago, and never followed through with the KS-3, organic tanker assets are limited to S-3s (and lawn darts) w/ buddy stores. since the Hornet never had long legs and the 'super dart' (not-so-snarky comment: stop by your local library and check out 'The Pentagon Paradox" for an eye opening expose' on the F/A 18) is only a bit better in the mileage department, the range issue for UAVs really isn't the issue. Both the USN and the USAF are testing UAVS built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. the NGC bird has demonstrated arrested landings (field type) and the Boeing UAV has demonstrated IFR, boom and probe style, not the navy's basket and probe. and hands off landing capability has been around for several years for the navy's manned aircraft; right now getting all the electronic bits to play is the driver, not the flying qualities. expect to see operational uavs working from ships within 5 yrs (or less).
#9
What I'm anxiously awaiting are the UMV's. Unmanned Maritime Vehicles. Think of the Marines that could be harvested for other duties, and no polluting garbage off the fan tail.
Our top goal is ending right-wing Republican control of Congress but to make progress on core issues we think MoveOn should challenge right-wing Democrats in primary elections. What do you think? Give us feedback.
Dear MoveOn member,
This year our top goal is breaking the right-wing Republican stranglehold on Congress. That is our main focus every day.
It is also part of our work together to hold Democrats to their Party's highest values on issues like foreign policy, economic prosperity and good government.
That sometimes means grappling with specific right-wing Democrats who consistently side with big corporations and right-wing Republicans.
One approach is to support progressive primary challengers to right-wing Democrats. We think this makes sense but it's a big decision so we wanted to check with you and other MoveOn members. What do you think? Click below to let us know.
http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?id=
The story about "the Democrat who sold out" has become too familiar. Too often progressives tip toe around these betrayals. But there needs to be real consequences for these Democrats.
Replacing a right-wing Democrat with a more progressive Democrat will help voters more clearly understand what Democrats stand forand that will help Democrats win.
Many of these conservative Democrats we would challenge represent states or districts that are heavily Democraticso we're not imperiling a Democratic majority by doing this.
Why is this a big decision? At some level it isn'twe've consistently held Democrats feet to the fire on a long list of issues. But challenging right-wing Democrats in an electoral setting would be new for MoveOn.org Political Action. That is why we're asking for your feedback. Click below to let us know what you think.
http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?id=
Who are the Democrats we would challenge? One example is Congressman Henry Cuellar in Texas. Cuellar is a right-wing Democrat infamous for supporting the Bush agenda and Republican legislation.
He is wrong on many core Democratic issues like the war and Medicare, he often undermines key Democratic initiatives and too often pokes progressives in the eye with his votes and statements. (More on Cuellar tomorrow.)
We would start with the worst like Cuellar and work to build a progressive majority one election at a time.
A Democratic majority will be a big step towards progressive reform. But at the same time we have to work to build a progressive majority that will work towards bold reforms.
Please help by giving us feedback on this decision.
http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?id=
Thanks for all you do.
Tom, Jennifer, Rosalyn, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
P.S. Here are some key practices we'll follow:
Member endorsement. MoveOn.org Political Action only endorses candidates with the consent of MoveOn members in the state or districtsurveying them before an endorsement. If members are split, we won't endorse.
Viable candidates. We don't want to waste your moneyso we work hard to pick candidates who have a real shot at winning.
A progressive majority. We believe that all Democrats are not the sameand we work to elect progressive members of Congress when we can. Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.3 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you'd like to support our work, you can give now at:
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Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. "Bwahahahahahahaha!" -- Karl Rove (allegedly)
#3
"Our top goal is ending right-wing Republican control of Congress but to make progress on core issues we think MoveOn should challenge right-wing Democrats in primary elections. What do you think?"
I think you're certifiably insane, every bit as much as the droolers, dribblers, munchers, shufflers and head-bangers locked up in Bellevue.
But what the fuck: go for it, dudes, you're on a roll. You've already driven most of the sane folk out of the Democratic Party, so why not evict the rest? Have a ball.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/14/2006 17:24
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#4
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Replacing a right-wing Democrat with a more progressive Democrat will help voters more clearly understand what Democrats stand forand that will help Democrats win.
First part -- right on. Second part -- no freaking way.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 19:26
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#5
Oh please please do, this would be the greatest event to watch Democratic party implode.
#6
I watched feminist Kate Melcham (or something like that) halking her book on TV the other night. She was lecturing to a group of like minded women.
I found it fascinating. Mostly because it was an interesting insight into just how dejected the lefty dems feel.
One girl said, "how do we get the campus democrats off life support" and "feminist" is almost a dirty word.
Kate clearly believed that the only reason their product wasn't selling was because the evil Christian right is better organized and if only the far left could organize as well as they could, then everyone would want to think just like them. The cognitive diss was strangely compelling to watch.
#7
#6 2b: "I watched feminist Kate Melcham (or something like that) halking her book"
Not to nitpick, but it's spelled "hawking."
However, in this context I like your spelling better. "Halking her book" - sort of sounds like something a cat would do with a hairball. Same dif, I suspect. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/14/2006 22:14
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#8
sounds like Kate Michelman - Nat'l Abortion Rights Action (?) League (NARAL)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 22:22
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THE US and Israel are reportedly examining ways to effect the collapse of a Hamas government within a few months in order to bring about new Palestinian Authority elections. The talks have been held at "the highest levels" in Jerusalem and Washington, The New York Times reported last night, citing Israeli officials and Western diplomats. The risky strategy, which would involve starving the Hamas-led authority of cash, might be attempted, according to the report, if Hamas refuses to recognise Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements calling for peaceful co-existence between the Jewish state and a Palestinian state.
I'm so happy that I can read this in the NY Times. Oh joy oh joy.
My heart bleeds for that poor, pious, peace-loving Moderate Muslim.
A DEMONSTRATOR who dressed as a suicide bomber during a protest against cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad was sent back to prison yesterday. Omar Khayam, 22, was photographed in London at the weekend wearing an imitation suicide bombing outfit to denounce the caricatures satirising the Prophet of Islam.
In 2002, the student was given a six-year prison sentence for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply and had been on licence after his release last year halfway through his sentence. But yesterday, at the request of the Home Office, police arrested Khayam in Bedford for breaching the terms of his parole and he was taken back to jail.
Leftist seething over the way the poor con was treated, or Islamist seething over being arrested for looking like a splodydope? Decisions, decisions ...
Muslim groups were swift to condemn demonstrators in London at the weekend who threatened violence over the cartoons, first published in a Danish paper in September. Some protesters waved placards threatening a repeat of the 11 September and 7 July atrocities.
On Monday, Khayam apologised "wholeheartedly" for his behaviour in London, saying it was "wrong, unjustified and insensitive" to protest dressed as a suicide bomber.
"Please don't send me back to prison!"
A Home Office spokeswoman said: "If an offender is in the community on licence and his behaviour gives cause for concern, he is liable to be recalled back to prison."
Last night, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, warned "freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to incite crime" .
That's true. You're free to print stupid-ass cartoons but not free to dress up like a splodydope.
In a speech at the London School of Economics, he said freedom of speech was an "embedded" part of the constitution, but he emphasised it came with "duties and responsibilities".
Un-fricken-believable. EFL...
The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.
Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government's meeting last week, said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."
Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."
Senate member Karl Smith... said "the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."
The senate's decision was reported first by Seattle radio talk-host Kirby Wilbur of KVI, whose listeners were "absolutely incensed," according to producer Matt Haver.
Brent Ludeman, president of the university's College Republicans, told WND in an e-mail the decision "reflects poorly on the university."
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
02/14/2006
12:57 ||
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#1
Fools! They could've had an F4U Corsair overfly the marching band during the halftime show. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 13:09
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#2
"the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."
I wonder what he thinks wartime service consists of?
#8
The F4U was a Navy and Marine Corps plane exclusively as far as I know; I think Br'er Rabbit was using the term "airforce" more generically.
(I'm more of a P-51 kinda guy myself, but the Corsair's still one sweet machine.)
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 15:06
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#9
re # 4: USAF didn't come into being until afte WWII, by then the Coarsair was no longer front page news. And agree w/ #: yes indeedy doo, one of the sweetest aircraft to ever grace a fly-by.
"radial engines in the morning make me horny"
#10
Ashley Miller - "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."
Some how I'm not surprised.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
02/14/2006 15:17
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There's nothing sweeter than the sound of an F4U's Pratt & Whitney R-2800 supercharged engine doing a low pass nearby....We had one at the Elmendorf AFB airshow a few years ago. Great airplane. 13-ft+ diameter propeller disc. Serious unit.
On topic of the denial of the memorial...These people are living in a fantisy world. A lot of good people never were able to become successful adults with families because they died defending this country from some nasty homocidal people. Have we as a people become too contented and cosy, resting on the laurels of those that worked their asses off and died so that we would be spared their hell? I have taught my children that freedom is not free --- more freedom, more responsibility. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. I don't know if I am more saddened or disgusted by this ignorant and short-sighted behavior.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/14/2006 15:31
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#12
No surprise here, she is living in the pea and lentil capitol of the world. There are entirely too many insecticides drifting across the area. Dements the mind you know.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/14/2006 15:44
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#13
The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.
Somehow I think ole Pappy would agree. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps. Go phuech yourselves "student senators."
#16
That pic in #10 is exactly what you'd expect if someone asked " you wanna see a real bow-wow leftist bitch?"
She's only got clevage between her two from teeth and ankles.
Pappy doesn't need a memorial at UW. UW is already lost to the left and islam. better to go to hillsdale college in michigan and make the same offer. they'd be proud to put up a memorial to pappy. defense of the homeland will start approx. in the middle and move out from there.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
02/14/2006 16:25
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#17
Pappy Boyington was an American Indian. I am always awed at the courage and patriotism shown by this sector of our great nation.
#18
One of the biggest problems with modern universities is that they are populated by drones, useless people take degrees in things that leave them totally unemployable. You notice that the dickwads that make these grand pronouncements are never engineering or science students, always women's studies or pick your ethnicity studies. Just kids wasting their fathers money.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
02/14/2006 17:24
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Ashley Miller - "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."
Except that Papy Boyngton was an Indian. Look at his features and moe importantly at his biography.
There's nothing sweeter than the sound of an F4U's Pratt & Whitney R-2800 supercharged engine doing a low pass nearby..
I know something sweeter: the sound of a Rolls Royce Merlin. The Rolls Royce Merlin was the engine who equipped the Spittfire and the Hurricane during Battle of Britain so it impeded Germany winning the war, later when unescorted 8th Air Force's bombers were being massacred (25% lossesper mission) it made the Mustang a great fighter from one who was only fair (with Allison engine). And it was the Merlin engined Mustangs who swept the Luftwaffe from German skies thus paving the way for D-Day.
(1) The Melins used in 1944 were 60% more powerful than the 1940 models.
#21
Ok Ok JFM. Heh. We're talking about a 9.7 vs a 9.5 on the sweet sound scoring system. A R-R Merlin engine was a jewel in itself. I saw one being rebuilt in England. Talk about a packed powerhouse!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/14/2006 18:49
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#22
Folks, odds are the only exposure to Boyington these brats have had is TV-Land reruns of "Blacksheep Squadron". When they think of him, they're thinking of Robert Conrad.
Actually, I doubt they even have that much exposure. Their knowledge of WWII no doubt consists of the socialist talking point that the US went into Europe to secure markets and into the Pacific out of racist hatred of the Japanese.
As for the planes -- I've always loved the P-38 myself. Beautiful, odd-looking planes. Close to the epitome of pre-jet technology, and indespensible in the Pacific.
One book I read about them had a story about a P-38 attacking a convoy in France. The pilot was so low, one wing hit a phone pole. He flew back to England.
THAT'S an airplane.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 19:38
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#23
..the decision "reflects poorly on the university."
#24
The government should cut all federal funding, grants and scholarships to the school, any students currently in classes there should be told they need not apply for any government work and the student senators who voted for not having the memorial should be stripped of citizenship thrown out of the country.
Personally I would prefer they be tarred, feathered and set on fire, but it's Valentine's day so I'm restraining myself.
Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio's closely watched Senate contest, said yesterday that he was dropping out of the race and leaving politics altogether as a result of pressure from party leaders.
We're more likely to have a civil war within the Dhimmicratic party than we are in southern Iraq. And it's much more likely to be a quagmire.
Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of the party machine Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.
Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong yet ultimately futile Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his potty mouth scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.
But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress. "This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving That, kids, is a dirty trick!
and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.
"For me, this is a second betrayal," Mr. Hackett said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me." . . .
This is the real battle for the soul of the Democratic Party: the old-line left-of-center, but not fanatically so, party machine against the upstart, fanatical, terminal BDS moonbat fringe led by DU, Kos, and Soros. In 2004, the machine candidate (Kerry) smacked down the fringe guy (Dean), and the fringe dutifully fell in line behind the haughty, French-looking etc. out of a shared sense of Bush-hatred. In 2005, the moonbats took control of the party chairmanship and much of the fundraising. Now, we see the machine pushing back, shoving people like Hackett out of the way, and not even being subtle about it. It's interesting to see the rage emerging on some of the comment threads at DU and Kos--in particular, moonbat-in-chief Markos "screw 'em" Zuniga sided with the machine to screw Hackett, to the dismay of many of his syncophants.
*If you don't have an NYT logon, use mine:
name: nytisfishwrap
password: dowdsucks
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006
12:48 ||
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#4
good analysis mike, except id like to disavow Kerry on behalf of the machine. Or maybe to introduce some wrinkles. Theres a pragmatic more or less ideological centrist pole, around the DLC, PPI, etc. Theres a different pragmatic, but less ideological pole, around the congressional leadership. And then there are activists you mention. And then theres the Clinton machine - Clinton (bill) started off with the DLC as a base, but has attempted to be "larger" than the DLC, and of course was able to triangulate within the party, reaching to at least part of the center. In 2004, with the Clintons effectively on the sidelines, the party had a more difficult time reaching across the divide. Kerry was, paradoxically, less appealing to both sides (IMO) than Clinton had been. Though hed flirted with DLC in the past, hardcore DLC folks didnt like him, in large part over foreign policy. In fact another new dem org was founded, the New Democrat Network, to be less hostile to the left than DLC has been. The congressional establishment rallied around Kerry, and the Clintons did when it was clear he was the only alternative to Dean. And its not impossible that Kerrys weakness as a candidate was in fact a selling point for the Clintons, looking to 2008.
So the battle is more complex than simply left vs right. As I would add, is the battle for the GOP.
#6
Good analysis, 'Hawk. You've raised some points, and pointed out some wrinkles, I wasn't considering.
I grew up around urban Democrat machine politics (my dad was one of the few elected officials in our county who was never indicted, or even investigated!). As reptillian as it got in my old hometown, I never heard of having the arm-twisters call somebody's donors and ask them to stop giving. That's sticking the knife in deep.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 14:15
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#7
Veteran Hackett driven out of Democrat politics by integrity.
Let's not forget that Mr. Hackett didn't turn anti-war until after the election. During the election he ran as a moderate veteran. Nobody is really sure what Paul Hackett stands for.
#8
If I recall correctly, Hackett ("I hate that liar Bush, and I'm a veteran (and a lawyer from the expensive part of town)") was beaten in an off year, in what was touted to the Party faithful as a critical election, by a suburban housewife. That isn't the kind of thing that would make him look electable to pragmatic Party Machine bosses.
Robert Crawford, you know more about such things -- am I right?
#9
Not sure if "Anti-War" candidate is a fair characterization of Hackett. Guess it depends on which prisim you look through. Clearly he is Anti-Bush. And indeed he is critical of the current Iraq war but mostly on operational issues. (Iraqi soldier training, Exit Strategy, Nation Building, etc.) IIRC, he was slammed pretty heavily by the far left for being ex-military and a gun enthusiest.
#12
hey mike Im from Brooklyn. When I was in college i joined the local reformers and ran for the County Committee against the very dominant Kings County machine. They sent subpeonas out to us about our nominating petitions, which they claimed were forged. Apparently this was standard practice to scare people off. The Reform groups lawyers, said dont worry, we'll deal with it. Nothing came of it.
BTW, if you think Rove et al wouldnt go to donors and talk to them about who would or wouldnt make a good candidate in a state race, I think you would be mistaken. Hell, those people go around trying to get lobbyists to only hire Republicans.
#13
Dad never did anything to be investigated for, which made him almost unique in that county.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 17:02
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#14
Just the other day I was lamenting that the GOP was not recruiting Iraq vets hard enough, and that the first vet to run for office was a Dem. Now I see the Progressive Committee for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue has taken their sticks to his ankles. Way to go Dems. You deserve to lose every election 'til the end of time.
#17
According to Kos (and I won't dignify him with a link) this is much ado about ego and personality, nothing more. Apparently the thought amongst the Dems was that Hackett simply wasn't ready to run for Senate, whereas Brown was (the Dems think they can beat DeWine, and that drives this). Apparently they wanted Hackett to run for the House, but Hackett, having done that once, didn't want to do it again. Then he dragged his feet on his Senate announcement until after Brown jumped in. That's a no-no, apparently.
So there may be little more to the story than the Dems trying to get their fluffy baby ducks in a row.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006 19:24
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#18
Could somebody please define "triangulation" for a simple furriner. I presume it's more than just talking out of both sides of your mouth.
#19
Hackett was making idiot remarks about the war even before the election. His position was pretty clear, and as far as I recall, the Kossacks were claiming it was a referendum on the war.
If I recall correctly, Hackett ("I hate that liar Bush, and I'm a veteran (and a lawyer from the expensive part of town)") was beaten in an off year, in what was touted to the Party faithful as a critical election, by a suburban housewife.
By a suburban housewife who won the primary ONLY because her opponent's father did a really dumb thing dealing with one of Bush's nominations. I think it was Bolton, but it may have been a Supreme Court nominee. The party loyalists punished the son for the sins of the father, and the result was a candidate that excited no one.
So the Democrats nominated a flake aligned with the Kossacks, drove up Republican turn-out during a special election, and lost.
And as for him being a lawyer from a rich part of town... During the election, the local meejuh kept mentioning that he served in some elected office in Milford, a relatively working-class suburb.
Now that the Donks have turned on him, he's suddenly become a resident of Indian Hill, a neighborhood occupied by the likes of Marge Schott and Peter Frampton.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 20:03
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#20
Grunter, I understand triangulation to mean defining the two main postions on a subject, then making for oneself a new position in between. Thus for Bill Clinton, the Democrats were for increasing welfare, the Republicans were for decreasing welfare, and Clinton campaigned on making welfare more effective by making everyone get a job (decreasing welfare), but increasing payments to the working poor(increasing... well you get the point).
#23
A PPT chart? That sounds like real work, Besoeker, whatever it is. I leave that to the rest of you, knowing that it will be well done, and y'all can pop by later to tell me all about it over tea and a piece of cake. ;-)
Yes, comes as a shock to me, too...
"The head of Calgary's Muslim community is considering a civil lawsuit against two local publishers for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad -- images that have sparked deadly riots overseas. "Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said he would consult lawyers to see whether it was possible to sue the Jewish Free Press and conservative Western Standard, which have published the cartoons; the general-circulation Calgary Herald has not. More: Feb. 10, etc.
I suppose we should all take heart that this group is sufficiently Westernized whereby they are filing a lawsuit instead of issuing death fatwas. Too bad they do not comprehend that freedom of speech pretty much precludes awards against ordinary standard artistic license. They should just go ahead and print all of Iran's Holocaust cartoons to get even. That ought to raise their community standing immeasurably.
#6
I remember when an adult-oriented comic was banned in Canada because it "depicted rape". What it actually depicted was a fully-clothed woman beating the snot out of two would-be rapists. Hardly the same thing.
#3
Lol, I just realized that what I said on the article above applies here, as well, heh.
This is too obvious, simple, and (of course) since it would get Bush off the hook and kill the "No WMD's! Bush Lied! People Died!" meme that the conspiracists will never, ever, even if God hisownself descends from Heaven and buys an hour of Prime Time on all network and cable stations to say it's so - they still wouldn't believe it.
Gotta dig some of this stuff up and set it off in a Big Blue City to get their attention, methinks. I'm sure someone is working on that notion, too.
By Wolfgang Bruno, a FaithFreedom.org associate.
The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections follows the election of a hard line president in Iran and the Jihad riots in France. Hamas is not part of a struggle for "national liberation," it is a part of a global anti-democratic movement that is now threatening to plunge the world into a devastating war. The Jihad has been simmering for years, but is now entering a phase of much more open hostility towards the infidels. Hamas is right: There is no peace process in the Middle East. There probably never was, but at least Israel is now faced with enemies, both among Palestinians and the Islamic regime in Iran, who state this quite openly. As Hugh Fitzgerald writes: Though very few would recognize it, the infidels of Europe in fact owe the Israelis a debt. For it is the Israelis who, like a lightning rod, have until recently borne the brunt of Arab and Muslim hatred and attention. The Lesser Jihad against Israel is simply part of the Greater Jihad against all non-Muslims.
Europeans should support Israel for several reasons. The first one is moral: It is immoral for Europeans to sit back and watch threats of a new Holocaust, which the Iranian president has repeatedly suggested. It is especially immoral because it is our appeasing "dialogue" with the mullahs that has enabled them to progress this far with their nuclear program. We simply have an historical obligation to oppose forces spreading anti-Semitism into the mainstream once again.
The second reason is cultural. A stronger stance in solidarity with Israel would send a message to Muslims and Multiculturalists: The West isn't a Christian club, it's a Judeo-Christian club. And no, the Jewish component is not a cliché. The fact that such a statement would also be in direct opposition to the thinking behind the current version of the Eurabian Union is a welcome side effect. We need to assert our cultural identity to be able to defend ourselves against Islam.
The third reason is ideological. Bat Ye'or has demonstrated convincingly in her book "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" how closely linked the rise of Eurabia and the ongoing Islamization of the continent are to the institutionalized Euro-Arab dialogue that has been going on for several decades. The same goes for the growth of European anti-Israeli attitudes that this has ensued. If the growth of anti-Israeli sentiments is indeed linked to Eurabia, creeping dhimmitude and European submission to Arab-Islamic demands, showing a pro-Israeli point of view becomes an act of defiance and a symbol of resistance to the Eurabian establishment. Being European and pro-Israeli is a statement that: "I'm not a dhimmi, but a proud defender of the Judeo-Christian Western civilization." It can be used to demonstrate that the European Union in reality is the Eurabian Union.
The fourth reason for supporting Israel is plain self-interest. WW2 started with the persecution of Jews, one of the smallest and most vulnerable ethnic groups. Once the Nazis got away with that, they were strong enough to intimidate everybody else, too. The result was a world war. Those who burned Jewish stores eventually burned down much of the European continent. History is about to repeat itself. This world war seems to start with threats to attack and annihilate the Jews, just as the previous one did. Europeans turned a blind eye to Islamic suicide bombers and the Jihad ideology they represented as long as they targeted only Jews in Israel. Now Europeans themselves live in fear of the same suicide bombers in Paris, London and Madrid. We should have learnt our lesson by now. If we don't, we will soon have to pay the price for this mistake.
The most important task in the immediate future is preventing the mullahs in Iran from getting nuclear weapons. A strike against Iran should be combined with steps to weaken the foundations of the Islamic Republic, and encourage the people to overthrow their oppressors. Ironically, the election of hardliner Ahmadinejad for president just made this easier. Ahmadinejad is a brute who has killed off the illusion of "reform" and the deceptive "good cop - bad cop" game his predecessor Khatami kept alive for eight years. The right thing for Europeans to do is to help Iranians get rid of that barbaric and oppressive regime. This also happens to be in our own best interest. The current wave of Islamic radicalism has been closely tied to the history of the Islamic Republic in Iran. Bringing down the regime installed by Khomeini will deal a severe blow to the international movement of political Islam, and thus to the very forces that are increasingly threatening Europe itself. Most Europeans don't seem to understand the implications of the fact that Iran now has nuclear-capable missiles that can reach parts of Europe. A regime with this mentality cannot under any circumstances be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. This must be prevented at all costs, including the option of armed strikes against nuke facilities inside Iran. Iranians may not be happy about the idea, but the brutal truth is that unless this is done, the Islamic regime may very well drag their nation into a nuclear war, with Israel or some other nation. The new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is questioning the reality of the Holocaust, threatening to wipe Israel of the face of the earth, and urging that a Jewish state be relocated thousands of miles away. Some have suggested that the United States should propose the quick admission of Israel into NATO as a full member, an idea that deserves some consideration.
Binyamin Netanyahu has stated that Muslims don't hate the West because of Israel, they hate Israel because of the West. And he's right. If Muslims manage to overrun and subdue the Little Satan, that means that the Great Satan is weaker than he appears. The Great Satan here is usually referring to the USA, but it really is the West in general, and very much includes Europe, the cradle of Western civilization. How would the Danish cartoon issue have looked like if Iran used its nuclear umbrella to "protect Europe's Muslims?" Does anybody in Europe want to find out?
EU claims to superpower status ring rather hollow. When the time comes to face a real challenge, Europe does not have the will, perhaps not even the means, to defeat it. An entire continent is now hiding behind a few million Jews, the descendants of a people we almost decimated, to defeat an enemy we have been feeding for years. The EU isn't a soft superpower, the EU is just soft, and incapable of disarming a threat it has by itself participated in creating. Israel is the Constantinople of our time, and Israelis have been at the front line of the battle against Islamic Fascism for years. Israel should finally be allowed to defend herself. It's time Europe stops laying obstacles in her way.
#1
Funny stuff. Honorable mention to "Allah in the Family" starring Khalid Sheik Mohammed as Archie Bunker. For sheer cringe factor, "Married to Children" takes first prize.
Posted by: ed ||
02/14/2006 12:38
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Qatar, one of the richest energy states in the world, is researching and conducting talks on the launch of a nuclear program.
Western diplomatic sources said Qatar has been planning a nuclear research and energy program with foreign assistance. They said Asian and Western countries have been approached.
"It makes no sense for Qatar to have a nuclear energy program," a diplomatic source said. "It makes all the sense in the world for Qatar to start acquiring nuclear expertise."
On Monday, Qatar and South Korea began talks on nuclear energy cooperation. The South Korean Science and Technology Ministry met representatives of Qatar's Supreme Council for the Environmental and Natural Reserves.
The Qatari delegation was scheduled to spend nearly a week in Seoul. The delegation planned to tour South Korean nuclear facilities and discuss nuclear applications in agriculture, medicine and biotechnology.
The diplomatic sources said Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council states have sought to develop nuclear programs to desalinate water. They said Iran's nuclear weapons program has alarmed GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the region and biggest energy producer in the world.
With Hamas now in power, the long-ruling Fatah party and its "military wing" Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades forced into the opposition, and Israel announcing it will soon withdraw from the West Bank, Palestinian terror leaders tell WorldNetDaily recent events here are leading them to launch what they call a third intifada or violent confrontation against Israel consisting of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against Jewish communities and "a few new surprises in our arsenal."
Some terror leaders, particularly from the Al Aqsa Brigades, whose associated Fatah party scored poorly in last month's parliamentary elections, say they are planning massive violence against Israeli civilians mostly to revolt against the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian government.
"The new intifada is only a question of time and this will be the hardest and the most dangerous one. It's just about timing until the order to blow up a new wave of attacks will be given," Abu Nasser, a senior Al Aqsa Brigades leader from the Balata refugee camp in northern Samaria told WorldNetDaily in an interview...
#1
Should this "third" intifada come to pass, the Israelis would do well to completely overrun the West Bank and Gaza, boot out all the Paleo residents, and annex the territory, never again to even mention the idea of a Paleo "state".
#2
Overrun or not, the Israelis should no longer feel much restraint. The Palestinian people have spoken their will and thereby installed a government sworn to terrorism. Their elected representation is now declaring war. The gloves come off and military retaliation is in order. It should be swift, brutal and unhesitating. Like never before, the Palestinians have united in their desire for the destruction of Israel and that quest must be met with crushing defeat. With the cartoon incident in full flower, the mask is now off. Israel had best seize this opportunity while the world still comprehends what Islamist intentions hold in store for the infidels.
