David Cameron will today confront his Tory critics by making the positive case for continuing European Union membership as he holds talks with President Barack Obama over a giant US-EU trade deal that could provide a £10bn annual boost to the British economy.
With his party in renewed turmoil over Europe, the Prime Minister will also seek to reassure the White House that Britain which senior figures in the Obama administration have insisted they regard as a crucial member of union is not heading for the exit door of the EU.
The planned agreement would establish a free trade area between the worlds two largest trading blocs, creating a transatlantic market of 800 million consumers.
The White House talks are designed to pave the way for next months meeting of G8 leaders in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, where Mr Cameron hopes negotiations will begin on the planned agreement.
Writing in todays Wall Street Journal, Mr Cameron says: This deal could add as much as £10bn to the British economy and £63bn to US GDP. But the rest of the world would benefit too, with gains that could generate 100bn worldwide.
The Government last night released research suggesting a US-EU compact sweeping away trade barriers would particularly benefit the automotive, financial and chemical sectors. It claimed the deal could be worth £380 a year for each British family.
Karel de Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, has cited the deal as a prime reason for why Britain should stay in the EU, telling The Independent last week that it would be clear madness for the UK to leave in light of such a deal.
Todays talks will also focus on the crisis in Syria, with Mr Cameron pressing for an intensification of diplomatic efforts to force President Bashar al-Assads regime to relinquish power.
Iraqi Kurds living near the border are wary of thousands of Kurdish fighters leaving Turkey for northern Iraq, and hope the move does not lead to more Turkish air and artillery strikes.
For years, Turkeys military has targeted fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party in Iraqs autonomous Kurdistan region, keeping farmers from their land and sometimes killing and wounding civilians.
The PKK, which has fought a 29-year nationalist campaign against Ankara, is now withdrawing its fighters into Iraq, where it already has bases, as part of a peace drive with Turkey.
While it is a positive sign for peace prospects, the movement of some 2,000 additional PKK fighters into Iraq has not put residents at ease.
We hope not to hear the sounds of Turkish artillery and airplanes bombarding our mountains again, said Mohammad Saeed, 47, a resident of the town of Al-Amadia, near the border with Turkey.
We are afraid that the fighting will start again, Saeed said.
An Israeli official confirmed over the weekend that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Will he have to wait three hours?
Israel has expressed concern over what Israeli officials say is an imminent sale of advanced Russian antiaircraft missiles to Syria. Israel is worried that advanced Russian weapons could reach militant groups hostile to the Jewish state, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel has asked Russia to stop supplying "game-changing" weapons to Mr. Assad. The Israeli official wouldn't say if the weapons would be discussed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the Netanyahu-Putin meeting hasn't been officially announced.
Think the best paid public servant in your state is some tax-collecting bureaucrat with a commission-based comp structure, or some administrative apparatchik? Think again. As the following infographic from Deadspin shows, in 41 US states, the highest-paid public employee is either the football, basketball or hockey coach at the local state school. Which takes cares of the "Circuses" part. For now, at least, public sector bakers did not make the list...
#3
At this time the Boise State football program is a moneymaker for the University. If Coach Pete (Peterson) ever leaves then who knows. He took a decent program & put it in the top 20 nationally. The TV & Bowl payback is shocking to this blue collar worker.
#1
On the morning of April 27, 2013 Thomas L. Friedman must have bumped his head and accidentally wrote an article that was not agenda-driven and somewhat enlightening
More like the work of a temporary staffer, who was promptly released.
Well they can't rely on their military which they emasculated in favor of Islamists
Turkey accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out car bombings that killed 46 people in a Turkish border town, and said on Sunday it was time for the world to act against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. You go right ahead, Mr. Prime Minister. We'll sit back and watch. Put on a show for us...
The two car bombs, which ripped through crowded shopping streets in Reyhanli on Saturday, increased fears that Syria's civil war is dragging in neighbouring states, despite renewed diplomatic moves to end it.
Damascus denied involvement, but Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said those behind the attacks were from an "old Marxist terrorist organisation" with ties to Assad's administration.
"It is time for the international community to act together against this regime," he told a news conference during a visit to Berlin.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech broadcast later on Turkish television: "We will not lose our calm heads, we will not depart common sense, and we will not fall into the trap they're trying to push us into."
But he added: "Whoever targets Turkey will sooner or later pay the price."
A mountain of new welfare records shows numerous EBT card cash withdrawals made by the Tsarnaev family, but so far there is no information about how terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev and others may have spent the money.
Even if they just used the EBT (Even Benefits Terrorists!) card to buy pork and beans it means they were eating while they were building bombs in pressure cookers...
The EBT receipts were handed over by the state to the House Post Audit and Oversight Committee as part of its probe into the Russian family's $100,000-plus taxpayer-financed life in the Bay State. The committee met yesterday behind closed doors to review Medicaid and welfare awards.
So they had EBT money, other welfare assistance, and money from the wifey's family (you just know they were putting up cash, particularly after the little girl was born). Plus whatever 'assistance' came from certain people overseas...
The EBT records are now part of thousands of pages of documents listing the government assistance doled out to the Cambridge clan from 2002 to November of 2012.
The purchases show specific stores, but not the items bought. But further details could be available to investigators.
Specific stores could be very, very interesting...
The legislative committee is also asking for records from the Cambridge Housing Authority on Section 8 assistance given to the Tsarnaevs, who lived in an apartment on Norfolk Street.
The committee's request for financial aid records from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth -- where marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was a sophomore flunking some classes and owing a reported $20,000 -- was rejected, the Herald learned. Federal officials have forbidden the school from releasing any records publicly.
Why? And which 'Federal officials' -- FBI or Department of Education?
Rafi Ron, a former top Israeli security official and past consultant to Logan International Airport, said the welfare cash could have been enough money to help the Tsarnaev brothers build their pressure-cooker bombs that killed three and injured more than 260 at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15.