#7
3rd Intifada? Why not? The first two got them the West Bank and Gaza along with unaccountable billions of dollars. Additionally, Hamas ran on a platform of violence and no Peace. They won the election by a pretty clear amount. Who is surprised that they will continue in their ways? Their violence has been rewarded at every step. Their mission is being accomplished with acceptable losses.
#8
When it starts I think Israel should deport the entire West Bank Muslim pop to Gaza. At a minimum the couple of border cities that are danger close to Israel proper. With the threat that more to follow if they dont get control of themselves. In the end they will either all be moved to Gaza or a true peace treaty will be signed. You cant have a compromise and peace until they realize the alternative is absolute destruction defeat.
#13
One upside of Israel being out of Gaza is that it allows Israel to be a lot more indiscriminate with their military action. It's a touch harder to unleash on the bad guys when their all mixed up with the good guys. I've never been a big fan of Israeli withrawl from a political perspective. Militarily, I think Israel should draw the lines of statehood where they see fit whether that means withdrawing or advancing. Their security should be the paramount concern. As for the 3rd Intifada, hopefully Israel unleashes in a huge way.
#14
"Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is attacking Israel because Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades lost to HAMAS.
And this makes sense,because????
Why not attack HAMAS.
I would think HAMAS is now the enemy of Aqsa."
They may yet do that. But Hamas isnt in power yet, and theres going to be a precarious struggle (either a bureaucratic political struggle or a political one, but dont count on the latter) between the Hamas security forces and the old PA sec forces. AAMB may be wise to stay out of that, at least for the time being. Meanwhile by attacking Israel, they can show theyre just as tough hombres as Hamas, they can distance themselves from Abbas and the old guard Fatah leadership, and they can put Hamas in the difficult position of being pressed by Israel and the West to crack down on AAMB. All for the modest price of having a few of their less stable members boom themselves. Win - win. Unless of course the Israelis come after the leaders, which they might well do. Oh well, nothings perfect.
#17
d'oh!
that Who homage was me.
someone stole my cookie!! bwahhhhhh
Anyway, seems to me, with a wall going up and separation in the works, Hamas is gonna have a sovereign "entity" to govern.
Any attacks coming from that sovereign "entity" is akin to one country attacking another. Israel certainly has the right -- and the duty -- to respond as if attacked by a country. No need to worry about civilian casualties. The gloves are off.
#18
another reason for AAMB to attack Israel. Gives Israel an excuse to cut off the territories further. Which tends to kill the Pal economy, such as it is. Which may kill off the Hamas govt.
#19
Will be fun seething in the dark with no power, water or food....
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 18:07
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#20
Man, the second one isn't even out on DVD yet?
Posted by: Scott R ||
02/14/2006 18:41
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#21
Will be fun seething in the dark with no power, water or food....
Hokay, Frank, you asked for it. With apologies to Old Blue Eyes ...
Seething in the Dark
Seething in the dark, where the dune ends
Were seething in the dark with my goon friends
Were plotting on Down Under and all their beer
Night hurries by but still it isnt dawn
Looking for the light of a new fuse
To blow up kindergartens, they accuse
And we can face the charges together
Seething in the dark
What though ammo is old
What this Semtex is resold
With them bombs can be flung
Hear this seethe of mine
Fumin all the time
Another grumble and were done
Looking for the light of a new fuse
To blow up kindergartens, they accuse
And we can face the charges together
Seething in the dark, seething in the dark
Seething in the dark
#22
I'm certain SHARON realized the PA will no longer be able to hide behind either Russia or the UNO - let HAMAS, and HEZBOLLAH, etc extremist groups destroy any real dream of a peaceful Palestinian State for the Palestinians.
Two alleged criminals including an extremist leader were killed in separate incidents of crossfire between the law enforcing agencies at Khilgaon, Dhaka and Daulatpara in Khulna district yesterday. The deceased were identified as Ilias alias Tepa alias Imran (30) and Asaduzzaman Babu (22), of Maluya village under Vedorganj upazila in Shariatpur.
They killed Babu!
The DB police arrested Ilias on the Dhaka University campus Sunday night and took him to Meradia to recover hidden arms and arrest his accomplices.
Jumped right from Step One to Step Four? No interagation? No confession?
Police sources said, a team of DB along with Ilias went to Meradia Budhbarer Hat in Dhaka to recover arms and arrest his accomplices at around 2.25 am yesterday.
"Come along, Ilias. We's taking a drive"
Sensing their presence
"Sniff, sniff, I smell doughnuts. It's da cops!"
criminals fired on policemen
"Open wildly inacurate fire!"
who also retaliated
"Hold him still..."
and Ilias was shot dead
"Ouch.....rosebud..."
while he was trying to flee. The body of the terrorist was sent to the morgue of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) for autopsy.
"Put him in the freezer, Sam. I'll get to him later"
Asaduzzaman Babu, a close aide of notorious criminal Ershad Shikdar, was arrested on Friday at Badda in Dhaka and handed over to Khulna Rapid Action Battalion (Rab).
He's doomed
Following his confessional statement, Rab-6 conducted a drive in Daulatpur area of Khulna early Monday ...
How early?
... to recover arms and arrest his accomplices.
Where, not unexpectedly.....
Rab sources said when the team reached Daulatpur, the accomplices of Babu made a gun attack on the law enforcers.
"It's the RAB! And they've got Babu! Quick, open fire!"
The Rab men also opened fire and Babu died in 'crossfire'.
Yeah, we don't "believe" it either
Rab recovered a gun with three bullets from the spot. Babu, an alleged commander of Purba Banglar Communist Party, was accused in several criminal cases including one for murder.
Commies get a bullet in the head, islamists get tea and cookies
Reminder of why being a dhimmi sucks, even if the multiculti insist on the famed "tolerance of islam, as illustrated by al andalous" ("I'll tolerate your abuses, and you'll tolerate my breathing", or something like that), by the UK version of the "Answering islam" website.
#4
It fails to mention a couple essential provisions, even if I am not sure they are accepted by all s
1) A Christian is forced to provide three days of free hospitality to a travelling Muslim who so requires. It can be prolongated if the Muslim is ill.
2) Since the testimony of a Muslim ven when a notorious criminal and crook is superior to the one of a Christian, in many regions and notoriouly in Bosnia the Christains have had their lands and richnesses stolen by Muslims. The solution had been to buy Muslim witnessess but at macro-economic level that meant Christains getting poorer and Muslims richer
3) If a Christian converts to Islam he will egt allheirloom from his parents
4) A Christain is not allowed to strijke a Muslim even in self defence. In fact entire villages were massacred or deported just on susupicion one of its inhabitants a had killed a Muslim. Also while Muslim men aren't supposed to throw stones at Christians for the sake of it boys are encouraged to do so: this makes Christains feel what place is theirs in Islamic society: below Muslim brats.
Back in the olden days when I read lots of books, before I spiralled down to mediocrity, Philip K. Dick was one of my great favorites, this is a nice touch; hope they recover it/him soon.
Philip K Dick is missing.
Not the American science fiction writer whose novels spawned hit films such as Blade Runner and Total Recall - he died more than 20 years ago - but a state-of-the-art robot named after the author.
The quirky android, which made a major splash at Wired Magazine's NextFest in Chicago in June, was lost in early January while en route to California by commercial airliner. "We can't find Phil," said Steve Prilliman of Dallas-based Hanson Robotics, which created the futuristic robot with the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis, the Automation and Robotics Research Institute at the University of Texas at Arlington and Dick's friend Paul Williams.
"We're very worried because it's been a few weeks now," said Prilliman. "We're pressing hard to find Phil."
Robotics wizard and lead designer David Hanson built the robot as a memorial to Dick, whose 1968 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? inspired the 1982 classic Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford.
Short stories by Dick, who died in 1982, served as inspiration for other hit films including the 1990 Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 2002 Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. In Blade Runner, set in a Los Angeles of 2019, Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckhard, a Blade Runner or policeman whose job is to track down and terminate escaped human clones known as "replicants."
The irony of the situation - a missing replica of the very author who championed "replicant" freedom - is not lost on Phil's creators.
But they still want him back. "We really need to find him soon because the Smithsonian wants to put him in a travelling collection in the autumn," said Prilliman referring to Washington's Smithsonian Institute, an organisation of museums and art galleries.
Along with an eerie likeness to the author, the robot features award-winning artificial intelligence that mimics the writer's mannerisms and lifelike skin material to affect realistic expressions. Top-of-the-line voice software loaded with data from Dick's vast body of writing allows the robot to carry on natural-sounding conversations, although it does come off as a bit doddering at times.
Biometric-identification software and advanced machine vision allows the robot to recognise people - even in a crowd - read their expressions and body language and talk to them sounding a lot like a normal, albeit slightly senile, author who likes to quote his own books when he gets confused.
Prilliman and others close to Phil baulked at giving too many details about his disappearance including the name of the airline that was transporting the robot when he went missing. Hanson officials said news of Phil's disappearance could hamper the ongoing investigation and search for the robot.
The company officials said they feared ransom demands might be made or Phil could turn up listed for sale on an internet auction house such as eBay.
A spokeswoman, Elaine Hanson, said the company is considering building a new android if the original Phil does not turn up.
#7
Well, I dunno. If Phil was fully functional and programmed with several pleasing techniques, it could be years before the Flight Attendant gives him up!
DENPASAR, Indonesia - An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced two young Australian men to die by firing squad for attempting to smuggle heroin from the resort island of Bali, verdicts that could strain ties with Canberra.
The sentences matched what prosecutors had demanded for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the accused masterminds of a group of nine Australians arrested on Bali last April for trying to smuggle more than 18 lbs. of heroin to Australia.
Activists from an Indonesian anti-narcotics group inside the courtroom shouted Hooray! Long live the judges! when the verdicts were read out in separate sessions.
The court also sentenced two drug couriers to life in jail, after giving the same punishment to two others on Monday.
Chan, 22, shook his head, stared at the ceiling and then smirked when the verdict was delivered. Both he and Sukumaran, 24, are from Sydney. There are no mitigating factors. His statements throughout the trial were convoluted and he did not own up to his actions, chief judge Arif Supratman said, while handing down Chans verdict. His actions ... tainted Balis name as a resort island.
The death sentences could ignite criticism in Australia, which has abolished the capital punishment.Australia had urged Jakarta not to impose the death penalty on any of the group and will plead for clemency for any condemned to die, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday.
Lawyers for Chan said they would appeal.Life and death are Gods decisions. If it is made through a court verdict that equals murder, said lawyer Agus Saputra.
Sounds like Agus is from the ACLU.
Prosecutors had said Chan was the driving engine of the operation. He was arrested inside a Sydney-bound flight at Balis airport after police had caught the four defendants sentenced to life with packages of heroin strapped to their bodies inside the airport.
Prosecutors had said Sukumaran helped strap the packages on the four couriers and was a planner of the operation. He was arrested at a Bali hotel.
The latest Australians to get life in jail were Michael Czugaj, 20, from Brisbane and Martin Stephens, 29, of Wollongong. Their sentences also matched what prosecutors had demanded. Czugaj appeared tense and stared at a translator sitting beside him as the verdict was read out in the Indonesian language.
Around 20 foreigners, most of them Africans, are on death row in Indonesia for drug offences. The latest foreigners shot by firing squad for drug offences were two Thais in October 2004. They had sat on death row for eight years.
The final stage of an appeal allows inmates on death row to seek clemency from the president.
The verdicts against the Australians have highlighted Indonesias zero tolerance for drug offences. Under Indonesian law, a prosecution demand is non-binding for judges but is seen as a strong recommendation.
On Monday, the court jailed Renae Lawrence for life even though prosecutors had asked judges to show leniency by jailing her for 20 years because of her cooperation in the case. Lawrence, 28, from the city of Newcastle, is the only female of the group, dubbed the Bali Nine by Australian media.
Among verdicts of recent years, the same court jailed Australian woman Schapelle Corby for 20 years last May after she was found guilty of smuggling marijuana.
Um, that could fuck up the lives or kill one hell of alot of people. That "smirk" will disappear, quickly enough, I reckon.
I'm sorry that the Ozzies will spend a lot of goodwill capital trying to save two aspiring murderers. Their lawyer is a fuckwit, of course, but that's his chosen gig, just as trying to be big-time drug lords was theirs. They've lost the gamble. No tears allowed. Buh-bye.
#1
Pretty damned bad. And no cure possible if the people won't give up their Nanny State goodies and the Pols haven't the spine to spell it out and lead them out before they collapse. Hey, enjoy your time off - sitting on the park bench wistfully wishing you were as well-fed as the pigeons.
Hey, I know: put on a brave front, organize a march, make some big puppets, lotsa banners n' stuff, proclaim Socialism as the answer to, um, everything, be really smug, feel superior, wear the dreaded Bérets de la Sophistication, drag out some of that tradition and heritage shit and sneeringly explain to us, yet again, how superior you are.
#4
It may not be news to us, and it may not even be news to the Newsweek crowd. But it is a useful, succinct and (for that reason) powerful review and summary of the situation.
"You can't beat something with nothing." People intuitively understand that but somehow think that their 'nothing' is 'something'. That's the trouble with Europe: most of its citizens aren't willing to look in the mirror and say, "well folks, we are shortly to be well and truly fucked."
If they could say that, they'd then be able to start analyzing why, and then perhaps implement a plan to change their situation. But knowing that you have a problem is the first step, and there are way too many Euros who can't admit it.
So Zakaria writes an article that is a useful cudgel. Don't know how many people will face a mirror because of it. He'll need to write the same article again and again.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006 14:44
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#5
Right minded europeans concerned for their children and grandchildren need to immigrate to the west (usa/austraila). NOW. leave the leftists behind for they are not needed or wanted. once europe has been cleansed they can return if they wish. although unless they have the pioneer spirit, i don't recommend it. europe is lost. we all know it even if we won't say it. gather now the best people europe has to offer. we'll fight from the shores of the usa to defend western civ. we're the last best hope to defend, conquer, and retake.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
02/14/2006 16:50
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#6
Wby do you think Koffe Annan wants the UN to have the right of taxation and pushes it every chance he gets? So that the West can subsidize the failed welfare states of Europe (as well as the Thugs of Africa and ME) and, evnetually, Europe can drag the West down with it.
Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar vowed Monday not to bow to American threats to cut aid, saying the movement did not need "satanic" US money.
A-Zahar also addressed Hamas' much-anticipated social and economic agenda, saying the group intended to fight corruption, eliminate the "tourism of nudity" and use education to promote a culture of resistance.
But, aware of the political realities in the Palestinian territories, Zahar said Hamas had no intention to force Islam on Palestinians or to settle scores with its rivals.
"Those who built their structure on the basis of the Quran...cannot budge because of promises from America or a dollar from Europe," Zahar told a Cairo conference. "I wish America would cut off its aid. We do not need this satanic money," he said.
Since Hamas' victory in last month's parliamentary elections, Western nations have threatened to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed aid unless the group, which is responsible for dozens of suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis, transforms itself.
Hamas was expected to lead a new government.
"America and Europe tried to dry up the funding of the 'terrorist' Hamas that is spent on the families of the martyrs and the detainees, but it (Hamas) has only increased," he said. Such money comes from almsgiving, he said.
He argued that most of the outside aid money was eaten up by corruption under Fatah and lost funds could be made up by removing corrupt officials and turning to Arab donors.
He ruled out making compromises to keep the money coming.
"Recognizing the state of the Israeli enemy is not on the table," he said. "Our program is to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine," he said.
"The Qassam Brigades will continue to increase in numbers, supplies and weapons...until the liberation is completed," he said of the group's military wing. He added that Hamas can develop the capabilities of its missiles.
"Anyone who thinks the calm means giving in is mistaken. The calm is in preparation for a new round of resistance and victory," he said. "If the enemy has something to offer we will study it, but we will not abide by a truce that is for free."
Hamas abided by an Egyptian-brokered truce between the Palestinians and Israel, and has continued to forgo militant attacks beyond the agreement's expiration late last year.
He also again rejected the 1993 Oslo peace accords under which the Palestinians recognized Israel and set up the Palestinian Authority.
"We are entering (parliament) to eliminate any traces of Oslo," he said.
But Zahar called for making a distinction between bestowing legitimacy on Israel and recognizing the facts on the ground. He left the door open for possible future talks with Israel through a third party.
"Negotiations are not our goal," he said. "Negotiations are a means. If they realize the best interest of the Palestinian people, then we will find a thousand mediators...to negotiate," he said.
#9
"He argued that most of the outside aid money was eaten up by corruption under Fatah and lost funds could be made up by removing corrupt officials and turning to Arab donors."
I think this would shock Jacques. Corruption by Arafat?
The general secretary of the Iranian press association called Sunday for action over a football cartoon printed in a German newspaper showing the Iranian national team standing in a World Cup stadium with bomb belts strapped to their jerseys.
Manuchehr Sandi called the cartoon, which was printed in the Friday edition of Berlin's Tagesspiegel, a "dirty joke" and in an interview with the ISNA news agency demanded the German Embassy in Tehran give an "appropriate reaction" to it.
The cartoon also depicts German soldiers standing in the stadium with a caption saying "Why at the World Cup of all places does the German army have to be on duty?"
The newspaper said it regretted the reactions from Iran.
Earlier Sunday, the Iranian newspaper 90 published the cartoon, calling it "shameless" and demanded the Iranian football federation to lodge an official protest.
"It is now clear that the Germans are under the influence of the Zionists (Israel) and have lowered themselves to become their scarecrows," wrote 90.
Iran's most famous sports journalist, Ardeschir Larudi, accused the Tagesspiegel of becoming the first newspaper in Germany to demand Iran's exclusion from this summer's World Cup in Germany, which runs June 9 to July 9.
"Iran was the second country (after Japan) to qualify for the World Cup and it is totally unfair to present the players in this way," he told ISNA.
"We have to protest against this cartoon but we Iranians should remain civilised and not trade insults for insults."
#3
I hope Ahmejinedad is stupid enough to withdraw the team in protest... and all the signs are there! The resulting civil strife would greatly harm the reqime as I believe footy comes second only to Allan in Iran.
we Iranians should remain civilised and not trade insults for insults Mwahahahaha
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/14/2006 5:34
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#4
Yep, we should encourage this to run and run. Even the dimmest (dhimmiest) tranzi moonbat will get it in the end.
#7
Is there anything, other than abject dhimmitude, that does not offend Islam?
Clarification on the question: You are aware that often Islam becomes offended at those who perfectly adhere to dhimmitude, right? Are you excluding those instances?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 7:52
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#8
Well, lol, when I wrote that I was thinking of the historical dhimmitude in conquered lands. I presume they didn't kill the dhimmi geese that laid golden eggs for them, heh.
Attacking the weak, but not yet jizya-paying crowd does seem to top the alQ agenda, though the dhimmis-in-waiting haven't seemed to have figured it out, yet. Is this what you're referring to, perhaps?
#9
I presume they didn't kill the dhimmi geese that laid golden eggs for them, heh.
AFAICR, they did. The example off the top of my head is the Jannisaries -- skimming the male children from a population that doesn't practice polygamy reduces its birthrate.
Beyond that, the history of dhimmitude makes it clear that inflicting humiliation and abuse was as much a part of it as tax farming. Gotta give the lowliest Muslim someone to feel superior to.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 8:06
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#10
Okay, yeah... The Janissaries became a serious threat, too, but I follow you.
Power in the hands of Islam, in practice, is the death of everything worth living for. I've said it before, of course, but to me it's clearly a pathogen. You can take it from there, lol.
#14
"We have to protest against this cartoon but we Iranians should remain civilised and not trade insults for insults."
Oh brother. This from the nation currently holding a Holocaust cartoon contest. Nah, no "insults for insults" being traded here. Male bovine fecal matter abounds. Keep those cartoons coming, we're onto something here.
#17
WRT killing the goose: When there was some turmoil or famine it would sometimes happen that local imams would blame the Christians/Jews and organize attacks. Sometimes the ruler of the city would try to protect the dhimmis ($$). Bat Yeor has lots of references.
Posted by: James ||
02/14/2006 12:44
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#18
"remain" civilised
Excuse me? What is this? Wouldn't this mean that they would have to first be or initially be civilized?
Yes to see the advertisers have cartoons plastered all over during the games would be entertaining, but risky with their interpretation of what acting civilized means.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/14/2006 13:00
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#19
It is a bad cartoon. The simple fact that the two sets of folks are nearly identical in height makes it look as if they are intended to be the same folks. Yeah it probably is clear in German but from a basic cartoon standpoint it doesn't work well when you wonder about that sort of thing.
On the other hand it pissed off Iran and that is one of my new standards for a great cartoon so I'll let it slide.
A sculpture depicting a mosque with missiles as minarets was pulled from a German art show Monday after threats were made, the director of Duesseldorf's art academy confirmed. Titled "Aggression", the work by a Swiss art student was removed from the show at the request of the artist, said academy director Peter Lynen.
Lynen said there had been no pressure from the academy itself to pull the work and that every artist had to be given the freedom to address what he termed "contemporary themes". The design of the mosque with rockets as its minarets was very "low-key", said Lynen.
He did not say what kinds of threats had led to removal of the
sculpture.
I mean, if it was beheading I could understand, but a simple riot means the artist buckled ...
About 30,000 people visited the exhibit over the past four days with the missile-minaret mosque. Lynen said there had been no incidents related to the sculpture while it was shown but complained of a "lurid" media report having led to the threats.
#2
What? You don't want to live out the rest of your life in hiding?
It's a shame these animals have such power as they sling out threat after threat.
We need to keep ever vigilant.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/14/2006 13:30
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#4
Dick Cheney fired the opening gun for the 2008 election. Shooting a lawyer ought to be worth a few hundred thousand votes....
Posted by: Steve ||
02/14/2006 13:06
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#5
Boy, it all plays into Karl Rove's hands, doesn't it, Steve! Joke going on around here (at a Federal gov't touchy-feely agency):
Hey, did ya hear the latest conspiracy on the Cheney shooting?
Nope, sure didn't
Cheney's approval rating jumped to 93% when it was released that he shot an attorney! Now, what's the bag limit in TX for attorneys, maybe he can hit 100% approval ratings!
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 13:29
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#6
The bumsticker is just a little off. It says, "...than ride with Ted Kennedy". It should say, "...than swim with Ted Kennedy".
THOUSANDS of people flocked to southern Egypt today to seek blessing from a calf they believe was born as God's reply to the publication in Europe of cartoons depicting the prophet, police said.
Some 20,000 thousand people had gathered in front of Mohammed Abu Dif's house in the village of Tunis to see the holy mammal, whose skin folds when he was born reportedly formed the words "There is no God but Allah", a police official said on condition of anonymity.
He said the villagers flocked from all over the southern governorate of Sohag to the farmer's house and had to be dispersed by police, who feared the gathering could get out of control.
Witnesses said they believed the calf was "Allah's response to current attacks against Islam", the official said.
He was referring to the publication in a Danish daily five months ago of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, which is banned in Islam.
Some of the caricatures portray Mohammed as a terrorist and have since been reprinted in scores of other European newspapers, sparking an unprecedented outcry in Muslim countries.
Tens of thousands of Muslims across the world have held demonstrations to protest against the cartoons, call for a boycott of Danish products and demand their countries sever ties with Denmark.
#2
Don't tell me -- it's a nice golden brown color.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 7:49
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#3
That does it! A divine calf? I'm convinced! I'll convert, by gum! How much more proof do you need, kaffirs? Now, I can be part of the Master Race! SUBMIT, HUMANS!
#14
we Catholics have the patent on Jesus-In-A-Muffin or Mary-In-A-Shadow...who the hell do they think they are? Pikers!
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 18:06
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#15
A farmer. In a tiny village. What are the odds he can't read? And Allan knows cartoons aren't allowed. But this just appeared at birth and is gone when the hordes showed up. But the illiterate insists that's what it looked like.
Egypt - gathering it's jihadis. But a cow?! - I smell Larson at work here.
Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections presents a substantial threat to the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and even to the future of the entire Middle East. The concern over this threat can be seen in the urgent summit on January 30, 2006 in London, where member-states of the Quartet discussed how to deal with the new and unexpected situation. The focus of the concerns is that a terrorist organization has won the right to rule the Palestinian Authority (PA), while still refusing to recognize the state of Israel, to not abandon its "armed struggle, or to renew the peace process.
Hamas calls upon quartet not to impose economic sanctions against the Palestinian people
Senior members of the Hamas movement-among them Khalid Mash'al, head of Hamas' political bureau, Isma'il Haniyya, head of Hamas' list for the PLC, and Sami Abu-Zuhri and Mushir Al-Masri, Hamas spokesmen-rejected the demands of the Quartet that Hamas lay down its arms and recognize Israel. The Hamas leaders called on the Quartet to respect the decision of the Palestinian people and not to base the transfer of funds to the PA on accession to these demands. According to Mash'al, since the Palestinian people still do not have a state they are dependent on foreign economic aid, however "they are not beggars."[1] Mash'al added that the European Union (EU) in particular, must be able to see that the aid is given to the Palestinian people, if it wishes to win their sympathy. If this is not done, Mash'al warns, "it (the EU) is likely to regret it later, when Hamas will lead the Palestinian people to the haven of rest." At the same time, both Mash'al and Haniyya called upon the leaders of the Arab and Muslim states, as the Arab investors, to stand by the Palestinians and not abandon them.[2]
Local Arab leaders join in the international pressure against Hamas
On February 1, 2006, Mahmud 'Abbas (Abu Mazen), chairman of the PA, met with Husni Mubarak, President of Egypt, and 'Umar Suliman, head of Egyptian intelligence. After the meeting, Abu Mazen promised that he would avoid imposing the task of forming the Palestinian government on the Hamas movement-despite its victory in the PLC elections-as long as Hamas refused to abandon the path of violence, recognize the state of Israel, and respect all of the agreements signed thus far. If Hamas continues to refuse, he said, he would be forced to impose on other factions the task of forming the new government. Suliman, who in recent years served as a mediator between Hamas and the PA, added that "if they will not accept upon themselves these issues, nobody will negotiate with them." Notwithstanding, he noted that Hamas is a radical organization that will have difficulties putting forth a precise and instant change in its policy. Ahmad abu al-Ghit, Egyptian Foreign Minister, added that Hamas is unable to escape reality and that "whoever sits in the parliament speaks through his mouth and not through arms."[3]
Even Jordan joined the pressure of the international community upon Hamas to abandon terror and recognize Israel. Jordanian Prime Minister Ma'ruf al-Bakhit said in Amman that the Jordanian government-which expelled leaders of Hamas following the signing of a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel-would continue its policy of zero contact with the exiled leadership of the organization.[4]
Hamas will not recognize Israel in spite of the heavy international pressures
In his victory speech on January 28, 2006 in Damascus, Mash'al, stressed that Hamas will not succumb to international pressures to recognize Israel. "We are adhering to the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem, the right of return, the evacuation of settlements and the option of armed resistance," he said. Addressing Israeli voters ahead of the March 2006 Knesset elections, Mash'al said: "there will be no peace or security amid the Israeli occupation."[5]
Nevertheless, Mash'al mentioned that Hamas is a pragmatic movement, and is aware that the PA is based on the foundation of the Oslo Accords. According to him, Hamas is willing to fulfill all accords signed by the PA, so long as this does not contradict its principles and does not violate the Palestinians' rights. He argued that every agreement that is in favor of the Palestinian people and does not harm their rights will be acceptable by Hamas. Furthermore, he added that "non-recognition of Israel does not mean that no steps will be implemented that will consider the existing situation and the circumstances of this level non-recognition of the occupation does not mean that I want to destroy Israel in a flash." He noted that Hamas does not intend to alter its charter and that the armed struggle against Israel is what brought victory in the elections.[6]
In contrast to the non-recognition of Israel, Mash'al noted that Hamas will be willing to negotiate with the United States and the EU, however only on the provision that no preconditions will be imposed on it.[7]
Hamas is prepared for a "Hudna" (armistice) with Israel on restricted terms
In spite of this refusal to recognize Israel, Khalid Mash'al and Mahmud al-Zahhar expressed willingness to signing a temporary long-term peace treaty ("Hudna").[8]
The "Hudna" that Hamas is proposing is very similar to The Hudaybiyya Treaty, a temporary treaty lasting ten years that was signed between the Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe in the year 628 (6 to the Hijra). This pact was representative of the period, and there exist numerous explanations for its signing: the first being the desire of Muhammad to allow himself and the Muslim believers, through significant religious concessions, to enter Mecca for a period of three days in order to fulfill the "'Umra" (a minor pilgrimage to Mecca not during the period of Hajj), in return for the promise that during this time Mecca would be evacuated of its residents and the two sides would not confront one another. A second explanation was Muhammad's desire to prevent a potential Quraysh-Jewish coalition against him. The third explanation is Muhammad's desire to neutralize the Quraysh tribe in the south while he planned to attack the Khaybar-Jews in the north.
In retrospect, The Hudaybiyya Treaty allowed Muhammad and the Muslims to strengthen their ranks without needing to worry about a confrontation with the Quraysh tribe. After only two years (630) the Muslims annulled the agreement and conquered Mecca. This agreement has since been exploited more than once by radical Muslim organizations that seek to justify the annulment of agreements signed with those characterized as "enemies".[9]
Hamas: Our democracy is not that of the United States and of Israel
According to Khalid Mash'al, the democracy preferred by the United States and its allies, particularly Israel, is a democracy that fits the norms and political agendas of those states, but is completely different from that of the Hamas. The Hamas version of democracy is based on the Islamic democracy, which espouses "divine sovereignty" rather than "people's sovereignty".[10] Nevertheless, Mash'al turned to the Palestinian people and "calmed" them, claiming that Hamas does not intend, at this stage, to apply "Shari'a" (Muslim religious law) in the PA. In his words, "Hamas is aware of the existing situation at this stage, it believes in gradation and does not intend to force its plans on anybody, since the nation itself voted in favor of the armed struggle option."[11]
In order to prevent turbulence in the PA, especially in the security apparatus, Mash'al declared that "there is no intention to enact a change of personnel in the Palestinian mechanisms, even though it is subject to change."[12] In regards to this, 'Atef 'Adwan, elected to the PLC on the Hamas list from northern Gaza, declared that there is no intention to replace the heads of the Palestinian security network with members of Hamas, even though changes will possibly occur based on criteria of effectiveness, professionalism and incorruptibility.[13]
Mash'al characterized the present period as transitional and warned of any attempt to sabotage Hamas' victory. According to him, the forming of the Palestinian government will take place over a number of weeks or even months, and until then all of the authorities will remain under the previous government. Mash'al called upon Fatah to join the future government, and rejected criticism that the Hamas invitation stems from Hamas' inability to manage the PA alone.[14] He presented three primary goals that Hamas must fulfill throughout its service in the government: first, improving the situation of the Palestinian people in all aspects. Secondly, continuing the armed struggle. Third, "cleaning house" in the various bodies of the PA followed by the rebuilding of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which Hamas will be a part of.[15]
Borders of the Palestinian state and the return of Hamas leaders to the Territories
Khalid Mash'al declared that "the map of Palestine is the known map as it existed during the British Mandate" (in other words, from the sea to the river - author's note.). According to him, "we believe in operating in stages, gradually and realistically. We can achieve our rights step by step and establish our state, on the condition that there will be sovereignty."[16]
Mash'al denied the existence of plans to return to the Territories, and said that "once Hamas decides to return its leaders to the Territories, it will choose the appropriate path and the right time to do so." Furthermore he added that "the return is a right that we will fight for, although it will be carried out at the right time we trust those that are present in the Territories and Hamas does not need an irresponsible migration from abroad."[17]
Establishing a Palestinian army for a future state
Mash'al noted that Hamas is ready to collect the arms from the Palestinian street and to unite the various military wings of all organizations into one Palestinian army, "as exists in other countries." This army will operate, according to him, to liberate the rest of the Palestinian Territories, to defend the Palestinian people and to return the Palestinians' rights. As such, he will oversee the arms that will be collected from the public. Mash'al noted that the establishment of a Palestinian army will not interfere with the role of the "'Iz al-Deen al-Qassam Brigades", the military wing of Hamas, who "will continue to defend the Palestinian people."[18]
Summary and Conclusion
Despite declarations on the part of Hamas leaders that it is willing to fulfill all of the commitments of the previous government, there is a clear contradiction here, since these commitments contradict two main principles central to the movement's charter: non-recognition of Israel and continuance of the armed struggle against it.
Hamas' calls for the "Hudna" with Israel is merely an ancient maneuver commonly used by radical Islamic organizations to reestablish and strengthen their power without being exposed to danger from their adversaries. The "Hudna" is intended to serve the step by step program that Hamas advocates for the liberation of all of Palestine, from the sea to the river. This is evident in Mash'al's words: "we believe in operating in steps, gradually, and realistically. We can achieve our rights step by step and establish our state, on the condition that there will be sovereignty."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
02:46 ||
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#2
Hamas' victory in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections presents a substantial threat to the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations and even to the future of the entire Middle East.
But that didn't stop the Palestinians from voting in Hamas, now did it? Killing all the Jews is just too irresistible of a mandate.
Hamas calls upon quartet not to impose economic sanctions against the Palestinian people
Despite flouting a majority of the Quartets requirements, like recognizing Israel. Yah, sure, you betcha. That'll work every time.
This army will operate, according to him, to liberate the rest of the Palestinian Territories, to defend the Palestinian people and to return the Palestinians' rights. As such, he will oversee the arms that will be collected from the public.
Fatah couldn't make sure that the arms were collected. What makes Hamas think they'll be any more successful? You can drive a truck through most of the plans these jerks are making. Somehow, these idiots think they can use a majority of Fatah's methods to achieve exactly what Fatah could not, and with even less cooperation with outside agencies. These maggots must be smoking some really fine rope.
#4
The Hudaybiyya Treaty of 628?!?
Good Lord...can't the UN fund some kind of remedial "civilization" courses for these folks?
Just get em up to speed by a few centuries may make all the difference.
#2
True, 2b. I don't think I've ever seen a political climate to equal this - certainly not in my lifetime, and I'm older than dirt. On the upside, they keep failing to smear Bush, though not for lack of trying. We need a two (or three) party system for there to be reasonable and rational progress.
Right now we have one party and a circus with all of them fighting to be the Head Clown.
#3
[loon]Yeah, but all those successful black people are just Uncle Toms![/loon]
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 7:50
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Last August, BuzzCharts pointed out that black unemployment was historically low. Since then, it has fallen even further. In fact, it has dropped from 10.6 percent in November to 9.3 percent in December to 8.9 percent in January. Jeebus, 1.7 percentage points in 3 months? Wonder how this breaks down for us crackers? You have to go all the way back to July 2001 to find lower levels of black unemployment. Uh, wasn't Bush President then too? No credit there, though, eh?
This drop also undercuts the stereotype that the Democratic party is somehow the party that looks out for minorities: Todays level of black unemployment is lower than the 9.5 percent average realized between 1995 and 2000, supposedly the height of Clintons economic miracle. So much for America's "first black President," eh?
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 13:08
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For the second straight year, conservatives failed to identify a frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, according to a poll taken at this years Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.
However, Sen. George Allen (R.-Va.) went from a middle-of-the-road presidential candidate one year ago to the favorite among conservatives in the 2006 straw poll, conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates.
The unscientific poll of CPAC attendees gave Allen 22% -- double the 11% he received in last years straw poll. Although conservatives remain divided, Allens plurality cements his status as one the leading Republicans.
Finishing second was Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) with 20%. One year ago, McCain tied Allen at 11%. McCains strong showing came as somewhat of a surprise given his role as a maverick unafraid of bucking his party. McCain has also rankled conservatives for his support of a campaign-finance law strongly opposed by those on the right.
The biggest losers in the 2006 straw poll were two moderates: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dropped from first place last year (with 19%) to third this year (with 12%); and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who went from second last year (with 18%) to fourth (with 10%).
Here are the results:
Thinking ahead to the 2008 presidential election, who do you think will be the next Republican nominee for President?
George Allen: 22%
John McCain: 20%
Rudy Giuliani: 12%
Condoleezza Rice: 10%
Bill Frist: 6%
Tom Tancredo: 5%
Mitt Romney: 5%
Newt Gingrich: 5%
Rick Santorum: 3%
George Pataki: 3%
Undecided: 4%
*All others tested received 1% or less
When conservatives were polled about Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) maintained her status as the frontrunner among CPAC attendees. With 62% of the vote, Clinton was the clear leader in the straw poll.
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner was the only other Democrat to hit double digits. Warner is considered the moderate alternative to the liberal Clinton. However, he faces an uphill battle against the well-known former first lady.
Somewhat surprisingly, Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.), the 2004 Democrat nominee, pulled in just 2% among CPAC attendees.
Here are the results:
Of the following whom do you believe Democrats will nominate for President in 2008?
Hillary Clinton: 62%
Mark Warner: 10%
John Edwards: 7%
Bill Richardson: 4%
Wesley Clark: 3%
Russ Feingold: 2%
Evan Bayh: 2%
John Kerry: 2%
Tom Vilsack: 1%
Other: 1%
Undecided: 4%
More than 1,200 CPAC attendees participated. An overwhelming number of college students swayed the results of the poll. According to a breakdown by age, those 18-25 made up 81% of respondents. CPAC strikes me as Short Attention Span Theater. Rudy Giuliani / Sam Johnson 2008...
#1
In times of war or national emergencies, study after study prove mainstream Americans, be they male or female, GOP Dem or other, want a strong MAN in the WH - Barring any "Amer Hiroshimas" andor Failed US mil actions in Iran andor North Korea-Taiwan, the GOP can still lose in 2008 iff they choose a candidate that makes Hillary = Patton!?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 7:45
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#3
Rudy and Rice, man that would be a smoker!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/14/2006 12:59
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The poll is deceptive, because there are really two kinds of conservatives. The vast majority are the "real conservatives", who are secular conservatives and just that, "conservative".
The minority are "moral conservatives", who are not true conservatives, in many ways being reactionary. On top of that, wanting a nostalgic return to a religious and mythological, instead of a real, past.
Unfortunately, this minority holds far more sway in the republican party than they should, at least enough to confuse polling results.
They are an embarassment to the real conservatives not because they are religious, but because they wish to incorporate their particular religious beliefs into government.
So who is the candidate most likely to succeed in the next presidential race? It's too early to tell, as anyone who steps forward now will get unrestrained attacks against them from several sides. Only after the mid-term elections will candidates come forward.
A suicide bomber blew himself up Monday after joining a line of Iraqis waiting for government checks in a mostly Shiite district of Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding about 40 including women and children.
The attack occurred as more than 70 people lined up at a bank to receive government checks to compensate for incomplete food rations. Police said the bomber who wore an explosives belt stepped into the line and detonated his explosives as security guards were searching people before letting them in.
Ten people were killed and at least 40 wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. The wounded included three children and nine women, police said.
Late Monday, new television footage showed two hostage German engineers surrounded by masked gunmen. Al-Arabiya TV did not air audio from the tape, but said the kidnappers warned the German government it was the "last chance" to meet their demands or the men would be killed.
Thomas Nitschke and Rene Braeunlich were seized last month in Beiji, 115 miles north of Baghdad. No new demands were made, and the kidnappers did not set a deadline, the TV station said. In an earlier tape, the previously unknown Tawhid and Sunnah group called for Germany to cut ties with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Jerusalem the tape was "once again shocking evidence of human humiliation" and said the Berlin government "will continue our efforts to bring the two of them to safety as quickly as possible."
The U.S. military said Monday that American and Iraqi soldiers killed one insurgent and arrested 16 others in raids around the city of Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad. The Sunday night raids involved units from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division.
One
Iraq soldier was slightly injured in the firefight in which the insurgent was killed, the military said.
Violence is continuing in Iraq as political leaders try to form a new government to include all sectarian and ethnic communities, a move the U.S. hopes will help calm the Sunni-led insurgency so American and other foreign troops can begin heading home.
On Sunday, Iraq's leading Shiite bloc picked Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari for another term, a major step toward forming a government. But Western diplomats cautioned the process of finalizing a new government has weeks if not months to go.
In a sign of the political difficulties ahead, Khalaf al-Ilyan, a senior official of a major Sunni Arab party, criticized al-Jaafari, calling his administration "the worst Iraq has so far experienced" because it failed to curb alleged human rights abuses by Shiite-led security services.
In addition to those slain in the suicide bombing Monday, at least 14 other people were killed nationwide.
Gunmen killed three brothers and two of their sons in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, police said. All five were members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's leading Shiite political party.
A roadside bomb attack in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, killed two policemen, police said. Gunmen also shot dead a policeman protecting electric facilities near a hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City, police said.
In Ramadi, a city west of the capital, insurgents killed a police colonel as he drove to work, police said. Another police colonel was shot and killed as he was driving home in Baghdad's notorious Dora district, officials said.
Gunmen also killed an Oil Ministry employee as he was driving in western Baghdad and another man in Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, police said. And police found the body of a man with a bullet in his head in a Sunni Arab part of west Baghdad.
Three masked gunmen stormed into a restaurant in Fallujah, another city west of Baghdad, and shot dead a policeman, the local hospital reported.
Meanwhile, a prominent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yaqoubi, called for a demonstration Tuesday in front of the British Consulate in the southern city of Basra to protest alleged abuse of Iraqi youths by British soldiers.
Video images first reported by the News of the World, a Sunday newspaper, appeared to show soldiers dragging several young Iraqis into a compound and beating them with fists and batons. The newspaper said the video was filmed in southern Iraq by a corporal two years ago. It did not name the soldier or the unit involved.
British military police said Monday they had arrested one man in their investigation of a video that appeared to show soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq.
An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the demonstration that preceded the alleged beatings said it took place in Amarah, capital of Maysan province 180 miles southeast of Baghdad. Provincial Gov. Adel Mahudar confirmed the demonstration occurred near his office.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:53 ||
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Three of the five suspects arrested by local detectives and their Interpol counterparts over alleged plans of a terrorist attack targeting Cairo, Egypt, are Kenyans.
The three young men are of Somali descent and work for a transport company that has offices in Wajir and Nairobi's Eastleigh estate.
They went to Kenyan schools and have been working in the country.
The five suspects were questioned by Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit detectives and Interpol officers on Saturday, Sunday and yesterday.
The investigators are interested in the suspects' connection with a prime suspect who has not been arrested.
Preliminary investigations by both Pretoria and Cairo security agents have allegedly established that the Kenyan suspects continuously communicated on mobile phones with their South African and Egyptian counterparts.
Transcripts of the telephone conversations among suspects in the alleged international network have already been obtained.
The suspects, who are being held at various police stations in the city and its outskirts, were arrested following intelligence reports from Interpol in Pretoria, South Africa, and Cairo.
Their relatives visited the CID headquarters but were not allowed to talk to them.
Although the Kenyan security agents are being praised internationally for foiling the Cairo terror attack that would have been executed on Friday, the day Egypt was hosting the African Cup of Nations football tournament finals, police spokesman Jasper Ombati and the anti-terrorism police boss Ireri Kamwende yesterday declined to comment about the arrests.
According to Cape Times, South African crime intelligence agents helped thwart plans for a terrorist attack at the African Cup of Nations soccer final in Egypt.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:52 ||
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#1
And I thought the British soccer fans were bad!
Banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has threatened to kill Dinajpur district judge and members of his family and blow up his residence within February 23.
Judge Md Motiur Rahman received a letter sent by post Saturday afternoon. The letter asked the judge to practice 'Law of Allah', otherwise he would be blown up by February 23 along with his family members.
When contacted, Motiur Rahman admitted receiving the letter and said he filed a General Diary with Dinajpur Police Station. He, however, said that he would continue going to the court at Dinajpur Circuit House. He further informed that he earlier received twice such letter of threat from JMB in the last three months.
Meanwhile, Dinajpur police on Saturday arrested a suspected member of JMB from Setabganj upazila.
Moniruzzaman, 19, son of Mokshed Ali of village Nashratpur under Chirirbandar upazila of Dinajpur was later sent to Dinajpur jail.
JMB suicide bomber Obaidur Rahman Babu in a statement at the court of Subdivisional Magistrate of Murshidabad district in West Bengal last Wednesday (February 8) confessed to his involvement in the serial bomb blasts in Dhaka, Gazipur and Chittagong districts.
The Murshidabad district SP Niroj Singh told Kolkata jouranlists that the JMB suicide bomber was quizzed in remand for 16 days.
Obaidur Rahman, who was arrested by Indian police on January 22 from Jorhagacha village under Raghunathganj thana of Murshidabad district, was sent to Murshidabad district Jail after recording of confessional statement by the court, said a top police source in Khulna.
Police on Tuesday arrested one person suspecting him to be Siddiqur Rahman alias Bangla Bhai, chief of outlawed JMJB, from the Mymensingh Railway Station.
Later he was identified as Kahit Ifttekhar Ahmed, 48, son of the late Mir Fayek Ali, a resident of Khalishpur Residential Area in Khulna. He was released from Kotwali police station at 3 pm the next day.
Being informed that Bangla Bhai was travelling by Teesta inter-city train to Dhaka from Dinajpur, police cordoned off the Teesta train and checked all the compartments at 6 pm and nabbed Iftekhar Ahmed as he resembled Bangla Bhai.
He was taken to Kotwali police station and interrogated by police. He was found to be a look-alike and released, police said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:51 ||
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More than 1,000 Filipino Muslims staged a pro-American rally in Jolo, on the island of Sulu, over the weekend.
Impoverished Sulu is about 600 miles south of the capital Manila and has been the site of an ongoing Islamic insurgency.
According to local media, the islanders were demonstrating their support for a joint U.S.-Filipino military exercise called "Balikatan" -- "shoulder-to-shoulder." The joint military drill and humanitarian mission begins Feb. 20 and runs until March 5.
Approximately 5,500 U.S. personnel and 2,800 Armed Forces of the Philippines personnel will participate in the exercise, the 22nd in a series that began in 1981. Approximately 250 U.S. personnel along with Filipino colleagues will provide medical, dental and veterinary care and work on civic action projects during the exercise.
Jolo is one of Muslim Mindanao Autonomous Region's poorest districts.
The Manila Times reported that some of the demonstrators came from as far as Parang in southern Sulu.
The influential but reclusive Sultan of Sulu and North Borneo, Sharif Ibrahim Ajibul Mohammad Pulalun, led the rally.
The rally is the first time Pulalun has openly supported the Balikatan exercise.
Pulalun, a staunch supporter of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, told those at the rally, "I call on every Muslim in Sulu to support the government and the Balikatan program, because this will bring us more humanitarian aid. Let us show the world that we are peaceful citizens. I appeal to every Muslim to welcome our American visitors and support their peaceful cause."
Many attended the rally after hearing Pulalun appealing on local radio stations for the public to support the military drills because it would bring humanitarian and medical aid to Sulu.
Security for the exercise will be tight, as Jolo is also known as a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf Group, which Filipino intelligence believes to be closely linked to al-Qaida.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:50 ||
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#1
"...because this will bring us more humanitarian aid."
#2
yes, alot more aid, which they desperately need.
Posted by: bk ||
02/14/2006 11:14
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#3
"...because this will bring us more humanitarian aid."
Are our troops getting something out of Balikatan? If so, well... okay. *shrug*
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
02/14/2006 12:11
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#4
OK lets back up a bit. Jolo is the key island as far as the Muzzie corruption, terrorist support, and trade/training is concerned in that area. It has been for the last few years "A bridge too far" for the US to reach. In Asia when the US get close to our enemies they flee to Jolo. Filipino VFA restricted us from the chase or even influencing the battlefield. Now we have the chance to get there and influence the locals thus removing another sanctuary, training, and recruiting area. The people on Jolo are under the control of the ASG/MILF/JI. Governor Luook was voted in office outside of the MILF and is focused on peace and development, and staying alive. Humanitarian aid, and it does not take much, is the best method of influence. This event will also help influence the Filipino soldiers and limits of corruption on the island. Sure we could go in there gunned up for battle, but that will do nothing but drive up the violence. The Basilan model worked on their neighbor island and will work again on Jolo. The US Marines and Special Forces there will be prepared to fight and will not shy away, but if they can turn it with meds, a few wells, and a road project I say this is the better option.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/14/2006 12:49
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#5
"The influential but reclusive Sultan of Sulu and North Borneo, Sharif Ibrahim Ajibul Mohammad Pulalun, led the rally.
The rally is the first time Pulalun has openly supported the Balikatan exercise.
Pulalun, a staunch supporter of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo"
Thirty-five miles south of the state capital, this quiet agricultural community best known for its annual grape festival and local wines has waited nine months to learn whether it also has been a home for terrorists.
The trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday for a father and son who were among four members of the regions Pakistani community arrested after a nearly three-year federal probe.
It is expected to provide answers to Lodi residents who have worried about whether their town of 62,000 in the heart of Californias Central Valley harbored a network of terrorists.
Everyone was wondering, is there a terrorist cell? Lodi Mayor Susan Hitchcock said.
Two local imams were deported to Pakistan over immigration violations, leaving prosecutors to focus on a local ice cream vendor and his son. They are charged with lying to federal investigators about the younger mans suspected attendance at an al-Qaida training camp and whether he was planning attacks inside the U.S.
I would imagine most people would like there to be more to the case than lying, Hitchcock said. But thats not to minimize the fact that the younger man (allegedly) attended a terrorist training camp with an eye to harming American citizens.
Umer Hayat, 48, is charged with two counts of making false statements to FBI agents about his son attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and faces eight years in prison if convicted.
His 23-year-old son, Hamid, is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending the camp. The son also is charged with providing material support to terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 31 years in prison.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
The trial also is expected to show how the Lodi arrests fit into the federal governments efforts to track down suspected terrorists on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Nationwide, 407 people have been charged with domestic and foreign terrorism-related crimes since then, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Of those, 228 have been convicted or pleaded guilty.
There were 21 convictions in jury trials and 19 pleas last year, including serial bomber Eric Rudolph and confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now on trial in Virginia.
Federal investigators began examining the Pakistani community in and around Lodi shortly after the 2001 terror attacks. About 2,500 people of Pakistani descent call the area home, most descendants of laborers who began arriving in the early 1900s to work in the areas orchards and packing plants.
A government informant infiltrated the areas Muslim community, and by August 2002 had the first recorded conversation with Hamid Hayat. It is among about 1,000 hours of recordings turned over to defense lawyers.
The informant, believed to be a few years older than the younger Hayat, soon became so close to the family that he slept some nights in the Hayats modest home.
In early 2003, investigators began focusing greater attention on Hamid Hayat, who was born in the U.S. but speaks little English. He spent half his life attending school and staying with relatives in Pakistan.
He had held only marginal jobs by the time he turned 22, most recently working part-time at a fruit-packing plant.
He left for Pakistan in April 2003, first attending a religious school operated by a relative in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. Between October 2003 and November 2004, he also attended an al-Qaida training camp outside the city, according to the federal indictment.
The informant recorded Hamid Hayat in March and April 2003 when he was in the United States and again after Hayat arrived in Pakistan. The younger Hayat said he had been accepted at a camp that provided training in weapons and explosives and hand-to-hand combat, according to the indictment.
He attempted to return to the U.S. in May 2005, but his flight was diverted to Japan after his name surfaced on the federal governments no fly list. He was allowed to continue home but was questioned by federal authorities after he returned to Lodi.
Prosecutors say Hamid Hayat failed a lie-detector test and admitted attending one terrorist camp for three days in 2000 and a second for three to six months in 2003 and 2004. They also say he described the location and layout of the second camp.
Further, FBI agents say they found a book titled Virtues of Jihad during a search of his bedroom.
Prosecutors claim Hamid Hayat returned to America last year determined to attack targets in the U.S., including hospitals and supermarkets. FBI agents arrested the father and son after questioning at the Sacramento FBI office in June.
The Hayat family tells a different story. In interviews and court testimony, family members say Hamid Hayat was a rootless young man who so lacked direction and ambition that he was sent back to Pakistan in 2003 to find purpose and a wife. By the time he flew back to the United States in 2005, the young man was married and arranging to bring his new wife home.
Umer Hayats brother, Umer Khatab, told a reporter last week in front of the familys home that he couldnt comment on the charges or the pending trial.
The Hayats will be tried together but with separate juries because prosecutors say their confessions implicate each other in lying to FBI agents.
Defense attorneys say their clients were pressured by investigators and should have had attorneys and interpreters present when they confessed.
When Umer Hayat told the FBI on several occasions that he did not know of any terrorist training camps and his son did not attend any terrorist training camps, those were true statements, Umer Hayats attorney, Johnny Griffin III, said Monday. Concerning additional statements he made, we will demonstrate to the jury the circumstances under which those statements were made and why they were made.
A mound of documents and recordings provided by prosecutors in recent days contain no smoking gun to prove otherwise, Griffin said.
In Lodi, several residents say the town has returned to a normal pace in the nine months since the arrests. They said they plan to monitor the court proceedings carefully to see what evidence the government presents.
The neighborhoods the same. Its all peaceful again, said Karina Murillo, who has lived steps away from the Hayats for two years, in a home rented from the Hayat family. Its hard for us to believe because weve known them. We never saw anything suspicious or anything until the FBI showed up.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:48 ||
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A huge blast, believed to be caused by a bomb, rocked a supermarket in Istanbul on Monday, wounding six people, local media reported.
Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler was quoted by the semi-official Anatolia news agency as saying that six people were wounded in the blast, one of whom in critical condition. Guler told reporters along with Istanbul Police Chief Celalettin Cerrah that an investigation into the cause of the blast was currently underway, adding "it seems to be caused by a device that exploded."
Earlier, the private NTV cited Guler as accusing Kurdish militants of carrying out the attack.
The explosion took place at a supermarket in the Bahcelievler district of Istanbul, which is Turkey's largest city and popular tourism destination, said Anatolia, adding that the entrance to the two-storey shop was badly damaged. No group has claimed responsibility so far.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:46 ||
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The escape of a suspected al-Qaida trainee from a Yemeni prison more than a week ago is puzzling to his U.S. relatives, leaving them wondering why someone who surrendered on his own would turn around and flee custody.
Jaber Elbaneh, 39, a U.S. citizen accused of training with the "Lackawanna Six," was among a group of 23 known and suspected terrorists who tunneled out of an underground cell in Yemen Feb. 3, the FBI said last week.
"I can't comprehend why he would decide to join the escape after he turned himself in," an uncle, Mohamed Albanna, said at the Buffalo wholesale business where Elbaneh once worked with him.
Albanna and FBI officials said they believe Elbaneh surrendered in Yemen more than two years ago, soon after the U.S. government offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.
With his nephew in custody, "We were relieved because at least we knew he was safe from bounty hunters," Albanna said.
Elbaneh is wanted in Buffalo on a 2002 charge of providing material support to a terrorist organization for allegedly attending Osama bin Laden's al-Farooq camp in Afghanistan months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The United States had asked Yemen to hand over Elbaneh, but Yemen had not yet issued an official response. It was months before the country even confirmed it was holding Elbaneh, authorities said.
"It's very frustrating," said Peter Ahearn, special agent in charge of the Buffalo FBI office. "But every country is different, every issue is different" in negotiating extradition.
With Elbaneh again a fugitive, the hefty reward is again up for grabs, leaving the family fearing for his life. The situation took a toll on Elbaneh's father, who died a year ago, Albanna said.
"We were hoping that it might not be true," the uncle said after the FBI listed Elbaneh among those who had escaped. "The bad dream is resurfacing."
Ahearn said he was not aware of any recent attempts by Elbaneh to contact relatives here.
"If any family members are contacted, for his safety they should contact us," he said.
"He is running with a crowd of what we believe are extremely dangerous known terrorists," Ahearn said.