"The budget required for such an attack was extremely limited. We're talking a three-digit dollar investment for purchasing and constructing the devices," Ron told the Herald last night.
Authorities say the Tsarnaev brothers planted two bombs packed with nails and BBs on Boylston Street using gunpowder emptied out from fireworks to ignite the deadly devices that killed and maimed race fans.
It is still unclear from the records whether any welfare cash was used to finance slain bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's journey to Dagestan from January to July 2012. The 26-year-old, who was finally entombed yesterday in an undisclosed cemetery, left his wife and child behind for the trip during which he made contact with Islamist extremists, authorities said.
The Herald was told the welfare records show the Tsarnaev family all using taxpayer-paid benefits. That help included Mass Health, housing assistance, food stamps and more.
They didn't miss a trick, did they...
State Rep. David P. Linsky, chairman of the oversight committee, said his goal is to make sure the welfare cash was "properly authorized and all the oversights were in place." He declined to go into further detail, but said he hopes to make as much public as he can.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/12/2013
13:45 ||
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(Even Benefits Terrorists!)
Do you have any use for an Internet? It seems you have won one.
#3
A week ago, we were told the obammy mis-administration had all this information bottled up. What, Benghazi and the IRS vs Tea Party stuff put them a point down at playing whack a mole scandal?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/12/2013 14:40
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Exactly, Raj: who the hell is the DoE to tell a college that they can't release records about a jugged terrorist?
Privacy? PRIVACY? The man set off a bomb at the Boston Marathon, HE HAS NO PRIVACY.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/12/2013 17:12
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Privacy is for criminals and people of the left (but I repeat myself.) If you are Joe the Plumber (not a criminal and not an obooboo voter) your life is an open book...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/12/2013 17:52
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#6
Isn't there a law against funding terrorist groups?
#8
Ground Turkey's cheap, and you can make great kafta with it, without the pressure cooker you can't cook with because you're going to use it to blow up an eight year old.
Benghazi posts that reference the home front should be posted in 'Home Front: WoT'. Thanks. AoS.
ABC's Jonathan Karl, who broke news on the multiple revisions to the Obama administration's Benghazi talking points, added a new piece to the puzzle on Sunday, revealing that then-CIA director David Petraeus thought the final product was "essentially useless."
Those particular words are Karl's, but he quotes from an e-mail in which Petraeus, who only put eyes on the talking points the afternoon before Susan Rice's infamous Sunday Show tour, says of the talking points "I would just as soon not use them, but it's their [the White House's] call."
The talking points had been denuded of any reference to terrorism, al-Qaeda, or Ansar al-Sharia, the local jihadist group who took credit for the murder of four Americans and the destruction of the U.S. facility in Benghazi.
Turkish citizens believed to have links to the Syrian intelligence agency have been detained in connection with twin car bombings that shattered a Turkish border town, officials said Sunday. Turkey's prime minister insisted the country wouldn't fall for a "dirty scenario" and be dragged into its neighbor's civil war.
The bombings left 46 people dead and marked the biggest incident of violence across the border since the start of Syria's bloody civil war, raising fears of Turkey being pulled deeper into the conflict.
Despite harsh accusations between Turkey and Syria signaling a sharp escalation of already high tensions between the two former allies, Recep Tayyip Erodgan insisted that Turkey would "maintain our extreme cool-headedness in the face of efforts and provocations to drag us into the bloody quagmire in Syria."
Nine people were detained overnight, including the mastermind of the attack, and more were expected, officials said during a joint press conference in Hatay, near the border town of Reyhanli where the bombs struck. Syria denies involvement in the bombings.
"This incident was carried out by an organization ... which is in close contact to pro-regime groups in Syria and I say this very clearly, with the Syrian mukhabarat," said Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler. He did not name the organization.
Among the nine people detained overnight was the mastermind of the attack and more were expected, Guler said.
#1
"...Recep Tayyip Erodgan insisted that Turkey would maintain our extreme cool-headedness in the face of efforts and provocations to drag us into the bloody quagmire in Syria."""
some turks will see this as cowardly
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/12/2013 13:04
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Instapropagandist slobbers incessantly over elon musk. We are told he's "privatizing" rocket launches while he rakes in boocoo taxpayer bucks. It does warm the heart a wee bit to see this crowd moving in different directions...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/12/2013 14:45
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Actually, I support the "outsourcing" to SpaceX, the main difference between him and the traditional aerospace contractors is that he's launching for a price per launch instead of the customized cost-plus contractors building stuff to NASA spec for roughly ten times the amount per launch.
From Wikipedia:
When all design and maintenance costs are taken into account, the final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch, or $60,000/kg to LEO.[5]
Falcon 9 costs $ 4,000.00/kg to LEO according to wikipedia.
NASA told us this was physically impossible in spite of it being only slightly less than the Russians accomplish with the Proton which is manufactured with SOVIET 1960's technology.
#4
I'm being generous in defending him, IMHO... he _does_ seem inclined to believe the same sort of half-truths and lies other people tell about him when it's directed at the industry I've been in for the past thirty years.
WRT SpaceX, it is the truth... even if he personally doesn't deserve it.
#5
On Tuesday, a coalition of liberal groups including MoveOn.org, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and Progressives United said it was suspending paid advertising on Facebook for at least two weeks.
It's nice to hear it said outlout, even if it's just on Front Page Mag.
"SeeBS News President David Rhodes and ABSee News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have spawn that not only work at the White House, that not only work for the Champ, but they work at the National Insecurity Council on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi."
For the record, Ben Sherwood's sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is the Special Assistant to the Champ. Virginia Moseley's husband, Tom Nides, is the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. Obviously control of the media matters.
Four Filipino UN peacekeepers abducted by armed men while patrolling in the demilitarised area between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have been released, officials have said. The UN and the Philippine army both say that the four are in good health.
They are now with the Philippine battalion in the Golan Heights, a Philippine army spokesman told AFP.
Martyrs of Yarmouk rebels abducted them on Tuesday "for their own safety" amid clashes in the Yarmouk Valley.
"They are fine, but as a matter of procedure they will have to undergo stress debriefing and a medical check-up," Philippine Brigadier General Domingo Tutaan told AFP. "We are happy that this has been resolved and the soldiers have been released seemingly unharmed."
An Islamic community in the US state of Virginia is said to be in uproar after it emerged a Boston bombing suspect was buried at a nearby rural cemetery.
An imam said local Muslims were upset their loved ones would have to use the same graveyard as that where Tamerlan Tsarnaev was secretly laid to rest.
His body was interred on Thursday after protests at the Massachusetts funeral home where it was kept. Officials fear the site might become a shrine for anti-US sympathisers.
Tsarnaev was interred at a small Islamic cemetery in a rural area just north of the state capital, Richmond. His burial follows a long search for a community that would accept the body, after several states rejected his remains.
Imam Ammar Amonette, of the Islamic Center of Virginia, said the move made "no sense whatsoever".
He's absolutely right.
"The whole Muslim community here is furious," he said. "Frankly, we are furious that we were never given any information. It was all done secretly behind our backs."
Correct again. How come no one came to him up front?
"Now everybody who's buried in that cemetery, their loved ones are going to have to go to that place."
County and state officials say they were not told of the burial in advance, although that is not required. Floyd Thomas, chairman of the board of supervisors for Caroline County, told CNN that if any protocols had been flouted in the burial, "we would look into undoing what happened".
Martha Mullen, a private citizen of Richmond, is credited with having co-ordinated efforts behind the scenes to resolve the problem of where to bury Tsarnaev.
"It was an interfaith effort," she told the Associated Press. "Basically because Jesus says love your enemies."
So how does Ms. Mullen have the influence to coordinate a burial at an Islamic cemetery? How can Ms. Mullen arrange for a burial there without the local imam finding out about it in advance? How about a little history on Ms. Mullen? Who is she?
Massachusetts police said on Thursday: "As a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased."
Preparations are believed to have been made by Ruslan Tsarni, the suspect's uncle, after Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell-Tsarnaev, released the body to her in-laws.
The BBC, like every other news outlet, refuses to use the widow's full, proper name...
Earlier, Mr Tsarni said the atrocity in Boston had brought shame to the entire Chechen community. The Tsarnaevs come from a family of ethnic Chechens and had been living in the US for about a decade before the attacks.
#1
How can Ms. Mullen arrange for a burial there without the local imam finding out about it in advance?
I know of at least one other cemetery, a Catholic one, where burials have happened without the pastor knowing about it. It's inside of an Indian reservation.
#3
"An imam said local Muslims were upset their loved ones would have to use the same graveyard as that where Tamerlan Tsarnaev was secretly laid to rest."
So have their bodies moved.
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/12/2013 18:31
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Heh. Speedbump could end up being the only one buried there.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/12/2013 18:43
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The same Organizing For Action that sent out the 'tin foil hat' e-mail about global warming.
President Obama's supporters are discovering that winning a national election is easier than winning over Congress.
Organizing for Action, an advocacy group born from the remnants of Obama's victorious 2012 reelection campaign, has struggled in its attempts to help the president push through legislation on the economy, guns and other issues central to his second-term agenda.
The fledgling nonprofit group has spent its first four months staging rallies and generating local news coverage in an unsuccessful effort to get the Senate to strengthen background checks for gun sales.
It deployed technological efforts familiar from the 2012 campaign, collecting 1.4 million signatures on a gun-control petition delivered to Capitol Hill last week and producing a widely viewed Internet video mocking congressional Republicans for questioning humans' contribution to climate change.
The group also raised $4.9 million through March and is awaiting an influx of cash from liberal donors connected to George Soros's Democracy Alliance to expand its staff beyond the few dozen now on its payroll. Democracy must mean something different to Soros than the typical dictionary definition.
But despite its extensive voter-data files and White House connections, OFA has yet to make much of a mark on the nation's political landscape. Many of its efforts have been centered in liberal strongholds and Democratic-leaning swing states, with little impact on more conservative areas. Preaching to the acolytes.
But OFA Executive Director Jon Carson said that while the group itself is young, many of its members are longtime political activists. "Our volunteers did not hatch out of an egg in 2008," he said. "They've been fighting on issue campaigns for their whole wasted lives."
OFA is focused on promoting the president's agenda to reform immigration, strengthen gun control, strike a budget deal and address climate change. Carson said the combination of OFA rallies and local news coverage is helping change voter attitudes, which in turn places pressure on lawmakers to back Obama's legislative goals.
The group's organizers say they are particularly focused on six states that Obama won last year but that are represented by at least one GOP senator: Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio and Nevada. It is also targeting the red states of Arizona and Georgia, whose senators could be persuaded to back parts of the president's agenda, group officials said. They plan to hold 500 events focused on immigration by the end of May, according to Carson.
"You drive local press attention, and the citizens out there hear about it," he said. "That's the combination that it takes." You already have the media in the Fearless Leader's pocket. Can't you make a go of it?
OFA was formed in the wake of November's election as an independent nonprofit group able to raise unlimited funds, and it maintains control of Obama's massive campaign e-mail list. What's yet unclear is whether the group can transform support for Obama's reelection into activism on behalf of his policy agenda.
Some former Obama campaign volunteers said they've joined OFA to ensure the president succeeds, and now enjoy a greater sense of freedom. Penny North, a 64-year-old retired software consultant who worked on the president's reelection, said she used to have to read from a script when she went door to door on Obama's behalf. Now, she said, "we're telling our personal stories." I'm 64, but I will work for another three years. What's it like, on the gubbamint dole, Penny?
In some instances, however, the group has alienated people who otherwise support the president. OFA's decision to target four conservative Democrats who opposed background checks, for example, has angered local party officials in their states. Red on... No, waitaminute - Blue on Blue!