Elbaneh left the United States in the spring of 2001 as part of a larger group recruited from the city of Lackawanna, near Buffalo, to the camp in Afghanistan. Six of his traveling companions _ dubbed the "Lackawanna Six" _ returned to the United States after the training and were arrested in September 2002. All are serving sentences ranging from seven to 10 years after pleading guilty in 2003 to providing support to a terrorist organization.
Elbaneh never returned to the United States, authorities said, traveling instead to his native Yemen to live.
Ahearn declined to speculate on whether Elbaneh's decision to remain in the Middle East was an indication he had been swayed by his al-Qaida training. Authorities have said they knew of no imminent threat posed by the others in the group.
Elbaneh's uncle said the move was one he had contemplated for a few years.
"He had teenage boys that were growing up here and he wanted to raise them in a different atmosphere," Albanna said, "and he figured going back to Yemen would be the best thing for his children."
Elbaneh's parents, his wife and other relatives in Lackawanna opposed the move, Albanna said. Nevertheless, his wife packed up the couple's seven American-born children and joined her husband in 2001, he said.
"He was seeing how kids in the neighborhood were conducting themselves ... showing some signs of disrespect to their parents," Albanna said. "He felt he wasn't going to allow that to happen."
Elbaneh's wife had been visiting him in prison about every two weeks since his arrest, bringing some of the children along, he said. He described his nephew as a family man who never displayed violent behavior.
"We don't know what the last two years have done to him mentally or physically, but having known him just about all his life, he was as harmless a person as you can imagine," Albanna said.
FBI officials said they consider Elbaneh dangerous.
"Given the circumstances of what he's charged with and where it seems he's fled, we certainly would consider him armed and dangerous," said Paul Moskal, an FBI spokesman.
The 23 al-Qaida prisoners, who were kept in the same cell, broke out through a tunnel 180 yards long that surfaced in a mosque. The fugitives also include a man convicted of the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbor and another convicted of the 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:41 ||
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Perhaps they are trying to throw "da coppers offa yer tail.."
For Muslims in this small Balkan country, the Ottoman Empire's Islamic legacy still endures. However, some say Arab rivals are seeking to undermine it.
"When my cousin entered university in Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabis offered him 200 euros a month and an apartment if he would spread their customs back in Macedonia," says Blerim, a young ethnic Albanian and Muslim who didn't want to give his last name for security reasons. "He accepted, and my uncle is quite concerned."
The tensions in Blerim's family are being felt throughout Macedonia's growing Muslim community ahead of its elections later this month for a new national leader, or reis. Tapping into young Muslims' disdain for the older generation, which many see as corrupt, bureaucratic, and uneducated, fundamentalists - pejoratively referred to as Wahhabis - are turning some in the younger generation toward more conservative interpretations of Islam.
"Some of our students in the Arabic world do consider [the Arab] version of Islam as more authentic," concedes Muhamed Zeqiri, a young Albanian journalist and graduate of Macedonia's Kondovo madrassah. "However, the extremists can't establish a foothold here - Muslims here are pro-Western, and prefer the moderate Ottoman tradition."
Ferid Muhic, a widely respected philosophy professor, agrees, saying "the Wahhabi lifestyle is just too ascetic for most people's tastes."
Yet, since Macedonia's independence in 1991, the fundamentalists have established a small but persistent presence. With their long black beards and wives veiled head-to-toe in black, they are conspicuous in this fairly liberal society. Their secrecy and self-isolation have also raised suspicions of outside funding.
"They don't have jobs, yet somehow they survive, " says Vebija Fejzulovski, a TV director in the southwestern village of Labunishta. "And their families live well here while [the men] are off for months in Pakistan or Afghanistan."
In a country with numerous social ills, most choose to let the fundamentalists be, perhaps for good reason. When another young Albanian journalist, who did not want to be named, started investigating their funding, he was warned to "think about your family first."
Professor Muhic says many fundamentalists are "just kids going through a phase," but they nevertheless have raised concerns internationally. In December 2004, French terrorism expert Claude Moniquet of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center claimed that up to 100 fundamentalists "who are dangerous and linked to terrorist organizations" were operating in Macedonia. Other Macedonian and European security officials surveyed since agree that a small group of local Muslims, exposed to fundamentalism in Muslim states or by Arab proselytizers, are quietly promoting extremist goals.
"We, and our foreign colleagues also, don't consider Macedonia a terrorist target," says one Macedonian intelligence officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "We are more worried about being used as a logistics or recruitment base for attacks in the West. We are monitoring some of these Wahhabis closely."
Adding that Al Qaeda has financial links with local crime gangs, Mr. Moniquet in 2004 accused the most powerful Muslim in Skopje, Zenun Berisha, of supporting "very radical Islam." As chief mufti of Macedonia's capital, Mr. Berisha staffed mosques and the Macedonia Islamic Community (IVZ) administration with fundamentalists.
And because his followers still partially control IVZ funds, imams such as Abdurahim Yashari, who "refused to worship Zenun Berisha," haven't been paid in years. A former interior minister, Pavle Trajanov, who worked with Berisha in the late 1990s, insists, however, that Moniquet's allegations against Berisha were "propaganda" by ethnic Albanian political rivals.
Last summer, an armed attack on moderate clerics - which the clerics blamed on those close to Berisha - shook the IVZ leadership. However, political pressure from the major ethnic Albanian parties helped restore order, and last week Acting Mufti Taxhedin Bislimi won a commanding victory in a preliminary election round. Mr. Berisha withdrew just before the voting.
Mr. Bislimi, who was among the clerics attacked last summer, says he believes the fundamentalists are now unmoored. Saying they have "turned on Berisha, probably because he couldn't pay them," he dismisses them as "uneducated and impressionable - some have drug problems or criminal records."
Bislimi and the IVZ are also troubled by sensationalized local media reports that have hurt Muslims' image. "Because of a few hotheads, we've all been given a bad reputation," he laments.
Indeed, many Muslims feel they are being unfairly tarnished by biased media. Remzi Isaku, a young, soft-spoken imam from the northern village of Saraj, says such "propaganda" ignores the fact that most young Muslims - even foreign-trained, bearded ones such as himself - are progressive and committed to revitalizing Ottoman traditions.
"I know my people and our legacy very well," says Isaku, after leading prayers. "An Arab professor once told me, 'I couldn't be imam in your place - your people have a different mind-set.' It's true. And I couldn't serve in his place, either."
If foreign money originally fueled fundamentalism in Macedonia, squabbling among Muslim elders has kept it alive, says Professor Muhic. If the IVZ can purge troublemakers and resolve its disputes, he says, fundamentalism will eventually "either disappear or continue only in isolated small communities."
According to Isaku, stability depends on younger imams who are well educated - and thus have credibility in the eyes of youths. "Correct Islamic teaching is the key," he says. "It resolves social problems, and it prevents radicalism."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:40 ||
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I wish people would stop referring to the Wahhabi form of Islam as "conservative," when really it's about as radical a departure from traditional, ie truly conservative Islam, as it's possible to be.
#3
The Wahabbis also want into Macedonia because they realize what everybody else has long known: Macedonia is the region's "trigger". Efforts to destabilize Macedonia could potentially result in the whole region going up in flames, which is what the Wahabbis really want.
However, the powerful forces that do not want this to happen have done and continue to do many things to help insure that Macedonia is a peaceful, pleasant place, with no regional army daring to try and snatch it.
#5
Wahhabis usually don't refer to themselves as such because it sort of helps to deflate their contention that they are the only true Islamic sects since the Wahhabis were only founded in the 1800s. If our leaders were serious about drawing distinctions between good/bad Muslims, they'd stop using meaningless phrases like "extremist, militant, or the ever-popular Islamist" and start referring to actual sects and ideologies like Wahhabism, Deobandism, Salafism, and Khomeinism. I notice that countries fighting terrorism that actually maintain sizeable Muslim populations (Russia, India) are a lot better about this kind of stuff than are their Western counterparts.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006 12:02
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A community in Columbia County is one target listed by a man who prosecutors say was planning an attack on America.
Federal officials connect the man from Wilkes-Barre with Al Qaeda. In court documents, the FBI lists Benton as one of the places where Michael Reynolds was plotting a terrorist strike.
Benton is a small community set in rural Columbia County. It's a place far from cities many would consider potential terrorist targets, a reason some people live here.
"These little towns are so nice. I wouldn't think anyone would have any interest in doing something out here," said Louise Remenar of Benton.
Right outside of town runs the transcontinental gas pipeline. Investigators believe Michael Reynolds wanted to attack it there.
People in the community said they're shocked hearing about Benton on any terror target list.
"That's why we're here. We want to raise our kids in a small town because it's safe here. That's amazing," said Allison Cross.
In court papers, the FBI said Reynolds was working online with operatives he believed were part of Al Qaeda. Agents said he had plans for explosives and maps of targets including the Transalaska Pipeline, a refinery in Opal, Wyoming, the pipeline in Benton, and a refinery near Newark, New Jersey.
Terrorism expert Joe Peters said don't be surprised.
"Terrorists can be homegrown, motivated by environmentalism, animal rights or domestic sympathizers to Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups," said Peters. He used to work in the U.S. homeland security department and now runs a consulting service that deals with terrorism.
Police activity filled Reynolds's neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre last year. A grenade was found in his home on Scott Street after he moved out. It was detonated safely. A federal investigation began not long after, much of it tracking Reynolds' moves on the web.
"They get on the internet, know how to search and where to search they get placed into contact rather near them or half way around the globe and begin to connect through this new technology," added Peters.
Reynolds is not charged in connection to this alleged terror plot. He is in the Lackawanna County jail charged with causing that grenade incident.
He tells the FBI he's not a terrorist, that he was working to trap Al Qaeda members and prevent an attack.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:39 ||
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"He tells the FBI he's not a terrorist, that he was working to trap Al Qaeda members and prevent an attack."
ROFL!!! RFSP. YJCMTSU, cuz no one would believe you...
A senior commander of Irans elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed that following the printing of insulting cartoons of Islams prophet Muhammad in European dailies, the Islamic Republics suicide volunteers abroad were being placed on readiness alert to attack Unites States and Israeli interests.
Mohammad-Reza Jaafari, the commander of Irans Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison and a Brigadier General in the IRGC, said, Now that America is after gaining allies against the righteous Islamic Republic and wants to attack our sanctities, members of the martyrdom-seeking garrisons across the world have been put on alert so that if the Islamic Republic of Iran receives the smallest threat, the American and Israeli strategic interests will be burnt down everywhere.
He was speaking to a group of suicide volunteers in Shahr-Rey, on the outskirts of Tehran, on Saturday evening.
Jaafari defended recent comments by Irans hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the Islamic Republics suspected nuclear weapons program. Ahmadinejads speech in Bushehr reflected the words of the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], the beloved martyrs and the victorious, brave, and martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran.
The only tool against the enemy that we have with which we can become victorious are martyrdom-seeking operations and, God willing, our possession of faithful, brave, trained and zealous persons will give us the upper hand in the battlefield, he said.
America and any other power cannot win in the unbalanced war against us.
Upon receiving their orders, our martyrdom-seeking forces will be uncontrollable and a guerrilla war may go on in various places for years to come, Jaafari said.
We tell the American people that tomorrows actions are based on the stance and adventurism of their president [George W. Bush]. So it will be a lot less costly for the American people to contain Bush than to wage a war, which will definitely cost them a great deal.
Previously, the senior IRGC commander had declared that his suicide volunteers will destroy U.S. interests all over the world in retaliation to any attempt by Washington to hit Irans nuclear installations.
In his recent speech, the commander of Irans suicide units hinted that the theocratic state might also make use of long-term sleeper cells in the West for these operations.
In an earlier interview with Parto-Sokhan, Jaafari announced that more than 50,000 individuals had been enlisted in the Iranian military garrison opened to recruit and train volunteers for martyrdom-seeking operations.
He added that several military divisions of the Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison had already been established in several of Irans provinces and others were presently being formed to confront threats by America and Israel.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:38 ||
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Its clear, yet again, that the Spetzlamies and Iranians, i.e. MAdMoud and the IRG, want a war and violence against America, espec on main street. Its also clear that any US-led appeasements or concessions, i.e. tolerance of a nuclearized Radicalized Iran, will likely not be enuff for the Mullahs and their ambitions for Global Caliphate. CAN WE HAVE A DRAFT NOW - America must do what needs to be done to ensure its VICTORY. The American way of war is to APPLY MASSIVE, OVERHWELMING FORCE IN ORDER TO DECISIVELY/DETERMINATIVELY DEFEAT ITS ENEMY(S) WITHIN THE SHORTEST TIME FRAME. To paraphrase Patton, "Quick wars wid overwhelming force and momentum saves lives, both ours and our enemies"; MacArthur - "Prolonged Wars/Indecision results in higher, prolonged casualties and longer term threat or reality of [American]political instability". We all know the policratic, waffle-/scalpel-happy Dems will blame Dubya and the GOP for everything anyways, so why worry about the Dem's opinions. WHERE DUBYA HIMSELF, HIS ADMIN., AND THE GOP ARE PERSONALLY CONCERNED, THE NUCLEAR ASSASSINS = VICTIMS CAMEL-KAZIES ARE AND WILL BE TARGETING HIS AND THEIR SIXES, WHICH IS WHAT HILLARY AND THE DEMS ARE WAITING FOR AS ITS THE ONLY WAY NOW THEY CAN BECOME POTUSES AND PC SAVE = KILL AMERICA FOR OWG.
Only war will stop Iran's drive for a Islamic Caliphate and the Dems & Shillary are so cravenly ambitious they'd be happy to allow it [Caliphate], if it would mean the Presidency for them.
#6
Ahmadinejads speech in Bushehr reflected the words of the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], the beloved martyrs and the victorious, brave, and martyrdom-seeking nation of Iran.
Do Iranians know they are a martyrdom-seeking nation? Do they know their dingbat leader may well be planning to sacrifice his nation in its entirety to start the Armageddon that will bring his beloved Mahdi?
Does Mahmoud think all he has to do is enrich enough uranium to ensure a really huge nuclear accident think bigger than Chernobyl blamed on the US and the joos, with excruciating loss of Iranian Lives (martyrs all) will be enough to start World War III ( the cartoon version).?
Nuts enough to try. And his players are lined up in Syria, well armed and ready to go. Just needs to the Al Q touch and bringing in all the boyz currently screaming around nearby in for the kill. Take out Israel and Mahmouds dream of Armageddon takes shape. Martyr Iran to a nuclear takiiya attack.
A controversial contest for cartoons of the Holocaust was launched in Iran on Monday in a tit-for-tat move over the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have enflamed Muslims worldwide.
The first entry was said to be from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, according to the Website organizing the competition with Iran's biggest selling newspaper Hamshahri, triggering outrage in the United States and Germany in particular.
"As a show of solidarity with the Muslim world, and an exercise in free speech, I would like to submit a cartoon to you on the theme of the Holocaust," Leunig was quoted as saying in a statement on the Irancartoons.com Website.
Hardline President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has already prompted international anger by dismissing the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.
The first of Leunig's two cartoons on the Website show a poor man with a Star of David on his back walking toward the Auschwitz death camp in 1945 with the words "Work Brings Freedom" over the entrance.
The second shows the same scene but depicting "Israel 2002" with the slogan "War Brings Peace" over the entrance and the same man walking toward it bearing a rifle.
"I have had some difficulty getting this work published in my own country, and I believe it would help highlight the hypocrisy of the West's attitude to free speech if you were to publish it," the Melbourne-based Leunig was quoted as saying.
Hamshahri, which is published by Tehran's conservative municipality, said that the contest was officially launched on Monday with the title "What is the limit on freedom of expression in the West?"
Its graphics editor Farid Mortazavi said earlier this month that the aim was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.
Anger over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, first published in Denmark in September, has boiled over into violent demonstrations across much of the Muslim world.
"Freedom of expression has always been a pretext for Westerners ... to insult the beliefs of Muslims," Hamshahri charged in its advertisement for the contest.
"This assault is taking place while criticizing many issues such as the crimes of the United States and Israel as well as historical events like the Holocaust are seen as an unforgivable crime all over the West."
Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain that the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.
The newspaper said that the contest was open until May 5. It did not announce what the prize would be but said that each artist would receive a book of the cartoons submitted.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:37 ||
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Now, if I was an alien from Aldebaran 3, I'd wonder why Danish cartoons satirizing the Muslem prophet caused the later to attack Jews.
#4
The first entry was said to be from renowned Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig
It was, and it wasn't. The cartoon *was* actually drawn by Leunig in 2002. But he did not enter it into the contest, an anonymous prankster did. And now Leunig is whining mightily and frothily about the insult to his honor and dignity. Heh.
#6
Iran loves cartoons in the past they launched a Cartoon attack on visitors from outer space here is the report......me thinks Iran will have trouble finding plausible deniablity for the current flap in light of a repeating pattern....
According to Reuters, state-run television today broadcast a sparkling white disc flying over the capital of Tehran, saying it was filmed last night.
People were reported rushing out into the streets in eight towns last night to watch a bright "extraterrestrial light dipping in and out of the clouds."
The Islamic Republic News Agency also reports colorful objects seen beaming out green, red, blue and purple rays over the northern cities of Tabriz and Ardebil and in the Caspian Sea province of Golestan.
And cartoons of alien spacecraft have been gracing the front pages of local newspapers this week.
An air force officer in the Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the reformist Vagha-ye Etefaghiyeh daily saying Iran's Supreme National Security Council should investigate whether these visitors from afar had hostile intent,
Bulgaria as a NATO member will join a possible strike on Iran if the Alliance is accredited to launch the attack, Bulgarian Defense Minister Veselin Bliznakov said on Monday.
Talking to a local TV channel, Bliznakov said that the U.S.-led NATO might attack Iran aiming at stopping it from developing nuclear weapons.
"This might happen if the situation becomes really complicated," commented the minister.
Bulgaria maintains really good relations with the countries from the Arab world, underlined Bliznakov, but Bulgaria also supports the European standpoint on the "Iran issue", which demands Iran's transparency in the domain of nuclear technology, self-control and guarantees of not developing a nuclear weapon.
However, the minister said, there are still not enough guarantees made by the Iranian authorities.
The U.S. military are drawing up a plan for attack on Iran with an aim to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, in case diplomatic efforts fail, unveiled the British "Sunday Telegraph" on Feb. 12.
The Central Command and Strategic Command planners were "identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation," the newspaper reported.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:36 ||
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Does anyone else find this odd? Why would the Iran situation end up as a NATO operation?
I would presume that this will be a coalition of countries providing whatever they can bring to the table, even if it's only a public declaration of support. I would think that no one will be judged by their material contribution, but for their common sense and stalwart stance against insane people acquiring nuclear weapons. Only cowards and mercenary shills and other, similarly, rabid dogs would disagree, as far as I can see.
#2
Does anyone else find this odd? Why would the Iran situation end up as a NATO operation?
Because for one brief, shining moment, everyone came to their senses and realized Iran was a threat to all NATO countries? Hey, stop laughing! It could happen.
#3
Because for one brief, shining moment, everyone came to their senses and realized Iran was a threat to all NATO countries?
I'm pretty sure France rejoined NATO to keep things like that from happening.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 11:04
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The intervention is probably easier to sell in Bulgaria if a treaty obligation can be cited. Otherwise, they'd have to get authorization from their legislature the same as President Bush did in the run-up to Iraq.
Chalk it up to the rule of law, which in that area of the world should be encouraged and applauded.
#5
Why? Because Bulgaria was under Ottoman rule for 500 years and was liberated less than 130 years ago. Bulgarian memories of muslim rule/memace are fresher than our civil war, and it's one they don't want to repeat.
Posted by: ed ||
02/14/2006 11:29
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Maybe Europe is finally awakening to the danger and the realization that they had better stand together. Standing together with the US is even more promising.
A federal judge ruled on Monday that the Bush administration could not transfer a United States citizen held by the military in Iraq to Iraqi civilian custody.
In his ruling, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington rejected arguments made last week by Justice Department lawyers that the courts had no jurisdiction because the man, Shawqi Ahmad Omar, was not technically in United States custody. In his ruling, Judge Urbina minimized as "legalistic" the government's argument that Mr. Omar was actually in the custody of the 27-nation Multi-National Force in Iraq, of which the United States was only a part.
Mr. Omar, 44, a naturalized American citizen, was arrested in Baghdad over a year ago by military authorities. He has not been charged or allowed to consult with a lawyer.
Lawyers who have brought a lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Omar's wife say that he went to Iraq as a businessman to obtain contracts in the reconstruction of the country.
In its filing last week, the Justice Department gave a long list of particulars in an effort to show that Mr. Omar was, in fact, a senior associate and even a relative of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Department officials said that he would be tried before the Iraqi criminal court on charges in connection with his activities, which they said included plans to use his fluency in English to help kidnap foreigners from hotels in Baghdad.
The case has presented the courts with yet another set of legal questions about the judiciary's role in overseeing government actions connected to the conduct of war. The courts have already grappled with detentions of American citizens arrested inside the United States and those arrested on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Mr. Omar appears to be the first case of an American citizen apprehended in Iraq in connection with the insurgency there.
Judge Urbina said he recognized the importance of the issues before him. "The court is mindful," he wrote, "that this case presents complex questions regarding the executive's power in enigmatic times, mindful of American citizens' due process rights and humbled by the gravity of the judiciary's role as arbiter of the two."
He said that although the Justice Department had insisted that Mr. Omar was not in United States custody, his wife had received formal messages from United States consular officials in Baghdad saying that her husband was "under U.S. military care, custody and control."
The Justice Department said last week that Judge Urbina should not intervene because Mr. Omar was not in the control of the United States and because the government had given assurances that he would not be transferred to Iraqi custody until after he was convicted of any crimes.
Judge Urbina said the assurances did "little to ease the court's apprehension of irreparable injury" to Mr. Omar if the judge did not prohibit such a transfer in a formal ruling.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:32 ||
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And the legislative branch overview of the judiciary is once again AWOL. It's Iraq idiot. It's the call of the theater commander and not some a$$wipe judge in the US. He is now directly interfering with military operations. He has no such Constitutional authority. Time to invoke Jackson.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal held talks with Sudanese officials Monday as part of a tour of Muslim countries aimed at mustering support for his Palestinian movement following its electoral victory.
He said "Our relations with Sudan, whether it be its leadership, government or people, have always been strong... and will further grow now that we have obtained political legitimacy through the polls."
He described as "fruitful" his meetings with first vice-president Salva Kiir and vice-president Ali Osman Taha and said his delegation had asked for Khartoums support.
He said "We are also here to benefit from the ruling experience of the National Congress."
He was referring to the Islamist party of President Omar al-Beshir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup.
Meshaal also said Hamas and Sudanese officials had discussed the March 28-29 Arab summit, which was to be held in Khartoum and he hoped would confirm wide Arab support for his Islamist movement.
Meshaal and his delegation had embarked on a tour of several Arab and Muslim countries - including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran - in a bid to muster support as Western powers stepped up the pressure on the radical group and threatened to slash aid to the Palestinians.
Meshaal confirmed on Sunday on arrival in Khartoum that he had accepted a controversial invitation to hold talks in Moscow, but didnt provide a date.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:30 ||
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Islamic militants killed four US soldiers in the restive southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, the US military said.
The soldiers, who were patrolling with Afghan troops on Monday, were killed when a bomb went off under their vehicle. The patrol then came under fire from the militants before US air support was called in.
Remnants of the ousted Taliban regime late Sunday ambushed two vehicles belonging to Afghan security forces, killing three of the security personnel and kidnapping five in the southern province of Helmand, senior police said on Monday. A Taliban spokesman said they had killed all eight policemen. Only three bodies have been found so far.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:28 ||
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These Taliban remnants are obviously starting to get some professional military guidance. This explains their recent, if modest, improvements in lethality. However, it is "a day late and a dollar short".
Al Qaeda is trying to increase its presence in Lebanon and create a foothold in the country, the countrys acting Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat told Asharq al Awsat Saturday.
In recent weeks, the Lebanese authorities have uncovered two al Qaeda groups and detained several foreigners, including Syrians, Palestinians and a Saudi. We do not know the size of this activity but the issue is worrying us. I have the impression [al Qaeda] is trying to establish bases in Lebanon.
Fatfat denied Lebanon was fertile grounds of extremist Islamic groups, such as al Qaeda, as had been mistakenly reported by news agencies following an interview he gave to the French newspaper Liberation. He did, however, admit that al Qaeda was secretly active in places where there are suitable ideological current and social conditions (such as poverty).
The Interior Minister hinted Syria was allowing al Qaeda members to infiltrate into Lebanon and indicated Osama bin Ladens group was coordinating its activity with the Palestinian pro- Syrian Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine- General Command. He revealed the PFLP-GC had fired rockets at Israel, under orders from al Qaeda and noted there are several trends within al Qaeda, one of which would be cooperating with the Syrian security services.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:26 ||
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Al Qaeda - the "rent-a-thug" service for the Muzzy world.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will call on neighboring Pakistan to tackle the Taliban with the same vigor it has shown in dealing with al Qaeda when he visits Pakistan this week, officials said.
Allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been testy for much of the time since Pakistan's independence in 1947.
Pakistan officially dropped support for the Taliban after the September 11 attacks and has since arrested hundreds of al Qaeda members, including top lieutenants of Osama bin Laden.
But the Taliban, most of them ethnic Pashtun, often with tribal links on both sides of the porous border, are being allowed to operate from Pakistan, says an increasingly exasperated Afghanistan.
"Mr Karzai will explain that the people of Afghanistan want an end to terrorism and there has been no decisive campaign (by Pakistan) about it," said Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, an Afghan presidential adviser on foreign affairs.
"One of the requests will be for Pakistan to act with the same vigor in arresting Taliban as it has been doing with clamping down on al Qaeda," Spanta told Reuters.
A wave of 15 suicide bombings since November, most claimed by the Taliban, has fueled accusations Pakistan is not doing enough to stop militants from attacking from the safety of its soil.
"Diplomacy is stretched here," said an aide to Karzai who declined to be identified. Afghanistan wanted action: "honest, sincere and intensive cooperation" in tackling the Taliban.
Pakistan denies helping Afghan insurgents but says some Taliban might be able to slip back and forth over the border.
But Pakistani political analysts say it is constrained by internal and external considerations when it comes to getting tough with the Taliban.
Pakistan has a large Pashtun minority, many of whom have risen through the ranks of the army, and partly as a result, Pakistan sees Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, as natural allies.
Afghanistan's Tajik factions, which rose to power after the Taliban were ousted, are seen as close to Pakistan's rival, India.
So Pakistan risks alienating both Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns with a crack down in a conservative, anti-American region where many sympathize with the Taliban, analysts say.
There are also domestic compulsions for not getting tough with the Taliban, said Pakistani analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.
Pakistan's volatile North West Frontier Province on the Afghan border is ruled by an alliance of Islamist parties, some of which openly back the Taliban, which would be enraged by drastic action against the Afghan Islamists.
"It would strain the government's relations with the MMA and it doesn't want to do so at the moment," Rizvi said, referring to the alliance ruling North West Frontier.
Pakistan's core foreign policy issue -- its decades old rivalry with India -- also hangs over its Afghan relations.
Afghanistan's trade, aid and diplomatic relations with India are flowering, much to the suspicion of Pakistan which recently accused India and Afghan drug lords of meddling in an insurgency in Baluchistan province, in Pakistan's southwest.
Karzai is due to arrive in Pakistan on Wednesday and will meet President Pervez Musharraf during his three-day stay.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:26 ||
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#1
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will call on neighboring Pakistan to tackle the Taliban with the same vigor it has shown in dealing with al Qaeda when he visits Pakistan this week, officials said.
#2
The MMA is a big backer of the Taliban too. Pakistan's government and army needs to crack down on it and the Taliban. Someone else will take them on if Pakistan doesn't.