Alaska Democratic Party chair Michael Wenstrupwrote a letter to OFA last week asking the group to "cease its attacks on Democratic senators immediately." He said the decision to target Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who is up for reelection next year, with phone calls and e-mails to state residents criticizing his no vote on background checks is counterproductive.
The group has also gone after Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who opposed the bipartisan background checks bill, with similar calls. Chad Oban, executive director of North Dakota's Democratic-NPL Party, said he would have preferred if OFA had poured more resources into the state before the vote, rather than afterward.
Carson, for his part, said people shouldn't be surprised that OFA was unable to mobilize a major number of voters in red states represented by Democrats. "We've got supporters everywhere, especially in our own minds" he said, "but we've never claimed our major strength is in a place like North Dakota or Alaska."
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/12/2013
11:27 ||
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Since the majority of people know AGW is a scam. I'm sure the Republican's aren't horrified to not be part of the left's new kool-aid cult.
WaPo News/Analysis/Propaganda
Recent events suggest that the 44th president may not be immune to the phenomenon that historians call the "second-term curse."
Not four months after his ambitious inaugural address, President Obama finds himself struggling to move his legislative agenda through an unbudging Congress. Bad, bad Congress! Who put you there, anyway?
And over the past week, two flaring controversies -- one over his administration's handling of the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, the other over Internal Revenue Service employees targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny -- have dominated the discussion in Washington. He 'splained that one away - it wuz Boosch. He ain't explained Benghazi.
It is far from clear how big a political liability either will turn out to be. The media will just ... LOOK! Squirrel!
On Friday, for instance, news of the IRS admission and developments surrounding the Benghazi attack turned White House press secretary Jay Carney's daily briefing into a feeding frenzy and drowned out coverage of a speech that Obama was giving that day on the implementation of the health-care law that stands as his biggest achievement.
White House officials acknowledge that the history of modern second-term presidencies is a sobering one, replete with scandal and failure. But they insist that they have seen nothing to suggest that Obama will fall into the traps that have ensnared so many of his predecessors: nothing that rivals the Watergate investigation that drove Richard M. Nixon out of office in 1974, the Iran-contra scandal that nearly derailed Ronald Reagan's presidency in 1986,or the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998.
The current furor will serve only to make Obama's opponents look bad, they predict. mmwwhahaHAHAHhahahah! Really! But even some of Obama's allies worry privately that his difficulties may be made worse by his narcissistic lack of deep relationships on Capitol Hill, notwithstanding his round of dinners with members lately. His congressional liaison, Miguel Rodriguez, came to the job virtually unknown by lawmakers. The president himself has a tendency to hunker down with a tight circle of loyalists. "I don't think he has adequate people questioning him on these things," said one close Obama ally.
"There is no evidence the White House is hiding the truth about what occurred in Benghazi," lefty journalist David Corn wrote in left-leaning Mother Jones magazine. "But the White House has indeed been caught not telling the full story."
"Benghazi and the IRS, each one taken in isolation is in the ankle-biting category," said historian David Kennedy. "But if you add up enough ducks, they can peck you to death. It's a sea of trouble."
Chris Lehane, one of the "masters of disaster" who ran the damage-control operation in the Clinton White House, where prevarication was the specialty of the house said Obama's staff has failed to follow some basic rules for dealing with a potential scandal: avoid putting out a narrative that will not be sustained by the facts and get in front of damaging information by making it public before your adversaries do. It took me until I was about 12 to learn that the first one with a credible story to Mommy was usually believed.
For instance, "if they had put those [Benghazi] e-mails out on their own terms, they would have gotten a little more of the benefit of the doubt," Lehane said. "There's no question that if they had basically applied the fundamentals of crisis management, they would be in a different situation today."
But with the attack happening less than two months before voters went to the polls last year, "they may have made the decision that it was better to win the presidential election and deal with the fallout on the other side," Lehane said.
History suggests that rocky terrain lay ahead on that other side. "Every second-term president, at least since Eisenhower with the U-2 [spy plane shot down in Soviet airspace] has somehow gone into a ditch," said Ken Duberstein, who was White House chief of staff during Reagan's second term.
"The suggestions that Obama is in a deep ditch are probably but maybe not premature," Duberstein added. "But when you get in a ditch, you need to stop digging. You need to put down the shovel." Sharpen that baby up, I say! Get another strong back into the ditch! Make room under the bus!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/12/2013
10:57 ||
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In Champ's case, any 2nd term curse would be a blessing.
#4
"There is no evidence the White House is hiding the truth about what occurred in Benghazi," lefty journalist David Corn wrote in left-leaning Mother Jones magazine. "But the White House has indeed been caught not telling the full story."
WTF? I ended a relationship with someone who I "caught not telling the full story." In other words, he was "hiding the truth." How, exactly, is one distinct from the other?
Columbia Pictures is putting out a dramatization of the Maersk Alabama incident of 2009 off the coast of Somalia. The movie is supposed to be out late this year. The trailer looks mildly interesting. Since the captain is being portrayed by Tom Hanks I think we can expect a lot of hand-wringing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/12/2013
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I only wonder how they will spin this one...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/12/2013 11:42
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Champ will be right behind the SEALs coaching them on how to take the shot. "No, no, you're not correcting enough for windage..."
Posted by: Matt ||
05/12/2013 12:32
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Hanks converts to Islam and turns the ship over as a gift "to Allah"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/12/2013 13:58
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I didn't see much Hanks hang-wringing in Apollo 13.
"I wonder when we'll go back?"
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/12/2013 14:47
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Wikipedia about the book - A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea is a book by Captain Richard Phillips, the captain of the MV Maersk Alabama when it was hijacked in 2009. It tells the story of Phillips' capture and hostage-taking by Somali pirates in April 2009. The book alternates between Phillips' five-day ordeal and the plight of his family in Vermont, watching the drama unfold on cable news.
THERE's where you'll see hand (not hang) wringing.
Phillips utilized all security precautions to keep his crew safe and hidden, leaving him as the only possible hostage. This led to an ordeal of several days in a lifeboat in the hands of pirates, who Phillips portrays as alternately conciliatory, vicious, and unfocused.
Lotsa opportunities for Hollywood, there.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy assembled a large task force, and tensions steadily rose, as did Phillips fear for his life. The book details Phillips' attempted escape and eventual rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs, and portrays Phillips' wife Andrea as loyal and strong-willed.
Maybe Obumble is not mentioned at all?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/12/2013 14:57
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Denzel Washington as teh lead FBI negotiator is held up en-route by Mossad trickery, and discovers the piracy is a Israeli plot to increase global prices and starve the Middle East.
(hanks, seriously. Cpt. Phillips doesn't seem to be the old effete epicurian...too late to recast a man, perhaps Hulk Hogan?)
#13
"Yes, I get it now! Mossad, through its Saudi and Iranian and Russian henchmen, and OPEC, raised the price of the oil used in industrial and agricultural feedstocks, thus driving up global prices..."
"Wait, what's that? Prince Abduabdomen is on the phone?"
"Yessir... yessir.... Oh, of course sir! Anything for a major investor..."
Cedar Rapids, Iowa Democratic senator Max Baucus is retiring because he is fed up with the Affordable Care Act, according to his Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. Speaking at Friday nights Lincoln Day dinner in Iowa, Grassley told the audience the Montana senator is leaving office because hes so fed up with the possibility of the implementation of Obamacare being a train wreck.
Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, played a key role in writing the 2010 law.
Grassley said that dissatisfaction with the health-care bill exists across party lines, describing a bipartisan coalition in Washington that considers the implementation of the law a disaster. Its a shame that a trainwreck even left the station a couple years ago, he added, referring to Baucuss now-infamous statement of frustration.
The 79-year-old Iowa senator also used his remarks to inveigh against the Gang of Eights immigration bill. A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the legislation. Referring to the 1986 immigration act signed into law by President Reagan, which legalized millions of illegal immigrants, he said, I want you to know that we screwed up in 1986.
He concluded, Today, we have 11 million people who came into our country illegally. The lesson learned: You reward illegality, you get more of it.
#1
"Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge wants a federal judge to consider Jesse Jackson Jr.'s karaoke skills -- as well as his career in public service -- when the former congressman is sentenced for improperly using $750,000 in campaign cash for personal purposes."
#2
I ain't clicking the link, I been duck-rolled before. Glenmore is evidently working hand in glove with The Onion and lending his good name to what cannot be true.
#2
Well, what part of Radical Islam's "jihad" ultimately being a "Global Jihad", to includ
"Global Mohammeddan/Muslim Conquest" + related, did we not understand???
#4
Will the database include genetic tracking back to parents? Will it include genetic markers for disease? Maybe those will be amendments added later.
[Israel Times] A parched Syria turned to war, scholar says, and Egypt may be next: Prof. Arnon Sofer sets out the link between drought, Assad's civil war, and the wider strains in the Middle East; Jordan and Gazoo are also in deep trouble, he warns
Some look at the upheaval in Syria through a religious lens. The Sunni and Shia factions, battling for supremacy in the Middle East, have locked horns in the heart of the Levant, where the Shia-affiliated Alawite sect has ruled a majority Sunni nation for decades.
Some see it through a social prism. As they did in Tunis with Muhammad Bouazizi -- an honest man who couldn't make an honest living in this corruption-ridden part of the world -- the social protests that sparked the war in Syria started in the poor and disenfranchised parts of the country.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/12/2013
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#1
texas has had a 3 yr drought and increasing population also
Northern Israel had a 5 year drought from 2006 to 2011.
Somehow they escaped having a genocidal conflict.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/12/2013 0:28
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What an idiot. No place in the world duplicated population in 60 years??! India for example more than tripled...350 millions to 1200 millions
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/12/2013 10:10
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Israel no longer suffers from drought.Desalination, conservation and sewage treatment have alleviated much of the natural scarcity.
Ah - those clever Juices. Using modern science and technology.Maybe if the other countries came out of the 7th century they would have a chance.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/12/2013 10:23
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At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali on Friday in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on their targets, a spokesman for Mali's army said.
One of the towns hit was Gossi, the furthest south al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels
Boko Haram, perhaps?
More likely AQIM...
have struck in a guerrilla war launched against Malian and regional forces since the rebels were driven from their former strongholds in a French-led offensive this year.
The attacks have had limited success so far but threaten to undermine international calls for elections to be held across Mali in July although security is not yet fully restored to a zone that was occupied by Islamists last year.
The suicide raids took place nearly simultaneously between 4 and 5 a.m. in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao.
"The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the (military) camp, but the soldiers ... destroyed the vehicle, which exploded," Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Maiga told Reuters.
"At the same time in Gossi, three suicide bombers on foot attacked a checkpoint. Again the soldiers ... shot them. The three bombers were killed," he said.
As the men exchanged fire with soldiers, a fourth member of the group entered a nearby military camp and blew himself up, slightly wounding two soldiers, a second military source said.
A bus driver passing through Gossi, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Gao, told Reuters he saw dismembered body parts strewn along the road, which links Gao and the capital Bamako.
#2
Seldom is the key word there Pappy. In due course, if not in the current universe a further universe, the body parts will by chance assemble in a linear fashion and in time commence to boogalo.
[Pak Daily Times] Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... Frontier Corps has foiled a massive terror bid by seizing an explosives-laden vehicle and a large quantity of weapons in Saranan area of the province. According to the front man of the FC Balochistan, seven rockets, 4 RPG fuses, 75 snipers and other explosives were seized by the FC. The Death Eaters intended to use this explosives-laden vehicle to sabotage polling drive or to carry out other major acts of terror in Balochistan, but timely action of the security forces foiled their designs, added the FC front man.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Balochistan also borders Helmand. And, several Pashtun tribes are indigenous to Northern Baluchistan, including the evocatively named Lunis!