#4
Heh heh!! Never spotted that - Great Uncle Bulgaria - they sure have muslims in Bulgaria, AAA.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/14/2006 7:04
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#5
Soooo... Pakistan's between a rock and a hard place, since it was founded (IIRC) as "India, but Muslim and not Hindu" and thus needs to hold to at least a modicum of Islam for raison d'etat, demographics and politics?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
02/14/2006 11:18
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#6
Is the Taliban's form of islam the real deal? Or are they just as "apostate" as the Shia? Someone need to drop that bug in someone ear.
Winding up three days of talks with North African leaders, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday he is confident that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will fail to find a haven in this Muslim region.
At a news conference after meeting with King Mohammed VI at his royal retreat in the Atlas Mountains, Rumsfeld was asked what risk he saw of Islamic extremist groups putting down roots in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia.
"Each of those three countries are managing their internal affairs in a way that makes that an extremely low possibility," he said.
"There are so many places in the world where there are large ungoverned spaces, where the governments have not taken the kinds of steps that we've seen in these countries," he added.
He said Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia had created "an environment that's inhospitable to terrorism."
After the meeting with the king, Rumsfeld was flying back to Washington.
Morocco was the last stop for Rumsfeld on a five-day trip that began in Sicily for a NATO defense ministers meeting and included his first visit to North Africa as President Bush's defense secretary.
Rumsfeld came to North Africa to try to strengthen U.S. military ties to Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. All three are viewed by the Bush administration as important allies in the global fight against terrorism -- not least because they have spoken out publicly against Islamic extremism and terrorism.
Morocco is the oldest U.S. ally in North Africa. The relationship began with a treaty of friendship in the late 18th century. After a successful North Africa campaign in World War II, U.S. forces continued to make use of Moroccan airfields and other military facilities.
The U.S. military even stored nuclear weapons on Moroccan soil. In 1952, President Truman ordered the storage of non-nuclear components for nuclear bombs at three U.S. Strategic Air Command bases in Morocco -- which was then a French colony -- where B-36 and B-47 bombers were located.
Full nuclear bombs were stored in Morocco from 1954 and for much of that decade. With Moroccan independence in 1956, pressure mounted for U.S. forces to leave, and by 1963 all U.S. forces had withdrawn.
This was Rumsfeld's first visit to Morocco as defense secretary. Upon his arrival Sunday afternoon, Rumsfeld visited the Moroccan royal stables near the village of Bouznika; he watched about a dozen of King Mohammed VI's prized Arabian horses strut their stuff.
Rumsfeld, who keeps horses on his property in Taos, New Mexico, also toured a trophy room where the king displays several extraordinary saddles given to him by people around the world. One saddle, Rumsfeld was told, once belonged to a sultan who ruled Libya before Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
After the display, Rumsfeld was presented with a saddle and other gifts. He then returned to Rabat and had dinner at a government villa with Moroccan Prime Minister Driss Jettou.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:25 ||
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The trial of a man suspected of being the al-Qaeda number two in Yemen has begun in the capital, Sanaa. Saudi-born Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal is accused of killing 19 Yemeni security officers as well as financing al-Qaeda and helping an armed group. The trial comes shortly after 23 convicts, including members of al-Qaeda, escaped from prison in Sanaa.
Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal was captured in 2003 by Yemeni security forces and his arrest was hailed by Yemeni and US officials as a major blow to al-Qaeda's operational capacity in Yemen. Yemeni security officials believe that al-Ahdal was working directly for the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, who was killed by a US missile fired from an unpiloted aircraft in 2002.
A second man, Ghaleb Abdullah al-Zayedi, has also been charged with hiding al-Ahdal. Both al-Ahlad and al-Zayedi deny all the charges.
Monday's proceedings began amid tight security.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/14/2006
01:23 ||
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I find the reference to tight security of note. I wonder, does it really matter if he's convicted, since they can't seem to keep anyone incarcerated, there?
Rwandan police are cracking down on noisy churches, confiscating instruments from 11 congregations around the country in recent days. Police spokesman Theos Badege told the BBC this was in line with new laws on noise pollution.
Mosques have also been told to lower the level of their loud speakers when calling for prayer, he said. But some church leaders argue that packed congregations will often mean an increase in volume levels.
Police warned church leaders to worship more quietly after a meeting with them on Saturday. The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says Rwandan preachers often use microphones for their sermons, with musical instruments connected to the sound systems. Guitars, keyboards and speakers were among the items taken by police officers, he said. Mr Badege said the worshippers could come to police stations to retrieve their instruments, where they would receive a warning.
Under Rwandan law, violations are punishable with fines of between $18 to $180. Nightclubs were targeted when the law when came into force last year, Mr Badege said. They were only allowed to reopen after their premises were sound-proofed. Those noisy Afro-Amish church people agian. When will they learn common ole genecidal hacking and slashing, tribal genocide like the rest of us?
#1
WHen NOSTRADAMUS describes people seeing "strange birds" in the skies he's referring to winged ANGELS - no word yet of trumpets or bowls of wrath or Satchmo.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Monday ruled out Tamil Tiger demands for a separate homeland in the island's north and east, but said he would rein in armed groups %u2013 a central rebel demand ahead of crunch talks.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have threatened to resume an armed struggle that led to two decades of civil war which killed more than 64,000 people up until a 2002 truce unless the government gives them a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils. "There's only one country, we can share power. Not a separate state. That idea must be taken off ... it is completely out," Rajapakse told Reuters in an interview ahead of upcoming talks with the rebels in Switzerland to avoid a slide back to war. This is a small country, where you can't have two states. I won't allow the country to be divided. You have to give up the concept of having two nations, or two countries ... There is no Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. There cannot be an Eelam."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2006
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ISLAMABAD - Pakistans leader said Monday he supports building a pipeline that would carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and India - a project the US has opposed. Pakistan needs more gas because the nations economy has become stronger in the past two years, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told a visiting group of journalists from the US and Asia.
Pakistan wants gas. Iran wants to sell it. What is the problem? Musharraf said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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#1
LOL. Another RFSP / YJCMTSU story, lol. Pervy, baby, don't quit your day job, k?
#3
Yep. It has to pass thru Bugti and Mazari homelands.
The real reason Pakistan wants it is that it thinks it can use the pipeline to blackmail India.
Once Indian industry becomes dependent on the gas, the paks can threaten to turn it off during dispute over Kashmir.
Posted by: john ||
02/14/2006 15:02
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#4
Ah, thanks john. I just fig'ged Pervy was hoping for a little (more) "special" treatment... To add the ability to blackmail (or worse) India certainly ups the ante and explains his (soon to be dashed) hopes, lol.
Hardline Hindus burned Valentines Day cards on the eve of the years most romantic day and warned couples across India against getting too amorous over a foreign festival that corrupts traditional values, police said.
Saint Valentines Day has become increasingly popular in India in recent years, a trend led by retailers who do healthy business selling heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy bears. But the growing popularity of the day in officially secular, but mainly Hindu India has also sparked protests which have sometimes turned violent.
On Monday, dozens of sword-wielding Hindu activists used loudspeakers in the central city of Bhopal to ask couples to stay indoors on Tuesday. We oppose it (Valentines Day) tooth and nail because the concept has come from the West and through it an attempt is being made to spoil Indian culture, said Devendra Rawat, a spokesman for radical Hindu outfit Bajrang Dal in the city. Our teams will visit parks frequented by boys and girls and teach them a lesson. In Mumbai activists of the Shiv Sena, a right-wing pro-Hindu political party, on Sunday vandalised a gift shop. The activists said they would also target hotels and restaurants that offered special romantic deals on Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2006
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#1
Guess no cards, jewelry, love notes and chocolats-candies for the Hindu babes this year.
#6
On Monday, dozens of sword-wielding Hindu activists used loudspeakers in the central city of Bhopal to ask couples to stay indoors on Tuesday.
For once, maybe this isn't religious related, but a long-standing effect of the Bhopal explosion years ago? Just tryin' to give the Hindus the benefit of the doubt and not lump 'em in with the muslims.
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 13:02
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#7
These so called activists are quite small in number.
The press makes a big deal out of this every year in their attmept to equate so called fundamentalist hindus with muslims.
Twenty morons break a few shop windows and it makes international news.
Take a look at some of these protests in India. Cameras right up to the front of the group, because there is basically just one line of people. Twenty people in a nation of one billion
They need to find the nearest cow, collect some crap and throw it at these people.
Tell them cowshit is holy so they can't complain.
I don't fear any hindu hardliner concerned about valentine's day. He is an idiot. But he isn't about to kill me or make me convert to his religion.
I don't fear any so called christian hardliner. Pat Robertson may be an ass, but I'm sure he is basically a decent person. He isn't about to force me into anything.
The muslim hardliner, yes I'm afraid of them.
They don't break shop windows, or hold anti-abortion protests. They fly airplanes full of people into buildings.
#8
Just don't tell them that I did up a nice homemade valentine packed with unusual and handmade goodies for me sweetie. No, I did not get her a bowling ball.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/14/2006 16:14
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#9
Police on Tuesday detained 39 members of the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal when they staged protests and tried to disrupt Valentine's Day celebrations in the national capital.
The activists staged protests at three different places against Valentine's Day celebrations. Five women were among those detained by police.
Police said around 60 Bajrang Dal activists burnt Valentine's Day cards in the Kamla Nagar market in north Delhi. Police detained four Bajrang Dal members who were later released.
In the central commercial hub of Connaught Place, police detained 35 Shiv Saniks including five women when they tried to stage a protest near a restaurant. They were held for almost two hours before being let off.
Love was in the air as twosomes thronged parks, restaurants and malls in major cities to celebrate Valentine's Day with roses, chocolates and sweet nothings under the stern watch of Hindu hardline groups who tried hard to mar the celebrations.
Lovers were everywhere - holding hands and cosying up in parks and open spaces, meeting in lounges, discotheques, pubs and even parking lots - as flower sellers made a killing with a single rose stalk going for as much as Rs 50 in some places.
It looked as if the Indian heart had wholeheartedly adopted this day as its very own.
"For me the day is too special, since I got my girlfriend on February 14 three years ago. It's a kind of love anniversary for both of us," a beaming Moses Phillip, a young executive in the capital, said.
In Mumbai, couples celebrated the day on a low-key keeping the Shiv Sena protests in mind.
Posted by: john ||
02/14/2006 16:30
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PRIME Minister John Howard must distance himself from comments on Muslims made by Liberal backbencher Danna Vale and force her to apologise to the Australian people, minor party senators say.
Does anybody pay attention to what minor party senators say?
Ms Vale has caused a furore by tying debate over the abortion drug RU486 with published comments by an imam saying Australia would be a Muslim state in 50 years. She said Australians were aborting themselves out of existence and at the current rate of 100,000 a year "that's five million potential Australians we won't have here."
So she's supposed to grovel for pointing out the obvious?
Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison said the comments were outrageous. "I think they're outrageous and she should retract them," Senator Allison told reporters. "They're very unfortunate from almost every point of view."
Except that of truth, of course...
"I've heard those very silly remarks made about immigrants to this country since I was a child. If it wasn't the Greeks, it was the Italians ... or it was the Vietnamese who were going to outbreed us it's a nonsense." Asked if she thought Mr Howard should pull Ms Vale into line, Senator Allison replied: "Yes, I do, yes I do.
"Yes! I want to see her humiliated! I want to see her degraded! I want to see her paraded naked through the streets..."
"Take your hands outta yer lap, Senator! That's disgusting!"
"I think the prime minister should come out and say that was ill-considered and that she ought to apologise. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Let's see him get off the fence for a change and reprimand his coalition members and just tell Australians where he stands on these issues, what are his values, does he support that kind of comment and if he doesn't, he should say so."
"We wanta see him grovel, too! We wanta see him naked Ow! Hey! That hurt!"
Ms Vale whose southern Sydney electorate takes in areas hit by racial strife yesterday joined four other female coalition colleagues in opposing attempts to strip Health Minister Tony Abbott of his approval powers over the abortion drug RU486. But Senator Allison, who co-sponsored the private member's bill now before parliament to hand authority for RU486 over to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, said Ms Vale's argument did not hold true. "The point I made in my speech in parliament on this issue was that you cannot coerce women into motherhood it never did work, it's not going to work in the future, it doesn't work now," Senator Allison said.
"We realize this. We're against motherhood, y'know. Apple pie's fattenting, so we're against that, too."
It's not like they play baseball, ya know.
Fellow Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said Mr Howard should dissociate his government from Ms Vale's comments.
"Yes! Throw her out! Throw her out naked!"
"Cheeze. Wotta buncha pervs. No wonder nobody votes for you!"
Senator Bartlett also referred to comments made last year by government backbenchers Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Panopoulos describing the wearing of Muslim headscarves in Australian schools as an act of defiance. "This Islamophobia is just getting out of control and it's quite dangerous if it's allowed to be repeated by senior politicians of the governing party without clear condemnation by the prime minister," Senator Bartlett said.
"Better if they just stick with being mealy mouthed and politically correct, like we do."
Asked if Ms Vale's comments were simply a left-field argument for keeping the administration of RU486 out of a bureaucratic control, Senator Bartlett replied: "I don't know if it's left-field, it's off the planet is what it is."
"I mean, whoever hearda such a thing? They oughta..."
"Yeah, yeah. You said that."
Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert said many people would take offence at Ms Vale's comments. "I think they're insensitive, I think she actually needs to concentrate on the real issues and I think she's completely off the mark," Senator Siewert said. "I think she needs to sit down and have a good think about it."
#1
Australian Greens senator Rachel Siewert said many people would take offence at Ms Vale's comments. "I think they're insensitive, I think she actually needs to concentrate on the real issues
#2
Australian Greens senator Kerry Nettle had no problem offending Catholics though! (and if someone could explain the proper way to add a link I'd be grateful :-) )
#3
In the post comment window, simply create some descriptive text - even "Link" will do, lol - highlight it with your mouse, click the "Link button" you see just below the text box you're typing in, and fill in the URL. Very easy if you've already put the URL in the cut/paste buffer.
If this doesn't work with the browser you're using, such as Mozilla Firefox, blame them - and change browsers.
#6
The "outbreed" argument is actually very valid.
Australia really should care, and kudos to this lady.
This is even one of the major weapon of the *colonization* of Europe and other parts of the world by muslim minorities bankrolled by the islamintern.
There are about 300 000 abortions in France each year, and about 350 000-500 000 migrants entering the country (not counting the kiddies under 15); you do the maths... add the low "ethnic french" natality (1,2 I've heard) against the higher african natality (2,5 for north Africans, 5,5 for black africans), for a total of 1,94 in 2005, and you've got a recipe for disaster, especially when taking age into account.
According to a left-leaning but very un-pc scholar, JP Gourévitch, in his famous book based on suimple and realistical demographical projections, nothing fancy, in 2060 about 2/3 of the french population will be muslim.
Supposedly, right now about 1/3 of the births in France come from migrants, a contreversial figure I've re-heard recently during a tv debate, by a leftist woman who was *happy* the migrants helped "repopulate France by providing 30% of the births". Of course, it didn't occur to her that the need to "repopulate" was because she and her Frankfurt school gramscist buddies destroyed western civilization, and made it enter a deathspiral with natality almost at half-remplacement level everywhere in Europe.
Modernity as it is now is simply unsustainable. I'm not anti-abortion/pro life per se, I'm not opposed to homosexuality, I do believe in personal freedom, but when in Rome recently you've got a demonstration against Benedict XVI and in support of free-abortion and homosexual marriage, you can't help to wonder at the nihilism and "anti-life" message this carries.
I like "Spengler" in Asia Times, and I fully suscribe to his(?) views. Truly, we're entering an age of extinction, and some civilizations are dying... and it's suicide. Islam itself faces dire prospects, but it is not a predator, it is a carrion feeding off suicidal West.
#8
Yes, I see your point; IMHO it is a predator against "live" foes like the USA, Israel, India,... which are "ennemies" to be fought, while when it comes to Europe, it is a carrion, for lack of better words.
Sorry if I always repeat the same stuff, but the real prize of islam nowadays is Europe, as emphasized by Al qaradawi, who expressly sez that "islam will return to Europe as a conqueror, not by the sword, but by dawa". Theses guys truly believe, as many, many, many "Moderate (european) Muslims"(tm) secretly, that Europe will be theirs before the turn of 21st century, and they're probably right if nothing changes.
It's a concerted, willful effort by the "islamintern", using population shift, subversion, and corruption, with the complicity of the euro-Elites. I do believe in the Eurabia thesis.
#10
This Islamophobia is just getting out of control and it's quite dangerous...
Yeah! It's not like Islam is used to justify gang rapes, riots, and terrorism!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2006 8:03
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#11
If the buttons don't work for you, try Opera.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2006 13:22
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#12
Boy, it's really gonna suck when those 2 issues (Islamic immigration vs. American's aborting themselves out of existence) go head to head here in the States. I've often wondered of these projections, though, how much INTEGRATION plays a role. For example, most Muslims I know here in the U.S. are actually only having 1-2 kids per couple (like the American "standard"), so I take that as them becoming more American. I guess the melting pot still lives more here than in Europe, though.
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 13:53
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#13
Mrs. Rightwing and myself have just had our 4th Judeo-Roman Catholic-native American child. Interesting ethnic balance, I do agree but one firmly entrenched conservative family values. Being in the Fire Service I do see some of the horrors of Ghetto demographics. We do need to integrate some minorities better. My family is an example of success.
Most Britons will be forced to have an identity card within five years after MPs defeated the Lords last night, despite a Labour backbench rebellion. Moves to require people to buy ID cards when they request or renew a British passport were carried by 310 votes to 279, a majority of 31.
The Governments Commons majority was halved, but by recent standards the revolt was modest. The result spared Tony Blair embarrassment. The Prime Minister was again absent for a key division after the aircraft bringing him from South Africa was grounded. Gordon Brown, with a big speech on security, and John Prescott, who stood in for Mr Blair at the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, appealed to MPs not to damage the Government. The Chancellor spent three hours seeing Labour backbenchers to try to contain the rebellion.
The Commons reinstated the Governments original plans for people to pay an estimated £93 for both documents when they request or renew a British passport from 2008. Critics say that the cost could be higher.
The Identity Cards Bill will now go back to the Lords, who had voted to decouple the issuing of ID cards from passports, blocking ministers plans to add millions of people to the identity register each year technically on a voluntary basis. The Lords must decide whether to insist that passport applications stay separate from identity cards, amending the Bill again in a ping-pong with the Commons, or to give way, which is the more likely option.
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, moved amendments overturning changes made to the Bill by peers, saying that the Government had made clear that it envisaged linking ID cards to passports as part of their phased introduction.
Applicants for residents permits and for visas from certain non-European Union countries and asylum-seekers would also be subject to compulsory registration of biometric data fingerprints and iris scans on the identity database. Mr Clarke told MPs that certificates issued by the Criminal Records Bureau might in future be added to the list of designated documents requiring registration on the identity database, but Parliament would debate such a move first. Driving licences will not be conditional on having an ID card.
Under the Governments plans, people will be free to apply for an ID card on their own initiative, at a cost estimated to be £30. But relatively few would be expected to, given that potential benefits such as guaranteeing entitlement to public services could apply only if cards became compulsory. If ID cards are linked to passports, 48 million people will eventually have their details added to the national identity register; 12 million do not have a passport.
Several Labour MPs unhappy at the plans intervened during Mr Clarkes remarks. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, opposed the plan to link passports with ID cards, saying that it amounted to creeping compulsion: people who had to travel abroad for work, family or other reasons would have no choice but to submit to the identity register.
David Blunkett, who had set out plans for identity cards when he was Home Secretary, defended the policy, saying that it would enable the Government to know who was in the country and who was entitled to work and services. Alistair Carmichael, for the Liberal Democrats, gave warning that the move would create an irresistible momentum towards compulsion and accused ministers of breaching Labours manifesto commitment by linking passports with ID cards.
Ministers say that they would be unlikely to make ID cards compulsory until at least 2012, by which time at least one general election would have been held.
#3
I used to be against it, but with every transaction asking for a DL or SSN it's not a matter of if, but when. Just do it right, and anyone caught forgin'/stealing/creating ID's....kill em
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 1:09
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#4
.com, opposition to this unites many on the Left and Right. I fought the Libertarians at Samizdata on this issue for well over year, then I found the Burg and left them to it.
The Left and Right's objections come down to more or less the same thing - vague government conspiracies and 1984 Big Brother is watching you type fears of behavioural controls.
The idea is being floated at the moment in Oz. Getting the OK in Britain, makes it more likely here.
BTW, making it voluntary is a smart move. We will see all kinds of little benefits to those who have one that will drive adoption.
#5
Agreed. As Frank points out, we already have 2 "ID cards" - our DL and Passport. We can't get along without the DL, period. The Passport is essential for travel.
What's the big deal?
Stupidity and CogDis manifest as irrational fear.
We need one, extremely well thought-out, efficiently designed, comprehensive, and secure ID. Just one. The security advantages are obvious, if people put aside their irrational compulsively conspiracy-ridden selves and consider it honestly. A no-brainer that only the criminals, asshats, and shallow-thinkers / addled can hate.
I blame Hollyweird and novelists for the drum-beat of (at least) two generations of Bad Govt, Rogue Govt, Bad Apple Individual, Eeevil Corporation, Konspiracy Kool Aid BS masquerading as plot-lines. Ooooooh! So Skeeeeery! Pfeh. Gutless turds, the lot.
No offense intended... except for assholes and fools.
#6
I have come 180 on this. Mostly because the left is so wood headed and loonie about it. I like my privacy but I don't have any urealistic belief that I really have any.
If the governmet wanted to track me it wouldn't need an ID to do it. Following the money will do it. My access to my money tells them what I am up to and where almost every day. Unlike most US citizens I do have a Passport. No ID no government services.
#7
Spot-on, SPo'D. Excellent points. I thought about it for a long time before coming over, too. Now, it seems obvious to me - and I really do blame the tinfoil morons in the media who've tried to brainwash us all against authority... hoping to become the authority themselves, I'd wager.
#10
BP - I'd say you're missing the real point and the positive possibilities.
A single ID, as knock-off proof as can be made - and there are several bio-tech answers here, whether permanent (citizen) or temporary (alien).
Encode with info. For Temp (Aliens) it auto-expires in synch with their visa - going into RFID alert mode if not renewed by authorized agency. This would go a looong looong way toward stopping the illegal dead in his tracks. Picture it: no bank, or ATM, or local check-cashing firm, or credit card transactions or anyone else will deliver up funds / services once the card goes into alert mode... and a hundred other similar stop-points.
FrankG, SPOD & dotcom have it right.
BTW, I own you. - I'm not your Govt, I'm your Banker / Lender / Boss.
#18
*
Yes Seafarious, I was aware that Pak land = Forge land, more precisely, because it's a national industry of Pakistan, will our new "National ID card" be knocked off anyway?
Death penalty for manufacture or carrying of a fake would certainly show real intent. Anything else and we're back to where we are today with stuff we carry day to day. Whine, cry, hand wringing, but, but, but...If you don't have the guts to back it up, just skip it.
#20
OK guys, what happens (Moonbattery aside) if an honest mistake causes tour "One Card" to malfunction, be deleted, is hacked, computer corrupted etc.
Under the "one Card" plan, simply put, you're fucked.
Where we have the several differebt cards (DL, SS, Bank, Credit, etc) there's backup.
I think you've not realized the pure havoc if this one card is rendered invalid, through any means, think IRS freeze untill you pay all your (Real, or by error) back taxes, or if the govt decides you're a faker.
A single card is so much more prone to destroy you than any combination of two or more different sourced cards would ever be.
Think of this scenario, suddenly all your cards, ID, drivers License etc were rendered invalid at the same time, and your boss says your bank has frozen your account, the mortgage on your home were called in, your bank would neither take or give you any money, no ATM's would work, and you could only exist on the cash you have on hand right now.
Scared now?
Bad, Bad, idea.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/14/2006 13:49
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#21
Biometrics. What's in the card exists in "the systems" - and you can verify who you are in a simple visit to any ID authorizing location.
Do you really think that fingerprint data, retinal data, etc., ALL of them in combination, is "hackable" and do you not think that resolving your identity through those means wouldn't be straight-forward?
Hell, such devices are dirt-cheap, now. IBM has the fingerprint tech built into one line of laptops.
Look at identity theft today, as an example of something very bad and very very messy that could be stopped dead in its tracks.
I suggest that this is not being thought through, as requested. S'okay. It won't be resolved here, today. But this will come, because we do have the means, now, to easily and inexpensively and uniquely ID ourselves.
No offense, but I won't be the one who has to "get over it".
#22
If we do get ID cards, I insist on being stopped in check points for ID. If they don't put it to use, then I'm against ID cards. Also, gotta use them to vote. That should create about 8 more red states.
#23
.com, I don't think the inexpensive part is there yet, but when it is I expect private parties, banks and credit card companies, to roll out biometric ids rapidly. They've got money on the line. The government has nothing at risk.
When the banks roll it out, the government should contract with them to issue ID's to non-customers for a fee to be charged to the state. The data should be entered into a national database the governemnt maintains, much as SSN is entered into a db when you get a DL. These ID could be used for positive ID at polling places and to obtain other government docs such as passports and DL
And biometric data should be linked to ALL financial accounts in the country and there should be no financial account without biometric ID data.
1) picture of your face on the card - for instant human-level verification
2) signature on the card - sig data is primarily a pressure map as much as the physical character formation - current systems can nail you cold with 4 or 5 sample sigs. Human-level can "see" obvious forgery, so another quickie check there, too.
3) facial map data - this tech is coming along nicely
4) print data - fingers and palms
5) retinal data - both eyes
6) DNA data
Then other data as required by status, perm or temp, such as visa info.
YOU are proof of who you are once you've been "mapped". Your physical presence, stored away in the main DB, is absolute proof. The card is a convenience.
Of course, if you suffer the mother of all accidents or are the victim of incredible violence and have severe facial deformation, double-detached retinas, and amputation of both hands, then it comes down to your DNA... and that doesn't happen overnight... but you'll be pretty busy trying to survive, no?
The card is your convenient remote / portable storage device for both your biodata as well as your financial data, voter auth, etc. etc. etc. The list will be extensive - prolly including your library fees due...
Just my take. It's coming and it will solve many problems. Yes, it will create fear. Yes it will be inconvenient - once. Yes, there are likely things left out, but that was for smarter folks to work out - like you, NS, heh.
#25
Something like this but smaller. You only need an ID if you are physically there actually. You could even have a couple "backup" ID's. No biologic unit present the ID will not work. Biometric USB flash drive. So much for ID theft.
#26
When the banks roll it out, the government should contract with them to issue ID's to..
Banks?? You mean the banks that are more than willing to set up people (*cough*IllegalImmigrants*cough*) with accounts with only a matricula card as identification? Those banks?
Something's gotta change drastically before any bank is empowered to do that sort of thing.
#27
.com if you use all of those methods( fingerprints, retinal data, dna, etc) why would you even need to issue a card? If you are stopped by the authorities all you need to do is stand there and through a retinal scan or fingerprint they will instantly know who you are without the card. Sounds more like a massive database project with the appropriate scanning devices in the field.
#28
I think you guys are thinking to linerly. Add this to that OTHER British assault on freedom and privacy.
Oh, you don't know what I'm speaking of? The Gallileo GPS system that will support (require) transponders in ALL vehicles so that your "road use" can be taxed appropriatly. Now, want to try some more John Lennon?? (imagine.....it's easy if you try.....)
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rose to 613.2 percent in January, near its all time peak, which could fan anger against President Robert Mugabe's government by the millions struggling to survive. The January figure compared with 585.5 percent in December as housing and food prices raced into the stratosphere. It was close to the all time high of 622.8 percent hit during the same period in 2004, official data showed on Monday. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is one of the highest in the world and compares with the average for sub-Saharan Africa of 21.3 percent in 2005, excluding Nigeria and South Africa.
Once a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe has grappled with rampant inflation during six years of recession. Shortages of foreign exchange, fuel and food have been widely blamed on government mismanagement. "With no legitimate avenues of expressing discontent, rising inflation may form the basis of a groundswell of mass discontent," said Eldred Masunungure, chairman of the political science department at Harare's University of Zimbabwe. "We have a very pessimistic situation and people's patience is fast being eroded, which should worry the government as there could be a sudden explosion of mass anger." Mugabe has been accused of using tough security and media laws to silence political dissent.