This is the People's Daily, the English version of the official Chi-com party. They don't say anything that isn't backed up by the highest officials in Beijing. So if they're unhappy with Pudgy, the Chinese are officially unhappy. This is worth waiting for. Now they need to tighten the screws on the financial transfers and the oil.
According to the London Telegraph, an apartment in a tower block in Dandong, the largest Chinese city on the China-North Korea border, was shut down by Chinese authorities in March. That apartment has been reported as a "key financial node in North Korea's weapons of mass destruction apparatus."
Some media outlets are guessing that this shows China can no longer bear North Korea's belligerent actions. There are increasing speculations about whether China will change its policy toward North Korea.
The Pyongyang regime has repeatedly clamored for war recently. As one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and also a major neighbor of North Korea, China's actions on this issue will definitely draw global attention, especially since Beijing has recently imposed its own sanctions on North Korea to punish its continuously unfriendly actions toward China and other actions, after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un took office, that may threaten peace in Korean Peninsula.
Beijing voted for UN sanctions on North Korea in March, and it has already strictly inspected North Korea's illegal banks in China.
China has its difficulties in dealing with the North Korean issue. The US and its military allies have enhanced their strategic deployment around the peninsula. Such military deployments exert huge negative impact on China's security interests. However, China cannot blame the US for making these deployments because according to the US, these arrangements are aimed at North Korea. China has to punish North Korea for its stirring up regional instability. But China cannot permanently cut off its military assistance to North Korea as the West is trying to persuade China to do.
Read that again: China accepts that North Korea is the problem, not us.
In short, we cannot simply "abandon" North Korea. No matter the nature of the regime in North Korea, China always has security interests in the Korean Peninsula.
There are other ways of handling your legitimate interests, comrades. We could divide North Korea between us: let the ROK take part, and you take part. The U.S. will stay in the south, and the ROK can fund reunification. The Nork people get to move to whichever side they want. Just a thought...
Beijing has already adjusted its policies toward North Korea. Targeting North Korea's unfriendly actions, which have threatened peace on the peninsula, China has issued warnings and punishments. The relationship between China and North Korea has reached its lowest point since 1953.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that China wants to completely abandon North Korea. North Korea is not a satellite state of China. We cannot "abandon" it. China's punishment and sanctions on North Korea are aimed to maintain our own security interests.
Previously, China was always friendly toward North Korea, while receiving only a few positive responses. The current problem is that since Fat Boy Kim Jong-un's coming to power, China has received almost no positive response from the North.
But even so, we cannot draw the conclusion that the Pudgy Kim Jong-un administration will never respond positively to China.
Nevertheless, not abandoning North Korea cannot be equalized to China admitting the North's status as a nuclear weapons state. Denuclearization has always been one of China's principles on the North Korean issue. No country believes that North Korea wants to pursue peace by owning nuclear weapons.
Some scholars have raised the possibility that if China does not admit North Korea's nuclear status and doesn't meet North Korea's requirements, and Washington then sends friendly messages to North Korea, a North Korea that possesses nuclear weapons may put pressure on China in return.
For my part, it is just one possibility. North Korea's mistrust toward the US is deeply rooted, just like its dependence on China.
The Pyongyang regime and the juche ideology have their own quirks. North Korea has little trust in China, let alone the US. If Pyongyang completely cuts down its relationship with China and turns to the US, it will worry about the future integrity of its regime.
But such a situation may appear strategically. North Korea has long been playing such games with China and the US. We can take this possibility into account, but need not worry a lot about it.
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05/12/2013
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[An Nahar] The national council of Morocco's conservative Istiqlal party, the main ally of the ruling Islamists, decided on Saturday to pull out of the government, a party official said.
The decision by Istiqlal, which holds several ministerial portfolios including education and the economy, could mean a general election or a cabinet reshuffle by the government headed by the Party of Justice and Development, the PJD.
In a statement, Istiqlal's national council criticized the Islamist head of the government, Abdelilah Benkirane, for failing to take "into consideration the gravity of the social and economic situation."
Istiqlal also said Benkirane, head of the PJD, was "monopolizing decisions at the center of government".
A front man for the party, Adil Benhamza, said they would send a note to King Mohamed VI to "explain the reasons that pushed our party to take such a course of action," adding that it was up to Benkirane to decide what step to take next.
Prior to Saturday's decision, Istiqlal head Hamid Chabat had been increasingly critical of Benkirane's government in the media.
The PJD, which has led the government since it dominated elections in late 2011, will have to find a new ally in government to replace Istiqlal if it wishes to avoid a new vote.
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[Pak Daily Times] Although Pakistain saw the largest ever voter turnout in its history, around 40 percent voters did not cast their votes for reasons including pessimism, sluggishness, lack of political awareness, errors in vote registration or shifting of their votes to other constituencies.
Over 2000 activists of the Tehrik-e-Minhajul Koran (TMQ) staged a protest sit-in against the elections on The Mall service lane near Masjid-e-Shuhda on the call of their leader Tahirul Qadri. The TMQ workers, including women and kiddies, participated in the sit-in which started at 8am and concluded at 3pm led by Dr Rahiq Ahmad Abbasi. The protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with different slogans against the "corrupt" polling system.
Talking to the participants of the sit-in through video link, Tahirul Qadri accused the election commission of paving the way for bogus degree holders and corrupt people to reach assemblies. He asked how can the ECP which, he claimed, has been formed against the constitution ensure that the elections are free and fair. "When the results of corrupt electoral system are made public, the media will voice the public's views and unveil the foul system," he remarked.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard... the activists of the All Pakistain Musselmen League (APML) also did not vote, as their leader Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... was barred by the courts from contesting elections. Those people who were fed up with the political systems due to the inability of the politicians to resolve the problems faced by the country, they decided to keep themselves away from the election process. They stated home and enjoyed the public holiday while criticising the politicians and the whole system.
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[An Nahar] President Moncef Marzouki on Saturday said a travel ban on Tunisians suspected of corruption must be lifted to help shore up the ailing economy and bolster national reconciliation after the 2011 uprising.
"We must strive to remove immediately these restrictions in order to set up a mechanism of reconciliation," Marzouki said of a ban that affects an estimated 0.4 percent of the country's businessmen.
"Total transparency is needed to achieve (national) reconciliation in order to revive the economy and establish justice," he said.
"We need more graft!"
Marzouki was speaking at a conference organised by the Tunisian employers union UTICA on ways of reviving the economy amid ongoing political instability and social unrest.
UTICA has repeatedly demanded that the authorities publish a list of businessmen accused of corruption, amid press reports that between 400 and 2,000 people are suspected of wrongdoing.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/12/2013
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#1
You have to let the people with the money get out and spend it, after all.
[An Nahar] Polisario Front chief Mohamed Abdelaziz has warned that his movement could take up arms to seek independence from Morocco if the U.N. fails to resolve the Western Sahara conflict, Algeria's APS news agency reported Saturday.
"We have believed in the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... , but if it fails to organize a referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara to allow the Sahrawi people to recover independence, then we will take up arms to liberate our territory," APS quoted Abdelaziz as saying.
Morocco annexed the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975, a move never recognized by the international community.
It has proposed broad autonomy under Moroccan illusory sovereignty for the phosphate-rich region.
But this is rejected by the Polisario, which first took up arms to fight for an independent state two years before the Spanish withdrawal, and continued its guerrilla war against Morocco until a U.N.-negotiated ceasefire in 1991.
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution last month extending the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission for another year but omitting a U.S.-backed plan to task it with human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. monitoring after Morocco lobbied furiously to have the proposal dropped.
Abdelaziz, the self-styled Sahrawi president, was speaking at a news conference on the second day of ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Algeria-backed Polisario movement.
On Friday he also insisted on the right of Sahrawis to a U.N.-monitored referendum on independence.
"It is time for the international community and Morocco to comply with the resolutions of the United Nations so that the Sahrawi people can achieve their right to self-determination," APS quoted him as saying.
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[Pak Daily Times] Twin boom-mobiles killed around 40 people and maimed many more in a Turkish town near the Syrian border on Saturday and Turkey said it suspected Syrian involvement.
The bombing increased fears that Syria's civil war was dragging in neighbouring states despite renewed diplomatic moves towards ending fighting in which more than 70,000 people have been killed.
The bombs ripped into crowded streets in the early afternoon in Reyhanli, scattering cars and concrete blocks in the town in Turkey's southern Hatay province, home to thousands of Syrian refugees.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... 's administration was the "usual suspect" in the attacks, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said.
"We know that the people taking refuge in Hatay have become targets for the Syrian regime," Arinc said in comments broadcast on Turkish television. "We think of them as the usual suspects when it comes to planning such a horrific attack."
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Nor was there any comment from Damascus.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... member Turkey supports the uprising against Assad and violence has crossed the border before, but not on the same scale.
Turkey is far from alone in fearing the impact of Syria's war, which is already helping inflame the Middle East's tangle of sectarian, religious and nationalist struggles.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was no coincidence the bombings came as diplomatic moves to end the Syrian conflict intensify.
"There may be those who want to sabotage Turkey's peace, but we will not allow that," Davutoglu told news hounds during a trip to Berlin. "No-one should attempt to test Turkey's power."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Nothing Al Caca wont do to get Erdogan off his sleepy ass...or is it Assad trying to get the Mullahs to invade Iraq on the way to Yzbollah's Lebanon...
Best time to try these A-bombs they surely have up their sleeves!
[An Nahar] A jacket wallah targeted the home of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer north of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... on Saturday, killing three people, while three more died in other attacks, officials said.
The bomber detonated a small tanker truck at the home of police Brigadier General Ismail al-Juburi, a senior officer for Nineveh province, killing his son, nephew and sister-in-law -- and wounding 21 others, police and a doctor said.
It was not immediately clear if Juburi was present at the time of the attack, which took place in the al-Sharqat area.
Suicide bombings, usually carried out by Sunni krazed killers, including those linked to al-Qaeda, are a relatively rare type of attack in Iraq. Roadside bombs, magnetic "sticky bombs" on vehicles and shootings are more common.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... four suicide bombers struck in various parts of northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing four people.
In the other attacks on Saturday, a roadside kaboom killed two soldiers and maimed two others in Nineveh province, an army officer and a doctor said.
And in Tikrit, also north of the capital, gunnies killed Sabhan al-Ajili, the owner of a money exchange shop, police and a doctor said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[DAILYPOST.NG] As controversy continues to trail the proposed amnesty for the Islamic fundamentalists, Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... , respected holy man and President, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, has advised President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... not to waste his time pampering the outlawed group, stating that amnesty was not the way forward.
Oritsejafor, gave this advise in Abuja after receiving an award of "A True Servant of God" given to him by the Christian Elder Forum of Northern States,NOSCEF.
He also called on the federal government to set up cattle ranches for Fulani herdsmen, instead of allowing them to wander around major cities across the country.
Oritsejafor who wept openly for victims of Boko Haram insurgency dismissed the amnesty deal, coupled with the earlier quoted statement by Abu Qaqa. He said that they had reinforced their stance that the sect's only interest is to eliminate Christians and enthrone an Islamic state in Nigeria.
He said, "This is why we are again calling on President Goodluck Jonathan not to waste taxpayers' money on a futile exercise. He should review the amnesty deal for Boko Haram, in view of the bravado by the sect leader, Mallam Shekau. Boko Haram is not only a local terrorist organization; it has a ring of international connection to it. Do not waste time pampering the sect members because amnesty deal will not work.