The central bank has forecast inflation could rise to between 700-800 percent by March before it starts to slow down, although some analysts say Zimbabwe could see four digit inflation this year. On a monthly basis the consumer price index rose by 18.6 percent, according to the Central Statistical Office (CSO).
The CSO said a family of five will now require an average of 20 million Zimbabwe dollars every month to remain above the official poverty line, up 16 percent from December. On average, Zimbabwean workers, who have borne the brunt of the country's economic crisis, earn Z$5.5 million each month. But many people have to get by on far less in a country with an unemplmoyment rate of around 70 percent. "It seems we are going to be stuck with double digit month on month figures which means annual inflation will rise faster," University of Zimbabwe business studies professor Anthony Hawkins told Reuters.
Analysts said annual inflation was likely to quicken at a faster rate in the next two months, pushed by increases in the price of basic commodities and fuel. Price pressures have also been driven by a weakening Zimbabwe dollar, which has boosted the cost of imports. The central bank has since capped its continued slide, a move that has seen a resurgence of the black market. "The underlying problem that needs to be addressed to tackle inflation is to stimulate economic production ... producers have to feel secure to produce, which is not happening," Harare based economist James Jowa said. "Confidence has been severely eroded over time due to lack of a clear policy direction in the economy, especially in agriculture," he said.
Industrial production has fallen to below 30 percent of capacity and commercial agriculture has plummeted 60 percent in the past five years, which critics blame on Mugabe's seizure of land from white commercial farmers for redistribution to blacks. Mugabe denies his policies are responsible for the country's economic woes, maintaining the economy has been sabotaged by Western powers opposed to the seizures.
$1=99,201 Zimbabwe dollars Today, that is. More tomorrow.
And I used to make fun of the Laos when the kip was at 1:1 with the bobby pin. Maybe Bob should ask Vientiane for financial advice.
#3
Explains his recent "turnaround" in the land seizure deal. Of course, I wouldn't show myself back in that country if I'd been run off like the whites had there.
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 11:37
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A UN inquiry into conditions at Guantánamo Bay has called on Washington to shut down the prison, and says treatment of detainees in some cases amounts to torture, UN officials said yesterday.
This is of course the opinion of an organization that can't decide whether Darfur is genocide.
The report also disputes the Bush administration's legal arguments for the prison, which was sited at the navy base in Cuba with the purpose of remaining outside the purview of the US courts, and says there has been insufficient legal process to decide whether detainees continued to pose a threat to the US.
The report, prepared by five envoys from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and due for release tomorrow, is bound to deepen international criticism of the detention centre. Drafts of the report were leaked to the Los Angeles Times and the Telegraph newspapers, but UN envoys refused to comment yesterday.
During an 18-month investigation, the envoys interviewed freed prisoners, lawyers and doctors to collect information on the detainees, who have been held for the last four years without access to US judicial oversight. The envoys did not have access to the 500 prisoners who are still being held at the detention centre.
And the released prisoners, of course, have to be believed. No skepticism allowed.
"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government," Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys, told the LA Times. "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."
The report lists techniques in use at Guantánamo that are banned under the UN's convention against torture, including prolonged periods of isolation, exposure to extremes of heat and cold, and humiliation, including forced shaving.
The UN report also focuses on a relatively new area of concern in Guantánamo - the resort to violent force-feeding to end a hunger strike by inmates. Guards at Guantánamo began force-feeding the protesters last August, strapping them on stretchers and inserting large tubes into their nasal passages, according to a lawyer for Kuwaiti detainees who has had contact with the UN envoys. The effort to break the hunger strike has accelerated since the UN envoys produced their draft, with inmates strapped in restraint chairs for hours and fed laxatives so that they defecate on themselves. "The government is not doing things to keep them alive. It is really conducting tactics to deprive them of the ability to be on hunger strike because the hunger strike is an embarrassment to them," said Thomas Wilner, an attorney at the Washington firm Shearman & Sterlin, who represents several Kuwaiti detainees.
No responsible government allows prisoners to starve themselves to death. Not a single western government would allow it to happen today.
The report adds to a body of evidence about mistreatment. A report by the International Committee of the Red Cross last year said interrogation techniques there were "tantamount to torture".
Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said: "This is going to solidify the already highly negative views around the world about what the United States is doing in Guantánamo, and since the Red Cross complaints are more than a year old, it will suggest to a lot of people around the world that the problems are not solved."
However, the report did not seem to carry weight in Washington. A White House spokesman said it was an al-Qaida tactic to complain of abuse, while the Pentagon does not comment on UN matters. But a Pentagon official yesterday insisted there had been no attempts to break a hunger strike with punitive measures. "All detainees at Guantánamo are being treated humanely and are being provided with excellent medical care," he said.
It's not punitive to put down a feeding tube, and it's not punitive to restrain someone to keep him from ripping out the feeding tube.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
In the name of compassion, to help put an end to torture and genocide, as an honest effort to end wasteful and counterproductive funding of terror supporters and apologists, to move the world's governments toward honesty and transparency, toward ending diplomatic cover for diabolical Ponzi schemes to defraud the world, to effect a first step toward removing the greatest obstacle to honest brokerage among nations, as an honest effort to remove international apology and support for corruption, and to clear the airwaves and media of disingenuous disinformation and lies, I call for the closure of the UN.
#3
Heh... Don't worry, T - we'll want you to help us with the Free Nations Coalition. What you've seen will make your experience invaluable in making sure we get it right, next time.
;^)
As Hizbollah meshes into Lebanese political life, a serious effort is afoot to push the organisation into laying down its arms and distancing itself from the policies of Iran and Syria. It comes at a critical juncture: Iran is under pressure over its nuclear programme, Lebanon is out from under the Syrian military thumb, and another Islamic movement, Hamas, is set to take a Palestinian governing role.
Hizbollah, branded a terrorist organisation by the United States, has been reinventing itself in Lebanon in recent years to ensure its survival. From a shadowy group linked to militants who carried out some of the worst violence of the 1980s, it is evolving into a mainstream political party with 11 legislators in the 128-seat Lebanese parliament and two ministers in the 24-member Cabinet. Now, with its Syrian backers in Lebanon having lost power since Syrian troops quit Lebanon last year, Hizbollah may be facing its greatest challenge. For the first time, open debate has unfolded in Lebanon about Hizbollah's weapons as well as its allegiance to the country. Many among Lebanon's new anti-Syrian majority accuse it of dividing its loyalties among Beirut, Damascus and Tehran.
Critics worry that Hizbollah, whose name means Party of God, has become the Lebanese arm of an anti-US regional front for Iran and Syria. Anti-Syrian politician Walid Jumblatt and others have said Lebanon should not be "a barricade for Iran's nuclear facilities." Referring to Hizbollah's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Jumblatt said Friday: "No matter how strong he is and he is strong as a simple Lebanese citizen I say no to Syrian and Iranian tutelage." Meanwhile, Hizbollah faces a 2004 UN Security Council resolution demanding it disarm. Lebanon's many militias disarmed in 1991 after a 15-year civil war ended, but Hizbollah kept its weapons, saying it needed them to fight Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese army of about 70,000 troops with a modest arsenal couldn't move against Hizbollah for fear it would split along sectarian lines as happened in the civil war. The Israelis left in 2000, but Hizbollah fights on over a disputed piece of land called. Shebaa Farms. It maintains that Israel, having twice invaded Lebanon, could do so again, and has been cool to the idea of merging into the Lebanese army, lest its options be curtailed in any future conflict with Israel. It has mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and over 10,000 Katyusha rockets. It is believed able to field thousands of armed supporters, drawn from the Shiite Muslim community who are Lebanon's largest single sect.
Nasrallah says he is open to discussions on the arms, and disputes the idea that his group does the bidding of Damascus or Tehran. To burnish his credentials as a Lebanese political figure, Nasrallah joined hands last week with a major anti-Syrian Christian leader, Michel Aoun. The two men called for a national defence strategy that would deal, among other matters, with the weapons issue. "How do we protect Lebanon and what is the best strategic way to protect the country when we agree on that, we can discuss the weapons," Nasrallah said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Lawzy, what a mish-mash mess 'o lies and bullshit. Ol' Zeina and the Jordanians don't really buy any of this, do they? Surely this is meant solely for foreign consumption.
Almost every sentence contains a bona-fide howler - or two, lol.
This may be the only sentence that is actually non-tongue-cheek true: "The Lebanese army of about 70,000 troops with a modest arsenal couldn't move against Hizbollah for fear it would split along sectarian lines as happened in the civil war."
Most everything else expects the reader to be completely stupid -- or a *wink-wink-nudge-nudge* symp.
#2
There are two options. Either force Hizbullah to fully integrate into the Lebanese military, or force them to disarm at the point of a bayonet. Most likely the latter one.
However, from there, unless they show loyalty, they no longer have a seat at the table. This means giving them the option of expulsion to Syria, Gaza or Iran.
In a surprising turn of events, deep divisions have emerged within Egypts Gamaa Islamiya (Islamic Group) which Ayman al Zawahiri led before allying himself with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. In a statement faxed to Asharq al Awsat, The Legitimate Committee of Gamaa Islamiya revealed it had followed with sadness and sorrow the changes in the beliefs of Abboud al Zomor who wrongly speaks on behalf of the group, after links between him and the Gamaa have been severed for several years. The Committee indicated it was aware of al Zomors writings where he recognized the Bahai faith and demanded it preach freely, as well as calling all political groups in Egypt to defend it and ally themselves with it. The non-dated statement claimed that the Bahai faith had turned its back on Islam.
A senior Islamist figure, who requested anonymity, confirmed the statement was issued on Sunday in Cairo. He added that the Legitimate Committee had existed prior to Al Zawahiri joining forces with al Qaeda under the banner of the World Islamic front for jihad (holy war) against Jews and Crusaders. It appointed the Egyptian physician as bin Ladens deputy and issued a number of statements by al Zawahiri when he was al Gamaas leader, before he merged with al Qaeda. It was headed Dr. Fadhl al Mukna extradited by the Yemeni authorities to Egypt in 2004.
Meanwhile, Um Haitham, wife of al Zomor, said the latest statement, which she had yet not read, was aimed at creating conflict among Islamists in Egyptian jails. She revealed that her husband, who was convicted for his role in planning the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, had served his full sentence but was yet to be released, in spite of several court orders ordering he be freed. Judging him a threat to national security, the Egyptian authorities have extended his sentence. As far as Um Haitham was concerned, her husband had never spoken to her about the Bahai faith. They had last met during a 30- minute visit to the Leman Tora prison on 16 January. On her next visit ten days later, Um Haitham discovered al Zomor had been moved to an unknown location.
Denying his client had claimed to speak on behalf of al Gamaa Islamiya, Nizar Ghorab, al Zomors lawyer, questioned the motives behind this latest statement from an unknown group adding, I am a man of law. I can only discuss well-documented matters.
Mahmoud Ismail, an Egyptian lawyer representing Islamist extremists in Egypt, told Asharq al Awsat the statement was probably issued by a number of Gamaa members currently in prison, in collaboration with the security service, in order to secure their release. In a previous interview, Al Zomor, he said, had not mentioned the Bahai faith but spoken about the Shia. His comments were taken out of context by the journalists and criticized by his wife Umm Haitham. The latest statement was aimed at creating confusion following al Zomors disappearance from his Egyptian prison Ismail added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Former Haitian President Rene Preval fell further below the 50 percent he needs to win outright as the counting of ballots continued on Monday in an increasing tense presidential election.
With 89.9 percent of ballots counted, the one-time ally of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had 48.7 percent of the vote, compared to the 61 percent he was given a few days ago after initial results from Tuesdays election were posted, the Provisional Electoral Council said on its Web site. He will face another ex-president, Leslie Manigat, who had 11.84 percent, in a runoff election on March 19.
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JPost - Reg Req'd
In an attempt to prevent Hamas from taking control over the media, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday decided to place the PA's radio and television stations under his jurisdiction, PA officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post. Arafat taught well: control the message - be the conduit
The decision, which comes days before the new Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council is sworn in, drew sharp criticism from Hamas leaders, who called it "illegal." The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, a body that consists of the official Voice of Palestine Radio and TV, has always functioned as a department inside the PA Information Ministry. The corporation was established soon after the return of the PLO to the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the signing of the Oslo Accords. "following strict Nigerian Corporation laws"...you may have read about them...
According to the officials, the decision came in the form of a "presidential decree." The decree means that Abbas and his office, not the Information Ministry, will now be directly in charge of the electronic media. The decision also affects the PLO's official news agency, Wafa, which will now report directly to Abbas's office. WAFA=WTF?
"Hamas is about to form a new cabinet and we don't want to give them control over the radio and television stations," a top PA official explained. "This means that a Hamas information minister would have no power over the media."
Palestinian journalists and editors who met lately with Abbas warned that they would not agree to serve under a Hamas administration. PA security officials expressed a similar position immediately after the results of the election were announced. Abbas's move is the latest in a series of similar decisions taken since Hamas won the January 25 parliamentary election. In the past two weeks, Abbas issued several decisions to appoint or promote officials in various ministries and PA institutions.
At least five Health Ministry officials were promoted to senior positions last week, triggering protests from Hamas and other groups. The officials are all members of the ruling Fatah party. Go figure!
The majority of the PA's top officials are Fatah members who fear that they will lose their jobs when, and if, Hamas takes over. Hamas representatives said last week that they were planning to cut the number of civil servants, pointing out that many people were on the payroll but not working. Hamas also said that it would cut the number of senior officials in PA ministries, especially in cases where more than 10 directors-general were serving.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri strongly criticized as "illegal" the latest decisions, saying Abbas had no right to make such changes before the formation of the new cabinet. He said Abbas was exploiting the transitional period to make last-minute changes and to create new facts on the ground. the Paleos are learning politics at its' cut-throat best, some day they may learn the Art of Compromise..... naaaaaaggghhh
Posted by: Frank G ||
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#1
The decree means that Abbas and his office, not the Information Ministry, will now be directly in charge of the electronic media.
Headline is from the original Pak Daily Times article...
Police on Monday arrested 18 protesters on Monday after thousands of students attacked public and private property and burned several shops here to protest the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PTUI peace be upon him) in some European countries. The police tear-gassed around 5,000 enraged students who pulled down dozens of signboards of a Norwegian cellular firm. The demonstration was the biggest in the city since the cartoons, considered blasphemous by Muslims, were reprinted in some Western newspapers. We stayed away because the issue is very sensitive and any attempt to stop these people from expressing themselves against the issue will aggravate the situation, a senior police official told Daily Times on condition of anonymity.
Either that or you stayed away because you're incompetents who're great at beating the hell out of one or two bad guyz, but not so good at controlling howling mobs or bad guyz with guns...
Norwegian firm Telenors property was the obvious target of the demonstrators who pulled down all promotional signboards with the Telenor logo and messages from shops, police and eyewitnesses said.
Danes, Norwegians, Samoans, they're all pretty much the same from a Peshawar perspective...
The protestors became unruly after they were barred from marching towards Governors House. They then headed towards the Edwards College and threw stones at the recently constructed portion of the historical Edwards College, eyewitnesses said. Besides inflicting damage to the college building, a number of college students also suffered injuries, a senior college teacher said.
Severe strain from all that eye-rolling, no doubt. Rawness of the throat from howling. Shoulder strain from waving their little student fisties at the skies. That sort of thing...
Later, the protestors attacked the Peshawar Press Club smashing its windowpanes, damaging the clubs reception and offices of the president and general-secretary, the club said in a statement. Police contingent remained silent spectators during the attack, the club management said.
The students, also joined by members of the general public, then divided themselves into several small groups with each group containing a thousand demonstrators and took to different streets in the cantonment area. One group reached Sadder bazaar at around 10.30am and began smashing windowpanes of several shops without any attempt from police to protect public property from being attacked, Muhammad Noor, a shopkeeper who had pulled down the shutter, said. Not a single policeman tried to stop the mob, which targeted every public installation including traffic signals and streetlights, he said.
"Tea?"
"Yes, thank you!... Duck!"
"Perhaps we should move couple blocks east?"
"Good idea."
The students were joined by the Mobile Dealers Association of Bilour Plaza and later by every one present at the venue and an organised campaign was then launched against the signboards of Telenor.
"Yarrrr! Kill the billboards!"
Police started firing teargas shells after more than two dozens of the signboards were razed to the ground and torched. Police arrested 18 protesters but it was not clear what charges they were booked under.
"Rioting" not being an indictable offense in Pakland, apparently. Nor destruction of property. Now, if they'd bruised a Koran, that'd be different...
Meanwhile, protesters set fire to a shop selling products by Telenor in Attock, Reuters quoted Norways largest telecom company spokesman as saying.
Arson's not an indictable offense, either...
On Sunday an outlet in Attock selling Telenor products was set on fire, Telenor spokesman Espen Tuman Johnsn said. There are some SMSs going around urging people to boycott Danish and Norwegian goods in general and some about Telenor in particular, he said. Johnson said the boycott campaign had had little impact on Telenors operations in Pakistan. Telenors fully owned Pakistan subsidiary has around a seven percent market share and about 1.2 million subscribers. Telenor has 11 Norwegian nationals working in Pakistan but said it had no plans to pull any of them out of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#4
I thought historical berserkers were actually shock troops high on some kind of mushrooms-based drug? Theses are not berserkers, they are rioting primitives from a culture unable to produce anything of value.
#5
More and more I keep asking why corporations, when targetted by such ruffians, don't themselves hire some hard boyz to play ball with the baddies?
Think about it. For $20,000, not only would a few hundred of these recalcitrants be nursing broken knees and arms, but nobody would ever mess with the company again.
The Hamas military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, has recently finished registering and collecting weapons used by its activists in the northern Gaza Strip, a process sources said began at the order of the Hamas political bureau, after Hamas' victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections last month.
The Palestinian and foreign sources said weapons collection in the central and southern parts of Gaza was hindered by fighting between Fatah and Hamas activists. The weapons that were collected have been transferred to Hamas military wing leaders in Gaza.
Hamas sources said the weapons collection was an attempt to show the West that Hamas is succeeding in enforcing internal discipline. Some also see the move as a step toward the possibility that a future government will decide to extend the period of "calm," in which Palestinian organizations agree to refrain from attacking Israeli targets, and to collect weapons from all the armed Palestinian groups.
However, other sources said the arms collection is the first step in unifying all armed Palestinian factions under one body, which will be under the jurisdiction of a future Hamas government. The unified factions are meant to constitute a counterweight to the PA security services, which will, for the most part, be under Abbas' jurisdiction.
Thus setting the stage for the upcoming civil war. Ummm, yummy popcorn.
The weapons collection comes in the wake of several moderate statements made by Hamas leaders recently in an effort to make the Hamas victory more acceptable in the eyes of the West. The most recent such comments came Monday, when a Russian newspaper published an interview with the head of Hamas' political bureau, Khaled Meshal, who was quoted as discussing, for the first time, the possibility that Hamas will disarm. Meshal also recognized the 1967 borders, despite the Hamas position that Palestine's borders are the river and the sea. "If Israel recognizes our rights and pledges to withdraw from all occupied lands, Hamas, and the Palestinian people together with it, will decide to halt armed resistance," Meshal told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
"Until it's more convenient to start planting bombs again," he added.
Meshal also criticized the roadmap, saying Hamas is not obligated to adhere to the Quartet-backed peace plan. He said no one was carrying out the roadmap demands and that the Palestinians need not do so.
That should do it for the roadkill.
In the Gaza Strip, Hamas has stopped holding armed parades following Palestinian criticism after an explosion killed 20 Palestinians during a Hamas parade in the Jabalya refugee camp in September. The explosion took place aboard a truck carrying Qassam rockets in the midst of the parade.
Forgot the safety pin, huh?
Posted by: Steve White ||
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In the Gaza Strip, Hamas has stopped holding armed parades following Palestinian criticism, having realized they make tempting targets for IAF bombing runs.
#2
Israel should accept no more internal excuses and cut off all Paleo contacts ASAP. Then, by floating several relatively inexpensive tethered blimps with live cameras on them, they can watch every bit of the Paleo turf.
If the Paleos start to erect a rocket launcher, then proactively blow it to smithereens before it can fire. If anybody complains, they can show them the game films.
Any mischief the Paleos do, the door swings outward: Paleos living in East Jerusalem and Israeli Arabs and released Paleo criminals get kicked out. No Paleos get let back in, however.
From that point on, the Israelis need only one argument: we do not oppress Paleos, because we have nothing to do with Paleos; if they feel oppressed, it has nothing to do with us.
If they are in a witty mood, fire over some leaflets that explain this situation to the Paleos.
EFL.
The Defense Department is rapidly expanding its army of robot warriors on land, air and sea in an effort to reduce American deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We want unmanned systems to go where we don't want to risk our precious soldiers," said Thomas Killion, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for research and technology. Robots should take over many of the "dull, dirty and dangerous" tasks from humans in the war on terrorism, Killion told a conference of unmanned-system contractors in Washington last week.
Despite doubts about the cost and effectiveness of military robots, the Defense Department's new Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategic plan that's updated every four years, declares that 45 percent of the Air Force's future long-range bombers will be able to operate without humans aboard. No specific date was given. One-third of the Army's combat ground vehicles are supposed to be unmanned by 2015. The Navy is under orders to acquire a pilotless plane that can take off and land on an aircraft carrier and refuel in midair. Robotic submarines also are planned.
The Pentagon is doubling the number of Predators and Global Hawks, unmanned surveillance aircraft that have been prowling the skies since before the Iraq war began.
While they may save lives, robots can be very expensive. Operating the Global Hawk costs as much as $100,000 per flight hour, many times higher than a piloted aircraft, according to Melody Avery, an advanced-aeronautics expert at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. Still, those vehicles are being joined by a host of small robotic machines with such names as Talon, Raven, Shadow, Hunter, Pointer, Dragon Eye and Sand Dragon. That's the American way of war. Expend hardware, not people.
Miniature drones equipped with cameras and weighing only a few pounds can be launched by hand, bungee cord or catapult, from a rooftop or a moving truck.
A hopping gadget described by John Feddema, a robotics expert at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., can jump 50 feet in the air to place a communications system in a tree or on a rooftop. A "throwbot" can be tossed over a wall or into a building to avoid a deadly ambush.
The remote-controlled Pacbot can sniff a roadside bomb 50 yards away, roll up and defuse or detonate it. A new, larger version, the Marcbot, pokes its video camera through doors or windows, looking for signs of danger.
Soldiers "love" the robots, said Army Col. Edward Ward of the Pentagon's Robotics Systems Joint Project Office. "We're in the business of saving lives, and it works."
Marine Col. Terry Griffin, who also works in the Robotics Systems office, talked about a hypothetical situation in which soldiers were ordered to check out a multistory building in which insurgents might be lurking. "Do you want to send your son or daughter in there? No, let's send a robot," Griffin said. "Three years ago, I had to beg people to try a robot," he said. "We don't have to beg anymore. Robots are here to stay."
According to Ward, the Army had 150 combat robots in 2004 and 2,400 at the end of 2005, and it will have 4,000 by the end of this year. Robots also can help in other ways; for example, they can relieve soldiers of the heavy loads they must carry in combat. The Pentagon wants to get a soldier's fighting weight down from 100 pounds of equipment to 40 pounds, Killion said. Caddy, the number 5 grenade.
An unmanned truck - known as a MULE, an acronym for Multifunction Utility Logistics Equipment - can carry supplies, water and extra batteries. MULEs can run in convoys with or without human leaders. The Army is developing armed ground vehicles that can maneuver along trails and across country at speeds of 25 mph or more without drivers.
Next month, Boeing will deliver the first of its new X45 pilotless bombers, with a 50-foot wingspan and the ability to refuel in midair. Darn. That thing could stay up for weeks.
Northrop Grumman is working on an X47 model that's designed for use on an aircraft carrier.
Not satisfied with the abilities of its current crop of robots, the Pentagon wants unmanned machines that can operate completely without human controllers. At present, most of these systems are controlled by radio signals or through long wires, known as a "robot-on-a-rope." "The goal is a fully autonomous system by 2020," said Jeffrey Kotora, the manager of the Joint Robotics Program in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office. Killion called it "a system that has the smarts to operate like a manned system."
Robotic experts at the conference, which was sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said it would be extremely difficult to produce fully autonomous systems with what Kotora called "sensing and almost thinking ability."
Larry Jackel, the Robotics Initiatives director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said, "We've just scratched the surface." And he has a great name, even if he can't spell.
#1
Radical Islamists > "Now the decadent imperialist Americans insult our suicide bombers and the Prophet again by NOT fighting us mano-a-mano. Time for our women and children to blow themselves up again".
#2
Um, I thought a MULE was a Multiple Use Labor Element. I guess some people don't know their computer game history. What's next? Will people forget the signifigance of the magic word xyzzy?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/14/2006 0:40
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#3
"DANGER, Guillermo Robinson! DANGER!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 1:02
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#4
It's remarkable how many supposed military experts, don't get the robots being expendable bit.
#5
we're all anthropomorphic with R2D2 and C3PO as images - the robots we'll get will only be identifiable by their glitches: "that one always pulls to the left when vaccuuming"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 1:11
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#6
Amen, guys. A very effective and valuable resource to assist our great people. Especially so when expended, as designed, to leave the warriors free to do what they do best.
#9
Not satisfied with the abilities of its current crop of robots, the Pentagon wants unmanned machines that can operate completely without human controllers.
The Bersekers are comming.
#10
The islamists are crying foul: The US bots are violating the first and second laws of robotics per isaac asimov. Hehehehe
Posted by: Mark Z ||
02/14/2006 11:22
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#11
$100,000 per flight hour
I'll bet that's because they're spreading the fixed costs R&D over the 15 or 20 of these things that exist. I'd like to know what the variable cost/hr is.
#13
I agree with SPOD re: the sentience threshold. Just lookit Bender, *lol*
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
02/14/2006 12:28
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#14
"Allright, Unit DNE of the line. Why did you do it? This is your Commander, Unit DNE. Report! Why did you do it? Now, you knew your position was hopeless, didn`t you? That you`d be destroyed if you held your ground, to say nothing of advancing. Surely you were able to compute that. You were lucky to have the chance to prove yourself."
"Yes, sir."
"You knew what was at stake here. It was the ultimate test of your ability to perform correctly under stress, of your suitability as a weapon of war. You knew that. You knew that General Margrave and old Priss Grace and the press boys all had their eyes on every move you made. So instead of using common sense, you waded into that inferno in defiance of all logic-and destroyed yourself. Right?"
"That is correct, sir."
"Then why? In the name of sanity, tell me WHY! Why, instead of backing out and saving yourself, did you charge? .....Wait a minute, Unit DNE. It just dawned on me. I`ve been underestimating you. You KNEW didn`t you? Your knowledge of human psychology told you they`d break and run, didn`t it?"
"No, sir. On the contrary, I was quite certain that they were as aware as I that they held every advantage."
"Then that leaves me back where I started. Why? What made you risk everything on a hopeless attack? Why did you do it?"
"For the honor of the regiment."
The Dinochrome Brigade, reporting for duty!
Posted by: Steve ||
02/14/2006 12:54
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#16
Soon enough, you will be able to down load your entire conscience and being. Flash it over to a 'bot and presto immortality and sentience. Do'nt need no stinkin' remote either!
#17
I'm working on an exploding frizbee. My idea is to hand launch it, but use little preprogramed compressed air jets to suspend it's flight to greater ranges. A miniature camera will send back radio images of the ground beneath the dish. When the dish hovers over the target, a signal slows, lands, and vaporizes the frizbee.
Some may say it's pie in the sky, but I think it'll work.
#18
Some day the order will be transmitted to the 'bot to go into some extremely hostile place and this is the reply: " I'm sorry, Dave, but I cannot do that."
#19
Well, for now they are not sentient and they are damn capable. Think of a mini tank with an M-240 mounted on top that is super-accurate.
They are not regarded as expendable because they are expensive. While that will change somewhat as quantities purchased and technology improves, the most significant units will never be cheap.
#2
Well, the only places left standing, far down the street and well around the corner, are Big Als Fine Ribs and Aloha Luau. Im sure they can rustle up something.
A suicide bomber struck Iraqis lined up Monday to receive government ration payments, killing 10 other people and wounding about 40 including women and children. At least 14 other people were killed in other violence nationwide. The suicide attack occurred in a mostly Shiite Muslim eastern district of Baghdad as more than 70 people lined up at a bank to receive government checks to compensate for incomplete food rations. Police said the bomber joined the line and detonated an explosive belt as security guards were searching people before allowing them to enter the bank. Ten people were killed and at least 40 wounded, interior ministry spokesman, Maj. Falah Mohammedawi said. The wounded included three children and nine women, police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
attacking civilians lined up to get ration payments - such brave Jihadis! Feh.
India's most-wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, blamed for a series of blasts in Mumbai that killed 257 people in 1993, is prepared to stand trial, an aide to the fugitive crime kingpin was quoted as saying on Monday. A man claiming to be the legal consultant for Ibrahim announced that he was ready to stand trial in London, but did not rule out a return to India.
Meraj Siddiqui claimed that the charges against Ibrahim were "fabricated" and "baseless" and said that he would not get a fair trial in India. "We are ready for a fair trial in London, since all the charges against him are fabricated," the Times of India quoted Siddiqui, said to be speaking by telephone from London, as saying. The demand for a trial in Britain appeared to be based on a successful battle against extradition in London of a former suspect in the 1997 killing of a Bollywood producer, said Mumbai attorney Majeed Memon.
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When Mary Donaldson arrived home from the cinema she found two officials outside her door. One was holding a large antenna. They told the pensioner and her friend that distress signals from ships at sea had been traced to her house. Lifeboats and air-sea rescue helicopters had been launched on several occasions but coastguards had drawn a blank. Nothing was found ... except that her house was the source of the signals. The two officials identified the source of the radioed SOS calls as Mrs Donaldsons digital television box.
The military in distress mayday signals were picked up by satellite and intercepted by the RAF Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Kinloss, Scotland. They immediately alerted coastguards in the area from which the distress call was coming.
Twice in recent weeks the coastguard at Lee-on-the-Solent launched fullscale search and rescue operations. Two lifeboats and a helicopter were scrambled and for three hours combed 20 miles of coastline around Portsmouth harbour, at a cost of more than £20,000. Then it happened again and a two-hour search was launched. Twice they found nothing amiss and all the rescue crews returned to base.
Last night the cause of all the distress was revealed as Mrs Donaldsons Freeview digital television receiver. The frequency used by the digital Freeview set-top box was identical to that dedicated to emergency distress beacons. Michael Mulford, an RAF spokesman, said: This is very unusual. Its a complete freak, and the odds of a digibox sending out a 121.5 signal must be astronomical.
A spokesman for Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, said that digital boxes were designed only to receive signals, not to transmit them. They shouldnt be sending out signals at all, let alone maydays, he said.
There are more than ten million Freeview boxes in the country, costing as little as £30 each, but Ofcom officials believe that it may be only a small batch that are faulty and can send out the mayday signals.
At home Mrs Donaldson said: I still cant believe that little box sparked all this. I came back from watching a film to find two men holding a massive antenna. My friend thought I hadnt paid my television licence or something. It was incredible, like a dream.
She added: I dont think Ill be getting a new one. Id hate to cause any more bother.
from Greyhawk. It needs no comments I could add. The 3rd ACR is rotating home.
Via email from a family member, a letter from the Mayor of Tall 'Afar, Iraq to the men and women of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and their families.
In the Name of God the Compassionate and Merciful
To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.
To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.
To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city.
Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed. Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city. Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young. This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawis followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.
I have met many soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; they are not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism.
The leaders of this Regiment; COL McMaster, COL Armstrong, LTC Hickey, LTC Gibson, and LTC Reilly embody courage, strength, vision and wisdom. Officers and soldiers alike bristle with the confidence and character of knights in a bygone era. The mission they have accomplished, by means of a unique military operation, stands among the finest military feats to date in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and truly deserves to be studied in military science. This military operation was clean, with little collateral damage, despite the ferocity of the enemy. With the skill and precision of surgeons they dealt with the terrorist cancers in the city without causing unnecessary damage.
God bless this brave Regiment; God bless the families who dedicated these brave men and women. From the bottom of our hearts we thank the families. They have given us something we will never forget. To the families of those who have given their holy blood for our land, we all bow to you in reverence and to the souls of your loved ones. Their sacrifice was not in vain. They are not dead, but alive, and their souls hovering around us every second of every minute. They will never be forgotten for giving their precious lives. They have sacrificed that which is most valuable. We see them in the smile of every child, and in every flower growing in this land. Let America, their families, and the world be proud of their sacrifice for humanity and life.
Finally, no matter how much I write or speak about this brave Regiment, I havent the words to describe the courage of its officers and soldiers. I pray to God to grant happiness and health to these legendary heroes and their brave families.
NAJIM ABDULLAH ABID AL-JIBOURI
Mayor of Tall Afar, Ninewa, Iraq
#4
Well, I've heard nothing of this on the Beeb.. Good on the people of Tal 'Afar.. Good on the 3rd ACR and its Iraqi back-up.. I hope we'll get a book out of this one day.. it will make an interesting read.. I think there's an awful lot to come about the behaviour of Zarqawi's mob.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/14/2006 3:59
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#5
Wow. That is truly touching and gracious. I am stunned as I've never seen the like of this from any Arab source. Yes, I've lived in the Middle East - a little over 10 yrs in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE. I will email the link out to many people, as I hope everyone will do, as this needs world-wide distribution. My experience over there makes me wonder if we should fear for the safety of the Tal Afar mayor and his family, somewhat? Again, wow.
#9
The 3rd ACR has been reassigned to Fort Carson, here in Colorado Springs. The troops began arriving home three days ago. The entire regiment will be home in a couple of weeks. The city has made plans for a hero's welcome.
As for the authenticity of the letter, I can't vouch for it, but a couple of 3ACR folks said they were given a send-off by the local inhabitants that was "unusual". Colorado Springs is seriously considering adding Tal'Afar to its list of "sister-cities".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/14/2006 14:23
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#10
Greyhawk vouches for it. As one of the pre-eminent milbloggers, himself active duty with service in Iraq recently, he's got all the creds he needs with me.
#11
On 1/28/06, one day after the letter was written, three Iraqis were killed and the Mayor of Tal Afar, Najim Abdullah, was wounded as rebel gunmen stormed the mayors office. Najim was wounded when rebels fired a series of four mortar rounds into his office.
Pakistan is opposed to a US attack on Iran over its nuclear programme, but has little power to stop it, President General Pervez Musharraf said on Monday. "We are against any aggression against Iran. However, if the United States attacks, I don't know how we could interfere," Gen Musharraf told a group of American and Asian journalists at the army chief's headquarters in Rawalpindi.
"Hey, don't look at us! You're on your own, turbans!"
"And keep the natural gas coming!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2006
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#2
Nice to see Perv pull his nukes off of the table. Ahmadinejad has painted himself into a particularly tight corner. Even his most devoted allies are finding little floorspace left to join him in his rather constrained stance. I can only suppose they don't want to get the crap bombed out of them either.
DUBAI - Dubai is growing faster than any city on earth, spending mind-boggling sums on a construction programme that is nothing less than dazzling. But what is truly impressive is the scale of its ambition. Could it become the most important place on the planet?
It looks like a hot Grozny. On the vast invented islands offshore and in the even vaster building sites that stretch in a wide band the whole length of Dubais now famous riviera, acre on acre of grey- faced, concrete, hollow-eyed buildings, fenced in with scaffolding and overhung by tower cranes, stare at each other across the sands. Tower blocks look abandoned rather than half-made. It is said that a fifth of the worlds cranes are now at work here. An army of some 250,000 men, largely from India and Pakistan, are labouring to create the new glimmer fantasy, earning on average GBP150 a month, and living in camps, four to a room, 12ft by 12ft, hidden away in the industrial quarters of Al Quoz. One night in one of the luxury hotels would cost six months wages of one of the men who built it. Below and around their work sites, the new streets are chaotic with rubble and piles of steel.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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#1
Or not. Hell, if they don't stop trying to play both sides of the street at once, it could become the least important smoking hole, too. Has about the same odds, methinks.
#5
I've been to Dubai. The climate is sheer hell in the summer, which lasts most of the year. All those people investing there, more power to them. I wouldn't invest $0.50 there because I believe 1)oil is on its way out as a primary fuel source; the supply is too uncertain, and 2) the whole south-side Persian Gulf idea is unsustainable because they can't even feed themselves, much less supply anything else. EVERYTHING has to come from someplace else. So until Glenn Reynolds' favorite fantasy, nanotech, arrives with its ability to make anything from anything else, the Gulf will always be a place that produces nothing but sand and oil and with a horribly bad climate to boot. I've always thought that if we in the West could switch to hydrogen tomorrow the Gulf Arabs would never see anyone from the West again. I only went there because someone paid me a hell of a lot of money and it would take more than it cost the first few times for me to consider going back. Dubai the most important city on Earth? Let's try Dubai the latest rendition of the South Sea Bubble tune.
Posted by: mac ||
02/14/2006 6:00
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#6
Sigh! Hydrogen is not a primary energy source. You have to make it by consuming another energy source and wasting more than 50% of the primary energy source in the process. A hydrogen powered vehicle is equivalent to starting with 2 barrels of gaseoline, puting one in your car and setting fire to the other.
#7
Lol, phil_b. Hey, you didn't happen to save off the excellent collection of energy posts from USS Clueless, did you? The site's gone away completely and I can't find 'em, though I thought I had saved them. I miss den Beste like a smarter-than-me best friend. Sigh.
#8
phil_b you oil analogy only works if oil is used to create the hydrogen in the first place. If you use nuke power the lost energy is the same, but not as costly, pollutant, or used to fund maddrasses.
I still think electric cars have more of a future than the hydrogen cars now that Toshiba has those superbatteries that can recharge up to 80% within a couple of minutes. Battery recharging problems are the only reason people seriously considered hydrogen at all.
#9
Every time someone mentions H2 as a fuel I have to ask myself just how are you going to store, transport and more importantly generate it from H2O or CH4 (methane). Either way it has problems. Myself I would prefer to see sufficently advanced battery tech that increases range and reduces charge times to something similiar to the fueling times for gasoline. Rather than use the electricity to manufacture H2 from water or methane use electrity as the end product itself. But then with our luck the Gulf States and the Saudis will go into the solar energy business
#11
As mentioned on another thread, Qatar and maybe Saudi is planning to go peaceful nuclear full steam. It would not surprise me if Dubai did the same. Other than having lots of power for their energy needs, it also means that they can desalinize huge amounts of water.
Extrapolated some years in the future, imagine a "greened" Arabia, and the effect it would have on their regional climate. In worked in the American west.
Other things to look forward to are the building of a massive petro-chemical infrastructure. If the oil is not going for fuel, use it to make all sorts of other synthetic products for export. That alone would keep their shipping docks full.
Last but far from least, some of these oil-wealthy nations have in past very proudly invested in education. They are well-suited to having immense universities for an international clientele, enough so that some poorer countries might subcontract their students to them.
#12
Speaking of Boom Towns, here is a topical song for the subject of Dubai, courtesy of Greg Brown:
"Boomtown"
Here come the artists with their intense faces,
with their need for money and quiet spaces.
They leave New York, they leave L.A..
Here they are - who knows how long they'll stay -
[chorus:]
It's a Boomtown got another Boomtown
and it'll boom
just as long as boom has room.
Here come the tourists with their blank stares,
with their fanny packs -
they are penny millionaires.
Something interesting happened here long time ago.
Now where people used to live their lives
the restless come and go.
[repeat chorus]
Nice to meet you, nice to see you
in a sheepskin coat made in Korea.
Welcome to the new age, the new century. Welcome to a town with no real reason to be.
[repeat chorus]
The rich build sensitive houses and pass their staff around.
For the rest of us, it's trailers on the outskirts of town.
We carry them their coffee, wash their shiny cars,
hear all about how lucky we are to be living in a ...
[repeat chorus]
The guy from California moves in and relaxes.
The natives have to move -
they cannot pay the taxes.
Santa Fe has had it.
Sedona has, too.
Maybe you'll be lucky -
maybe your town will be the new...
[repeat chorus]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/14/2006 15:09
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#13
#7 .com - I think I have den Besten's best saved on my home computer.
E-mail me a reminder and I'll look.
Just for li'l ol' you. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/14/2006 15:18
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#14
I heard that MJ was too creepy even for the Bahrainis -- he's been invited out of the country, flying business class on a commercial flight, and is now slacking around Europe. He's got a important debt payment due 2/20 or it's off to bankruptcy court for Jacko.
#15
And if anyone sees Steven around anywhere (he is supposedly going to get the server connected again when he settles down in Portland) let me know; I want to send him a copy of the Al Gore "Kamehameha" drawing.
Posted by: Phil ||
02/14/2006 15:29
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#16
Photoshop. Actual photo. Whatever.
Posted by: Phil ||
02/14/2006 15:30
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#17
Hydrogen is not a "green" fuel as people claim. In fact, the only way to make large industrial size batches of it now is to use Natural Gas. Strip the hydrogen atoms off. And what is left over? CO2. Tons and tons of the stuff. More than we are putting out now. Pure fantasy bullshit from the wacko environmental crowd.
#19
.com, no I didn't save SDB's posts. Should have. Easily the best big picture analysis I have ever seen on energy. Agreed, the man is brilliant and a real gentleman based on my correspondence with him. Pity he doesn't seem to drop by the Burg any more.
Barb, can you copy me. TIA
rjs, all primary energy sources are over the medium to long term fungible. Any increase in net energy demand, which adoption of hydrogen would certainly cause, will result in an increase in demand for energy from the most elastic supply. That is and will continue to be oil (and to a lesser extent NG). So the argument we could make it from nuclear is irrelevant. It will only be made from nuclear at the expense of other more efficient ways of distributing energy.
Moose, good point about desalination. With the added benefit it might make the luddite greenies, wake up and small the coffee.
#20
I expect a lot of the "new energy" in the future is going to be from bio and nano technologies.
For example, that MIT genius who found an algae that when industrial CO2 is pumped through it, even in weak New England light, it converts to mostly high-quality biodiesel (with some ethanol), at an efficiency rate obscenely higher than with agri-plant matter. Basically turning waste fumes into big money at minimal cost. Corporations like stuff like that, a lot. You can even recycle the water the algae live in, while reducing your CO2 emissions by 60%. Win-win-win-profit.
The nanotech is causing explosive improvement in both solar energy and battery/capacitor/fuel cell tech. And every one of those that improves takes the pressure off less efficient production and storage.
Nuclear has two futures: enormous and large localized energy use. That is, typical large reactors giving massive energy to concentrated industrial consumers; and pebble-bed reactors for smaller industries and regions with little other available energy.
Huge national grids will slowly become antiquated, as decentralized energy production makes more sense. Surprisingly, even in the US, de-salinization will become one of the largest consumers of energy in the future.
#22
For cars nobody every mentions thermal batts. Too bad! 200lbs of Molten Salt at %15 eff. is equiv to about 20 gals of gas. A good strong thermos around it (and maybe auto ejection in an accident) would be equal to the batteries at much less weight.
The big problem is the injuries in an accident from molten salt burning right through bodies and bone... Again. Solvable.
The Russia Today English-language news channel that broadcasts by satellite around the world plans to launch a new Arabic language network this autumn, a company official told AFP. The channel, to be called Russia Al Yaum -- the Arabic translation of Russia Today -- will start broadcasting in about eight months time, said Sofia Ranneva, a spokeswoman for the state-run Russia Today (RT). Its a new channel in Arabic, Ranneva told AFP.
Right up there with "Russia Al Chechnya".
Russia Today is a state-funded broadcaster launched last December with the aim of changing negative perceptions of Russia. The new networks producer will be the former Moscow bureau chief of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel, Akram Khazam, said Ranneva. The English-language version got off to a rocky start amid technical foul-ups and accusations that it was too close to the government. Russia Today can be seen on the NTV-Plus subscription in Russia and broadcasts to North America, Europe and Asia on the Intelsat Americas 5, Hotbird 6 and Taicom 3 satellites.
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A second batch of Massuri tribesmen returned to their homes in the Bekar region of Dera Bugti district on Monday, according to APP. A total of 67 families, comprised of 334 people made their way back to their hometown. On their arrival in Bekar, the displaced tribesmen thanked the present government as well as President Pervez Musharraf for their help and support.
Security agencies have arrested a terrorist from Karachi, on the basis of information obtained from three members of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) who were arrested from Quetta. The BLA members have also made startling revelations regarding the seperatist movement in Balochistan and foreign assistance to influential Baloch leaders.
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MULTAN: Sajida Bibi, a 20-year-old woman, was allegedly kidnapped and gang raped by four men. She was kidnapped when she was on her way to fetch water along with her niece at a hand-pump. Sajida's father told reporters that his grand daughter, Shabnam, was tied to the hand pump by Faisal, Shahid and two unidentified men who then kidnapped Sajida and took her to Chak 101/DB in Yazman. The police registered a case after a medical report confirmed that she was gang raped. Arif Zaman, the Bahawalpur district police officer (DPO), said that police was searching for the rapists.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"she was on her way to fetch water"
Obviously, she was asking for it - the brazen hussy!
An Indonesian court sentenced a man to death on Monday for killing eight people in attacks in the Moluccas islands that sparked fears of sectarian bloodshed in the region, local media reported. The court in the islands' main city of Ambon said that Assep Djaja and his accomplices had carried out what it said were terrorist attacks in two villages in the islands last year and in 2004. Four policemen guarding a Christian enclave surrounded by Muslim villages were killed in the attack last year. "What the defendant had done was sadistic and inhumane," Antara national agency quoted the court as saying in its ruling.
The Moluccas islands, 1,440 miles east of Jakarta, was the scene of vicious communal fighting between Muslims and Christians from 1999 to 2002 which left more than 5,000 dead. The conflict also drew Muslim militants from groups such as the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian network blamed for numerous bomb attacks across Indonesia. Since a 2002 truce between Muslim and Christian communities, sectarian battles have subsided on the islands although violence still sporadically erupts.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
sounds good - now do it
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 0:24
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RIYADH - A member of Saudi Arabias consultative council said on Monday he was hopeful the government would step in to lift the ban on women driving after the appointed advisory body refused to debate his proposal to end the ban. The hope is that the leadership of the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom will look into the matter because the state is best placed to settle this issue, which is in the interest of society, Mohammad Al Zalfa told AFP. Zalfa said he was optimistic the government would weigh in since the traffic draft legislation approved by the Shura (consultative) Council on Sunday did not specifically stipulate a ban on womens driving.
Zalfa introduced his proposal to lift the ban last year as part of wider traffic legislation that was approved by the 150-member Shura Council on Sunday but failed to address the issue of womens driving. The all-male Shura Council, which is named by the king, has no legislative powers. Its recommendations are referred to the monarch and must be approved by the government. Newspapers on Monday reported a statement by the councils secretary general saying Zalfas proposal, which had sparked a heated debate in the local media, had not been discussed. The statement said womens driving was skipped over among other reasons because of an official fatwa (religious edict) that had already been issued on the matter.
"The Profit sez women shouldn't drive! You can look it up!"
The reference was to a fatwa issued in 1991 by the then mufti of Saudi Arabia and head of the Council of Senior Ulema (Muslim scholars), Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz, prohibiting women from driving cars. The edict was issued after a group of 47 women defied the ban on driving by roaming the streets of Riyadh in 15 cars on November 6, 1990. They were swiftly rounded up by police and punished harshly, while their male guardians were reprimanded.
"That's a 100 riyal fine for you, citizen. And your wife will be stoned to death."
Zalfa told AFP that the councils refusal to tackle issues like womens driving will reduce the prerogatives of the council and dampen hopes that its powers will be expanded in order to help the state and the citizen introduce reforms.
Women in the desert kingdom that sits on a quarter of world oil reserves are forced to cover from head to toe in public, and cannot travel without a written permission from their male guardian. They were barred from landmark municipal elections last year. But Information Minister Iyad Madani told an economic forum in the Red Sea city of Jeddah Saturday that there was nothing in the Saudi legislation that forbids Saudi women to apply for a driving licence. If such a request was declined, women had the right to resort to justice, he said.
And we all know about Islamic justice.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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#1
You don't let your dog drive, do you?
Same same here. They don't let their pets drive either. Which reminds me of this...
#2
An acquaintance of mine (lets call him maf, to protect his identity) once stopped a Paleo car at a checkpoint. The car had a man, a women, and a sheep in the back seat. When maf demanded documents, the man produced his ID + a certificate establishing his ownership the sheep. Maf asked for the woman's documents, the man replyed "That's my wife---what does she needs documents for?"
Late Monday, the Arab satellite TV station Al Arabiya broadcast footage of two German hostages seized last month in the industrial city of Beiji, 240 kilometres north of Baghdad. The tape showed the two German engineers Thomas Nitschke and Rene Braeunlich surrounded by masked gunmen. The station did not broadcast audio but said the kidnappers warned the German government that this was the "last chance" to meet its demands or the hostages would be slain. No new demands were given and the kidnappers did not set a deadline, the station said.
In an earlier tape, the previously unknown Tawhid and Sunnah group demanded that Germany cut all ties with the US-backed Iraqi government. The tape was aired three days after a Kuwaiti television Al Rai stationed aired footage showing kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who was seized January 7 in Baghdad. The station said the kidnappers set a deadline of February 26 for their demands to be met or Carroll would be killed.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Lesson shoulda-been-learned: don't pay off kidnappers, or you set up your people for repeats. Sort of like: don't spend years negotiating with countries that openly state they won't abide by the result. I do hope Faulein Merkel rapidly climbs this learning curve.
#2
If these stations would get off of their duffs, they'd realize that they have a goldmine of potential reality-TV hits. Do you think that Donald Trump would be willing to lend his hair to Al-Zarqawi for a season?
STRASBOURG, France (AP) - European Union lawmakers said Monday they were looking into the possibility of questioning senior CIA and Bush administration officials as part of their investigation into whether the U.S. held terror suspects at secret prisons in Europe.
Some deputies acknowledged that the European Parliament cannot subpoena U.S. officials to testify, however, and suggested sending a delegation to the United States to speak with officials there.
Oh, that'll work. The Bush administration will just fall over themselves to be interviewed.
One of the EU lawmakers, British Liberal Democratic Sarah Ludford, said they could also seek to speak with former members of U.S. or other intelligence services who might be able to help their inquiry, which so far is relying largely on unconfirmed press reports.
I'm sure Ramsey Clark is available. And Scott Ritter. And Paul Pillar. And Richard Clarke. All reliable, guaranteed testimony.
Allegations the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported Nov. 2 in The Washington Post. The 732-member EU legislature agreed two weeks ago to launch its own investigation. A separate inquiry is also being conducted by the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights watchdog.
If one investigation doesn't succeed, just launch another.
"We need to check who in the American administration would be willing to cooperate," said Giovanni Claudio Fava, an Italian Socialist. Previously, EU deputies suggested Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could be asked to testify.
Human Rights Watch has said it has unsubstantiated circumstantial evidence gathered from newspapers indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. Both countries have denied the claims.
In addition to the allegations of secret prisons, there are also claims that CIA officials traveled through European territory while transporting terror suspects to countries where they faced harsh interrogation methods and possibly torture - a practice known as "extraordinary rendition." Such actions would breach the human rights treaties that all 25 EU countries have signed up to.
A preliminary report by the Council of Europe accused European governments of ignoring human rights breaches. But the report failed to uncover tangible evidence proving clandestine detention centers existed in Romania or Poland.
Normally a lack of evidence shuts down an accusation. Normally.
Swiss Sen. Dick Marty, who drafted the council's report, said more than 100 suspects may have been transferred by U.S. agents to countries where they faced ill treatment. "We need to talk with these people," Fava said.
They've all read the al-Q manual so they'll lie through their teeth. And be believed by Mr. Fava since they'll tell him what he wants to hear.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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YJCMTSU.
Those traitors with a book in the works or a lecture circuit tour in the mill will jump at this promo opportunity.
#2
wasn't that a subparagraph to the friggin Marshall Plan you ungrateful bastards? Or one of teh dead soldiers at D-Day carried it attached tohis dogtags? Or the Berlin airlift? Or....
STFU
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 0:52
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This is what happens when soft power meets hard drugs.
If all this interrogation was going on in Eastern EU countries, maybe you could start off by questioning officials from those countries first. Just a thought.
What is it about the Euro eductional system that produces dolts like this? Whenever I've worked with them, it's always like this. Give them a speadsheet or a circuit to mess with and they do great. Have them put together a business plan and they're off in cloud cuckoo land.
Valentines Day is becoming popular with Lahores young people despite opposition by clerics, who insist the occasion is unislamic.
That could be because they insist everything's un-Islamic...
Mahnoor, a 22-year-old shopping in Gulberg, said typical exchanges of flowers and dating was an insult to the beautiful occasion. She said people should express their love without formality on Valentines Day and should expect the same from others. Fahad Ahmed, 23, said the day was an opportunity for people waiting for an occasion to express their love. Men should express their true feelings without concealing them behind formal smiles.
"Show her you really love her. Don't cut her nose off."
Tanzeel Gillani, buying flowers in Liberty Market, said the expression of ones love should not be restricted to a single day. My own experience shows most Valentines Day celebrators lack sincerity, he said. I can sing and dance for the person I adore but cannot hold a red rose in my hand and wish him a happy Valentines Day, said Rabia Ahmed, a Defence resident. Following the calendar to express your feelings is artificial.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#3
"buy a medium pH acid to throw in her face" Jeebus! Can they think of any other way to show they don't, and won't, get it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 0:55
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#4
Why buy a heart shaped box of chocolate when you can just cut her heart out instead?
I actually had a great-great aunt with a scar along her breastbone that she got on her wedding night when hubby found out she wasn't a virgin. Luckily, he didn't know how to use a knife and she was able to wrestle it away. She then headed north to join her brother (my great grandfather) and never looked back.
#5
There's a serious disconnect among some men - those stupid enough to buy into the whole virgin thingy - they don't get it: experience is a goooooood thing!
Boggle, 11A5S. Glad your g-g-aunt GTF outta there!
#7
Tanzeel Gillani, buying flowers in Liberty Market, said the expression of ones love should not be restricted to a single day.
Boy, that's gotta be the worst named store ever. My YJCMTSU meter tweeked a lil' at that one! Oh, the irony...."Yeah, Machmoud, I bought these flowers for my girl at the Liberty Market. Don't tell anyone, though, I don't want the Virtue & Vice cops after me!"
Posted by: BA ||
02/14/2006 11:44
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#8
Don't underestimate the sappy lengths a young stud will go to, to impress girls. Anything, un-Islamic or not, that might work, and he will do it.
Heck, I even convinced a classroom of macho Mexican high-school boys to memorize endless verses of romantic poetry. Damndest thing you ever did see.
(One confided in me afterwards that despite misgivings, he was amazed about the effect it had on girls. The girls also liked being recited poetry. Made their hearts go pitter-pat.)
NEW DELHI - Indias prime minister on Monday invited Kashmiri pro-independence leader Yasin Malik for talks on ending the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan territory, officials said. The talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are scheduled for Feb. 17 in New Delhi, said Sanjaya Baru, the media adviser to the prime minister.
Malik is the chief of the Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front, which launched insurgency in the Indian portion of Kashmir in 1989. The group, however, later gave up arms and has been campaigning for a Kashmir independent of both India and Pakistan.
Reached for comment, Malik said he had just received the invitation, and would be meeting with top members of the group to discuss whether to accept it and what the agenda should be.
As Singh launched peace initiatives with Pakistan, he also held talks with the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella group of political and religious separatist leaders in Kashmir, in September. He followed it up with a meeting in January with Sajad Lone, who heads the Jammu-Kashmir Peoples Conference.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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Four men standing trial at the State Security Court (SSC) accused of plotting to attack Americans in the Kingdom on Monday retracted their confessions claiming they were extracted under duress. The four defendants, Loui H., 25, Hamdi A., 23, Mohammad H., 24, and Mohammad O., 26, claim they were threatened by security forces into confessing to the plot. Two other defendants, Osama A. and Haitham A., are being tried in absentia on the same charges. One of the defendants, Mohammad O., said he was denied access to a lawyer during his interrogation.
According to the charge sheet, Loui H. decided to attack Americans in the Kingdom after attending religious classes in early 2005 in the Hitteen refugee camp, located between Amman and Zarqa. The prosecution claims he then proposed the idea to the rest of the defendants, who were all friends, and they agreed. The defendants at first decided to attack liquor stores and bars by placing cyanide on the doorknobs to kill people frequenting these premises, the charge sheet said. But the defendants were unable to find cyanide on the Jordanian market and instead decided to attack Americans using machineguns, the charge sheet added. Hamdi A. suggested killing Americans who frequented a hotel in the capital, since he was employed there and it was easy for him to befriend these Americans and lure them outside the hotel where they would be killed by the rest of the group. The defendants also suggested attacking bars in Amman and a bar in one of the major hotels in Aqaba, since one of the defendants used to be an employee there and still owned an access card to that hotel, said the charge sheet.
The men suggested naming themselves Khatab Brigades and purchased a machinegun to accomplish their alleged plans, according to the charge sheet. Some of them travelled to Saudi Arabia and received training from Osama A. and Haitham A., according to the charge sheet. However, the first four defendants were arrested in Jordan in September 2005 before being able to accomplish any of their alleged plans, according to the charge sheet.
Posted by: Fred ||
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More people watching too much American television. Duress is illegal Stateside, but not over there, stupid wannabe terrorists.
Iran notched up the brinksmanship over its disputed nuclear programme Monday, abruptly postponing talks with Moscow on a plan to enrich Tehran's uranium on Russian territory to allay fears it is building an atomic weapon. Diplomats in Vienna, Austria, told the Associated Press, meanwhile, that Iran had started small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for an atomic bomb.
"Uranium gas has been fed into three machines," one senior diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter. Another diplomat confirmed that limited enrichment had begun at Iran's Natanz site. State-run Iranian television later reported that Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the national security and foreign relations committee in parliament, said the country began its peaceful nuclear enrichment activities Monday. Boroujerdi said inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were present.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
"kick me, dammit, I like it"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2006 0:19
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#3
The gauntlet is getting ready to be thrown down -the USA either accepts nuclear Iran, and by extens North Korea, etal., which in the long run also makes the NPT useless; or it does not. The USA = WORLD accepts the Islamic Extremists/
Radicals future GLOBAL CLAIPHATE, or does not. Its a given already that Dubya will be blamed for both new 9-11's inside America as well as Iran having the bomb = failing to prevent Iran from having the bomb, ala IFF AMERICA DOES NOT ATTACK AND WAGE WAR, AMERICA WILL BE ATTACKED AND WARRED AGAINST, NO MATTER WHAT POLICIES DUBYA ENACTS. FTLG, people, STAY ARMED AND READY!
#4
Has anyone seen a good estimate of how many centrifuges they actually have? I've seen numbers from 20 (leaked by western intel services) to 20,000 (from anti-mullah expatriates). Natanz is supposed to be able to handle 20,000 centrifuges. Is that estimate based on floor space or the size of the electrical substation? Someone out there must be doing an open source analysis. Hell, with Google Earth and the brainpower here, we ought to be able to figure something out. I already figured out how much juice it takes to make a uranium bomb (posted here a couple of weeks ago) and was able to obtain a same order of magnitude answer on a calculator* on the Urenco site. If a bonehead like me can get in the ball park then maybe we can figure out how far Iran's gotten.
An aside: if government analysts are as lazy as business analysts, then it's no wonder that the data leaking out is so unreliable. When the dot com bubble burst, all of them were out to lunch. I don't think that a one of them got off their asses to check the production queues in Asia and Mexico. None of them were analyzing. 99% of them were just blowing smoke. Yet the information was widely available and was well known within the industry.
* Do the freakin Euros ever learn? Jeez, just give every 3rd rate dictator in the world a handy calculator so he can figure out exactly how much ore, electricity, and industrial plant he'll need to build his own bomb. Excuse me while I go build a bomb shelter in the back yard now.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/14/2006 12:27
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"Diplomats in Vienna...one senior diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter...Another diplomat confirmed..."
Well there ya have it...after all they're diplomats dammit! Not only that, they're European diplomats.
#9
I read an estimate somewhere that it would take something like two years to manufacture and test the 20,000 centrifuges. That was a best case, so it probably assumes they have sufficient precision machining equipment for mass production. That also probably assumes they have a quality control infrastructure and the kind of work environment conducive to efficient and low defect production. (Does that sound palusible?) But also that is the easiest part. There is A LOT more to it than that, like making it work as a system.
#10
Messing around with uranium hexaflouride gas is extremely dangerous. The gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge was at one time the largest area under one roof in the world. This would be a HUGE facility. I don't remember how many centrifuges are in the plant at Oak Ridge but I don't think it's 20,00.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/14/2006 15:37
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Just for information.
The K-25 gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge required 4000 stages. This plant was one-half mile long and six stories high and covered 43 acres. The production of a suitable barrier was the key to successful separation. The holes must be microscopic (approximately one-millionth of an inch in diameter) and uniform in size. The porosity must always be high to sustain high flow rates and the barrier must not react with the highly corrosive hexafluoride. Nickel and aluminum oxide were best suited for barrier materials. Diffusion equipment is large and consumes significant amounts of energy. The entire system must be leak free; no air can be allowed in and no uranium hexafluoride can be allowed out. By the spring of 1945, Oak Ridge had shipped approximately 132 lbs. of enriched uranium (approximately 90% U-235) to Los Alamos, New Mexico. This was used in "Little Boy", the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The majority of fission weapons since that time have used plutonium. Uranium enrichment is currently used to produce fuel (3 to 4% U-235) for civilian nuclear reactors.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/14/2006 15:43
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#12
How much electricity did the Oak Ridge plant need? Is it possible to bury that kind of generating power?
#13
As far as I know the ammount of electricity used is still classified. At least, I can't find any information on it. TVA supplied the electricity to Oak Ridge. There is a generating plant just up-stream that was built for the purpose. It's hydroelectric. I must say, however, the generator supplied more than just the K-25 plant, but I don't think it's feasable to build something that big underground.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/14/2006 19:56
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Concur with DB. Something that enormous would produce significant MASINT...(measuring and signals intelligence). The larger the activity, the more difficult it is to effectively hide.
Young lovers in China's largest city, Shanghai, are turning to cosmetic surgery as a Valentine's Day present. Three couples even asked one clinic for matching noses or eye features, the official China Daily reported.
The clinic's director, Liu Chunlong, said business from 20-somethings had risen 30% since 4 February. China has seen a boom in cosmetic operations in recent years, and is now home to a million plastic surgery clinics, according to Xinhua news.
Liu Yan, 24, and her 28-year-old boyfriend had matching nose jobs a fortnight before Valentine's Day, China Daily said. "I suggested it as a way of celebrating our relationship and bringing us closer together with a special kind of bond," the paper quoted Ms Liu as saying. "My boyfriend loved the idea and paid for the whole thing; we're very happy with the results."
Another clinic in the city, the Shanghai ConBio Plastic and Laser Surgery Hospital, is offering a Valentine's Day package featuring reduced prices. It is reported to be seeing twice its normal volume of patients at the moment. The China Consumers Association has warned that there are an average of 20,000 complaints of disfigurement from plastic surgery each year.
#1
This is actually Big JuJu across Asia. It's about building up the ridge... so they can wear glasses / sunglasses and appear more Western. I encountered numerous people in Thailand who thought that their lives would be complete - if only they had a nose job. Sigh.
#2
Hey, fascination with superficial Western cosmetic features is just another way of ensuring Red China's downfall. SUVs, color televisions, condos, Ronco pasta machines, George Foreman grills, thighmasters ... whatever it takes. Whatever they spend on toe implants is less money for bombs. Sure, it'd be nice if more commendable Western aspects were being emphasized here, but we've got to take what we can get. Communist China has got to go. Turning them all into yuppies is a heckuva lot better than turning them all into vapor.
Four suspected militants have been shot dead by security forces in Indian Kashmir, the police said on Monday. Two militants died in a lengthy gunbattle on Monday in Yaripora village in southern Anantnag district of Indian-administered Kashmir, a police official said. Both were members of the hardline militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group, he said.
In separate incidents, two unidentified militants were killed in attacks by security troops in northern Baramulla and Kupwara districts late Sunday, the official said. One militant died in an ambush in Sumblar village in Baramulla district, while the other was gunned down while hiding in a house in Kupwara district. Violence in Indian Kashmir continues despite a slow-moving peace process between India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over the disputed region.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The outgoing Palestinian parliament used its final session Monday to give Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas broad new powers, infuriating Hamas just days before the Islamic group was to take control of a suddenly weakened legislature. The new legislation was designed to preserve Abbas' control over the Palestinian Authority, though it was unlikely to assuage international concerns about dealing with a Hamas-led government.
Hamas officials said they would immediately try to overturn the laws after the new parliament is sworn in Saturday. "I think this session was illegal. It is a kind of bloodless coup," said Abdel Aziz Duaik, an incoming Hamas legislator. The new law "puts complete authority in the hands of the president," he added.
Abbas' Fateh Party, which dominated Palestinian politics for four decades, was roundly defeated by Hamas in January 25 parliamentary elections. Abbas was elected last year to a four-year term. In their final session with a parliamentary majority, Fateh lawmakers gave Abbas the authority to appoint a new, nine-judge constitutional court, which would serve as the final arbiter in disputes between him and a Hamas parliament and Cabinet. The court could also veto legislation deemed to violate the Palestinians' Basic Law, which acts as a quasi-constitution. Legal expert Issam Abdeen said the legislation would essentially give Abbas power over what laws the new parliament passed "since he is the one who appoints the judges of the constitutional court." "He can use (these powers) to nullify laws that are unacceptable to him. If Hamas now approves Islamic laws, he could say it is against the constitution," Abdeen said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The EU's foreign policy chief on Monday began a tour of the Middle East aimed at defusing the row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, as Egypt called for urgent dialogue between the West and Muslim countries to avert a clash of civilisations. "People in the Muslim world are starting to feel this is a new September 11 against them," said Javier Solana after arriving in Saudi Arabia.
I find that comparison particularly offensive. In fact, it's making me seethe...
"(In) the European Union ... we never had wanted in any case to offend their feelings," he said following a meeting in Jeddah with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference's (OIC) Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. The OIC had urged the European Union on Saturday to combat what it termed "Islamophobia" which it said should be equated with xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Solana's four-day tour, to include visits to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel, is aimed at easing tensions over the cartoons. The row, sparked by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, including one with him wearing a turban shaped as a bomb, pits defenders of free speech against Muslims who see the cartoons as insulting and blasphemous.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I didn't know humans could suck quite this much.
#4
Isn't Solana supposed to be the Antichrist, if I remember some Apocalypse theories well? If so, the Antichrist is a big PC Eurabia wuss, I'm so disappointed. I mean, I expected more. Bummer.
In a stunning break with her party, the ranking Democrat(!) on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday that the New York Times should be prosecuted for damaging national security by revealing the National Security Agency's top secret terrorist surveillance program authorized by President Bush. "If the press was part of the process of delivering classified information, there have to be some limits on press immunity," Rep. Jane Harman told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Moderator Tim Russert then pressed: "But if [the NSA leak] came from a whistleblower, should the New York Times reporter be prosecuted?"
Harman countered: "Well, it's not clear it was a whistleblower. You have to prove that first. If it's protected by the whistleblower statute, then it's protected," she explained. Harman then added, however, that CIA Director Porter Goss recently said that the Times' sources don't qualify under the whistleblower statute.
Because the statute has a specific mechanism that the whistleblower has to invoke; they get protection and the agency gets the word that something is seriously wrong.
"By the way, I deplore that leak," Harman declared moments before her comments on prosecuting the Times. "This is a very valuable foreign [intelligence] collection program. I think it is tragic that a lot of our capabilities are now [spread] across the pages of the newspapers." A liberal who is a patriot. Is this who LiberalHawk really is? There are so few.
#2
She's certainly a funny bird. I watch her in interviews and as a commentator frequently on Fox News. Most of the time, she's not only rational and coherent, but bullish on security and the WoT. Then I read article in which she's quoted as trying to play the imaginary middle, as in taking some silly LE stance, or toeing the Dhimmidonk Party line.
Not sure which of these is the real Jane Harmon.
I guess I'll take the one that I see and hear speaking for herself - sans a script and sans editorial filters - the rational and intelligent one, most of the time - over the cherry-picked BS that is portrayed by the LLL MSM outlets.
Regards the story, this does, indeed, sound like the one I hear on Fox. She's anything but stupid - and sees where this thing is headed.
She seems to know the difference, since she has been briefed from Day One, between "innocent whistle-blowing" (if such a thing actually exists regards national security issues, which I don't accept), and treasonous disclosures to the Enemy MSM.
My personal favorite, heh. It applies to the ID card story, too, lol. Sure to offend almost everyone equally, lol.
BTW, I'm still jealous that you, Frank, B-man, and quite a few others have been honored with the Scarlet S, lol. I guess I'm just not trying hard enough. I'll do better, I promise. ;-)
#7
Now, here on display is the absolute genius of Karl Rove. It has now been established through the mechanism of the Wilson/Plame/Libby affair--stoked at every turn by the NYT--that the leaking of classified information is a criminal offense to be aggressively pursued, and that journalists involved in a leak have no special journalistic immunity. Now that the NYT has published leaked, classified information . . . WHAM-O!, hoist by their own petard.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2006 12:45
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#8
No Im not Rep Harman, :-)
We're not so few. There are even some of us who may not agree with Rep Harman on this (im not saying I dont - the question of prosecuting the NYT isnt really one of the issues Ive been following closely, to be honest)
#9
Not sure which of these is the real Jane Harmon.
2002
"Al Qaida is digital existing in disparate cells and planning attacks using the Internet and disposable cell phones. The NSA must counter this technology with better technology of its own. Our report recommends improvements to the acquisition and use of such technology."
2006- After the program became public
"The 1947 National Security Act only permits the President to limit the briefings to the so-called Gang of 8 for "covert action" programs. Covert action is defined as "activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent." The NSA program is not a covert action."
BAHGDAD - Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein angrily sparred with the judge during his trial on charges of crimes against humanity Monday, saying he had been dragged back to court against his wishes after boycotting the last hearings. Down with traitors, down with Bush, long live the ummah (Islamic nation), roared Saddam as he arrived under tight security in the Baghdad courtroom for the first time since January 29.
Cause we all know how religious Saddam was when he was in charge.
The trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants, which has frequently descended into chaos since it opened in October, was adjourned until Tuesday after only a few hours. I was forced into the courtroom, Saddam told chief judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, whose tough handling of the trial had triggered a boycott by all defendants at the last hearing on February 2.
No doubt he'll be forced onto the trap.
This is not a court this is a game, said Saddam, wearing a robe and heavy jacket rather than his usual smart suit, pounding on a podium in the dock. Shame on you Rauf, you are insignificant, he shouted at the judge, accusing him of being ignorant of the law and implementing American law.
We wish.
Abdel Rahman, who took over as chief judge only last month after the resignation of his precedessor, banged his gavel on several occasions as he sought to silence Saddams efforts to discredit the tribunal. The Kurdish judge warned the former dictator he would not be permitted to boycott the trial. The law states that if the defendants refuse to appear before the court, he will be forced to appear before court, we are implementing the law.
Mondays hearing featured the written testimony of 23 complainants as well as the appearance of two former regime officials, who also said they were there against their will.
"Please don't kill us!"
The visibly-annoyed Kurdish judge made clear his patience had run out and cut Saddam off when the 68-year-old asked for another chance to speak. Ive given you enough chances, Abdel Rahman retorted, amid repeated insults by Saddam, who shouted: God damn your moustaches, a slur meant to denigrate the judges manhood.
What about his shoes?
Barzan also frequently interrupted the session as guards were seen pushing him down into his seat in the dock. You are a military judge, shouted Barzan, bare-headed and clad in a white undershirt instead of his usual traditional Arab headdress and gown.
After being cut him off several times, Barzan sat with his back defiantly to the judge for much of the session. During witness testimony, however, he returned to arguing with the judge and frequently had to be disciplined.
Ahead of Mondays session, Saddams chief lawyer Khalil Al Dulaimi said the defense team had a number of conditions for its return, including replacing Abdel Rahman and prosecutor Jaafar Al Mussawi. He also called for improved security for defense counsel and continuous television transmission of the trial without periodic cuts to ensure it is transparent and fair.
The more they protest the judge and prosecutor, the more confidence I have in the trial.
During the session, the court read the written testimony of 23 witnesses who could not attend the trial. Their testimony was similar to that of past complainants detailing their arrest and abuse by security services after the attempt on Saddams life.
Saddams former chief of staff Ahmed Hussein Khudeir was brought to the witness stand, complaining bitterly that he had been coerced. I dont want to be a witnesss, not in this trial, not in any other.
I wont testify against my president, he said, adding that he only heard about the Dujail events from the BBC and he could not remember any details.
"I know nothing! NA-thing! Tell them, Hogan!"
The court presented several execution decrees stemming from the Dujail case bearing Khudeirs signature. But he said they were routine office procedure notifying government departments about the implementation of a sentence of execution.
Hassan Al Obedi, the second witness, also said he was coerced into appearing and said the Americans asked me to give testimony.
Human rights campaigners believe that Abdel Rahman, a Kurd who was twice arrested by the Saddam government and at one point was tortured so badly he was partly paralyzed, has a tough job ahead of him. Abdel Rahman was born in Halabja, the Kurdish town bombed by Saddams forces with chemical weapons in 1988 -- another of the events for which Saddam could be tried later.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2006
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#1
I think gagging the gentlemen in question is appropriate, followed by tying them to their chairs, unless the judge thinks publicly spanking them would be more effective.
(2006-02-12) A thick blanket of snow that covered much of the northeastern United States this weekend may increase global warming by preventing the heat that radiates from earths molten core from escaping into the atmosphere, according to former vice president Al Gore.
Mr. Gore, a noted global warming expert who also once ran for president, dismissed suggestions that the biggest snowstorm in New York City history diminishes his case that the planet is warming at an alarming rate.
First of all, Mr. Gore said, the reason for all of this snow is that greenhouse gasses trap reflected solar heat causing the polar ice caps to melt, increasing the volume of oceanic water that evaporates, then freezes to become snow. The warmer the planet gets, the more massive snow storms well see.
The former vice president, former senator and founder of the red-hot Current TV Network, said the only solution is to remove the snow, not just from the ground, but from earths water cycle.
We must pack the snow into giant containers and launch it into outer space, Mr. Gore said. Every day that George Bush fails to do this, the threat to Mother Earth grows exponentially.
#5
wow! That's the first time I've fallen hook line and sinker for Scrappleface. (I guess I overlooked that highlighted red print...doh!) I didn't know it was fake until the comments.
hey... it wasn't really that big of a stretch, now was it?
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.
Pakistani security guards have shot dead two protesters in Lahore during unrest over Western newspaper cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. The shots were fired by guards at a bank as crowds attacked Western targets, including fast-food outlets.
THE US and Israel are reportedly examining ways to effect the collapse of a Hamas government within a few months in order to bring about new Palestinian Authority elections. The talks have been held at "the highest levels" in Jerusalem and Washington, The New York Times reported last night, citing Israeli officials and Western diplomats. The risky strategy, which would involve starving the Hamas-led authority of cash, might be attempted, according to the report, if Hamas refuses to recognise Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements calling for peaceful co-existence between the Jewish state and a Palestinian state. 
New York Times 
2 killed in 'crossfire'
DENPASAR, Indonesia - An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced two young Australian men to die by firing squad for attempting to smuggle heroin from the resort island of Bali, verdicts that could strain ties with Canberra.
For the second straight year, conservatives failed to identify a frontrunner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, according to a poll taken at this years Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.
A huge blast, believed to be caused by a bomb, rocked a supermarket in Istanbul on Monday, wounding six people, local media reported.
Islamic militants killed four US soldiers in the restive southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, the US military said.
Winding up three days of talks with North African leaders, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday he is confident that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will fail to find a haven in this Muslim region.
Rwandan police are cracking down on noisy churches, confiscating instruments from 11 congregations around the country in recent days. Police spokesman Theos Badege told the BBC this was in line with new laws on noise pollution. 
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse on Monday ruled out Tamil Tiger demands for a separate homeland in the island's north and east, but said he would rein in armed groups %u2013 a central rebel demand ahead of crunch talks. 
ISLAMABAD - Pakistans leader said Monday he supports building a pipeline that would carry gas from Iran to Pakistan and India - a project the US has opposed. Pakistan needs more gas because the nations economy has become stronger in the past two years, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told a visiting group of journalists from the US and Asia.
Hardline Hindus burned Valentines Day cards on the eve of the years most romantic day and warned couples across India against getting too amorous over a foreign festival that corrupts traditional values, police said. 
PRIME Minister John Howard must distance himself from comments on Muslims made by Liberal backbencher Danna Vale and force her to apologise to the Australian people, minor party senators say.
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rose to 613.2 percent in January, near its all time peak, which could fan anger against President Robert Mugabe's government by the millions struggling to survive. The January figure compared with 585.5 percent in December as housing and food prices raced into the stratosphere. It was close to the all time high of 622.8 percent hit during the same period in 2004, official data showed on Monday. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is one of the highest in the world and compares with the average for sub-Saharan Africa of 21.3 percent in 2005, excluding Nigeria and South Africa.
A UN inquiry into conditions at Guantánamo Bay has called on Washington to shut down the prison, and says treatment of detainees in some cases amounts to torture, UN officials said yesterday.
As Hizbollah meshes into Lebanese political life, a serious effort is afoot to push the organisation into laying down its arms and distancing itself from the policies of Iran and Syria. It comes at a critical juncture: Iran is under pressure over its nuclear programme, Lebanon is out from under the Syrian military thumb, and another Islamic movement, Hamas, is set to take a Palestinian governing role. 
In a surprising turn of events, deep divisions have emerged within Egypts 
Police on Monday arrested 18 protesters on Monday after thousands of students attacked public and private property and burned several shops here to protest the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (
India's most-wanted man Dawood Ibrahim, blamed for a series of blasts in Mumbai that killed 257 people in 1993, is prepared to stand trial, an aide to the fugitive crime kingpin was quoted as saying on Monday. A man claiming to be the legal consultant for Ibrahim announced that he was ready to stand trial in London, but did not rule out a return to India. 
The Russia Today English-language news channel that broadcasts by satellite around the world plans to launch a new Arabic language network this autumn, a company official told AFP. The channel, to be called Russia Al Yaum -- the Arabic translation of Russia Today -- will start broadcasting in about eight months time, said Sofia Ranneva, a spokeswoman for the state-run Russia Today (RT). Its a new channel in Arabic, Ranneva told AFP.
An Indonesian court sentenced a man to death on Monday for killing eight people in attacks in the Moluccas islands that sparked fears of sectarian bloodshed in the region, local media reported. The court in the islands' main city of Ambon said that Assep Djaja and his accomplices had carried out what it said were terrorist attacks in two villages in the islands last year and in 2004. Four policemen guarding a Christian enclave surrounded by Muslim villages were killed in the attack last year. "What the defendant had done was sadistic and inhumane," Antara national agency quoted the court as saying in its ruling.
RIYADH - A member of Saudi Arabias consultative council said on Monday he was hopeful the government would step in to lift the ban on women driving after the appointed advisory body refused to debate his proposal to end the ban. The hope is that the leadership of the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom will look into the matter because the state is best placed to settle this issue, which is in the interest of society, Mohammad Al Zalfa told AFP. Zalfa said he was optimistic the government would weigh in since the traffic draft legislation approved by the Shura (consultative) Council on Sunday did not specifically stipulate a ban on womens driving.
Zalfa introduced his proposal to lift the ban last year as part of wider traffic legislation that was approved by the 150-member Shura Council on Sunday but failed to address the issue of womens driving. The all-male Shura Council, which is named by the king, has no legislative powers. Its recommendations are referred to the monarch and must be approved by the government. Newspapers on Monday reported a statement by the councils secretary general saying Zalfas proposal, which had sparked a heated debate in the local media, had not been discussed. The statement said womens driving was skipped over among other reasons because of an official fatwa (religious edict) that had already been issued on the matter.
Late Monday, the Arab satellite TV station Al Arabiya broadcast footage of two German hostages seized last month in the industrial city of Beiji, 240 kilometres north of Baghdad. The tape showed the two German engineers Thomas Nitschke and Rene Braeunlich surrounded by masked gunmen. The station did not broadcast audio but said the kidnappers warned the German government that this was the "last chance" to meet its demands or the hostages would be slain. No new demands were given and the kidnappers did not set a deadline, the station said. 
STRASBOURG, France (AP) - European Union lawmakers said Monday they were looking into the possibility of questioning senior CIA and Bush administration officials as part of their investigation into whether the U.S. held terror suspects at secret prisons in Europe.
Valentines Day is becoming popular with Lahores young people despite opposition by clerics, who insist the occasion is unislamic. 
NEW DELHI - Indias prime minister on Monday invited Kashmiri pro-independence leader 
Four men standing trial at the State Security Court (SSC) accused of plotting to attack Americans in the Kingdom on Monday retracted their confessions claiming they were extracted under duress. The four defendants, Loui H., 25, Hamdi A., 23, Mohammad H., 24, and Mohammad O., 26, claim they were threatened by security forces into confessing to the plot. Two other defendants, Osama A. and Haitham A., are being tried in absentia on the same charges. One of the defendants, Mohammad O., said he was denied access to a lawyer during his interrogation. 
Iran notched up the brinksmanship over its disputed nuclear programme Monday, abruptly postponing talks with Moscow on a plan to enrich Tehran's uranium on Russian territory to allay fears it is building an atomic weapon. Diplomats in Vienna, Austria, told the Associated Press, meanwhile, that Iran had started small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for an atomic bomb. 
Young lovers in China's largest city, Shanghai, are turning to cosmetic surgery as a Valentine's Day present. Three couples even asked one clinic for matching noses or eye features, the official China Daily reported. 
Four suspected militants have been shot dead by security forces in Indian Kashmir, the police said on Monday. Two militants died in a lengthy gunbattle on Monday in Yaripora village in southern Anantnag district of Indian-administered Kashmir, a police official said. Both were members of the hardline militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group, he said. 
The outgoing Palestinian parliament used its final session Monday to give Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas broad new powers, infuriating Hamas just days before the Islamic group was to take control of a suddenly weakened legislature. The new legislation was designed to preserve Abbas' control over the Palestinian Authority, though it was unlikely to assuage international concerns about dealing with a Hamas-led government. 
"(In) the European Union ... we never had wanted in any case to offend their feelings," he said following a meeting in Jeddah with the 
BAHGDAD - Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein angrily sparred with the judge during his trial on charges of crimes against humanity Monday, saying he had been dragged back to court against his wishes after boycotting the last hearings. Down with traitors, down with Bush, long live the ummah (Islamic nation), roared Saddam as he arrived under tight security in the Baghdad courtroom for the first time since January 29.
Abdel Rahman, who took over as chief judge only last month after the resignation of his precedessor, banged his gavel on several occasions as he sought to silence Saddams efforts to discredit the tribunal. The Kurdish judge warned the former dictator he would not be permitted to boycott the trial. The law states that if the defendants refuse to appear before the court, he will be forced to appear before court, we are implementing the law.