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[Ynet] Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said that one of the gunnies captured for planning to carry out a suicide kaboom against a foreign embassy in the country had been a member of al Qaeda in Algeria, and had travelled to Pakistain and Iran to receive training.
The incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! cell had been found in possession of statements issued by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and 10 kg (22 pounds) of aluminium nitrate, which is used to make bombs, Ibrahim said.
Mohammed Ibrahim told a news conference Saturday that the men had been in contact with Dawood al-Assady, a leader of al-Qaeda in southeast Asian countries such as Pakistain.
He said the suspected are also believed to have links with the so-called Nasr City terror cell, which was broken up last year and its members tossed in the slammer Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! on accusations of plotting attacks against public figures in Egypt.
[Pak Daily Times] The party of cricket star Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... early on Sunday conceded defeat in general elections, but said it would form the next government in the terror-hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Assad Omar, a big shot in Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI), sent his congratulations to the centre-right Pakistain Mohammedan League-N, which he said had emerged as the largest party, as results started to come through.
But speaking to private TV channel Geo, he refused to be defeatist.
"For Tehrik-e-Insaf it is a big day, a golden day. A party which has no existence in parliament has emerged the second largest national party and the leading party in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where God willing it is going to form a government," he said.
Khan has called for an end to military operations and peace talks with the Taliban, making his party's win in the northwest an interesting proposition.
Omar said Imran Khan was following the results. "He will give his reaction tomorrow, but I will say he knows how to win and how to lose, and after losing, how to come back. He is taking these results like a sportsman," Omar said.
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Violence on election day in Pakistan has killed at least 16 people, as voters cast ballots in the first election that will see one civilian administration give way to another after a full term in office.
As Pakistanis vote in parliamentary elections to fill 272 seats in the National Assembly, twin bomb blasts in Karachi killed at least 10 people. The blasts took place at a political campaign office for the Awami National Party, one of the parties targeted by the Taliban for election-related attacks.
Shootings in the southwestern province of Baluchistan left another four people dead.
However, considering the huge turnout at polling stations across the country, relatively few attacks have taken place so far on election day.
Day's not over yet...
More than 100 people have been killed and scores wounded since late April in attacks, as the Taliban seeks to undermine the election. Taliban members have warned of suicide attacks on election day.
Bombings on Friday killed at least four people and wounded 18 others. The four died in a blast near political party offices in North Waziristan - a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold. Thirteen people were wounded.
A blast in the southwestern part of the country wounded five more people outside an office being used by the Pakistan People's Party.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Pakistan's military says it is deploying thousands of troops to polling stations and counting centers.
The recent bombings of two rallies of a leading Islamic party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, strengthened views the Taliban is opposed to democracy and is targeting anyone taking part in the elections.
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[Pak Daily Times] President Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... 's administration fought back on Friday against Republican accusations that it covered up details of last year's deadly assault on a US mission in Libya, after a news report that memos on the incident were edited to omit a CIA warning of a threat posed by al Qaeda.
The report by ABC News gave new momentum to the highly partisan flap over whether the administration tried to avoid casting the Sept. 11, 2012, attack as terrorism at a time when the presidential election was less than two months away.
ABC released 12 versions of the administration's "talking points" on Benghazi that appeared to show how various agencies - particularly the State Department and the CIA - shaped what became the Obama's administration's initial playbook for explaining how four Americans, including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the attack.
The report came two days after a hearing by a House of Representatives committee in which Gregory Hicks, a former US diplomat in Libya, gave a dramatic account of the night of the attack and what he described as a poorly handled response to it.
The hearing was the latest in a series of efforts by Republicans to raise questions about the administration's response to the attack by suspected Islamist bully boys, with an increasing focus on the role of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Henry Clay ... , a possible Democratic presidential contender in 2016.
The White House has cast Republican questions as an attempt to manufacture a scandal. But the reaction to Friday's report by those in both parties suggested that Benghazi was not fading as an issue. Obama's administration appeared to acknowledge that on Friday. White House front man Jay Carney held a hastily scheduled background briefing for news hounds, as officials tried to defuse any political fallout from the talking-point memos.
Posted by: Fred ||
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3200 psi, 55 gallons of Krud Kutter, entire WH basement to ceiling. Let dry 48 hours, repeat, then fumigate and call the bug man and insist on extended warranty.
#3
the only reason this is a "highly partisan flap" is because Democrats have put their own political interests over national security, accountability, and good governance. The Democrat committee members were more interested in covering for Champ and Hillary than to find out why they lied, allowed Americans to die, went back to sleep, and then took the next day to fly to a FUNDRAISER in Vegas. Un-American doesn't even begin to describe them
*spit*
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/12/2013 9:51
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[Iran Press TV] Fighting rages on in Syria between foreign-backed snuffies and government forces as the army continues clearing operations near the western city of Homs.
The latest festivities occurred in the town of Abel, where Syrian soldiers confronted gunnies who attempted to infiltrate the town.
The snuffies were reportedly killed in the raid.
The Syrian government last month seized the town, which lies between Homs and al-Qusayr, a strategic town and Death Eater stronghold near the Lebanese border.
Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... an kaboom rocked the northwestern city of Lattakia at dawn, ripping through a number of shops in a gold market.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Interesting development...Al Caca bloweing bombs in Turkey to force Erdogan to invade Syria...hopefully, that will make Iran invade Iraq on the way to help...more popcorn, please!
[An Nahar] Turkish police have boosted security around Patriarch Bartholomew I after an alleged plot to assassinate the Orthodox Christian leader, his office said Saturday.
A front man at the patriarchate in Istanbul said they had been informed that one person had been jugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! and that others were being sought.
Turkish media said the arrested suspect, identified as Serdar A., allegedly planned to assassinate Bartholomew I on May 29, the 560th anniversary of the Turkish capture of Constantinople, present day Istanbul.
"Police have strengthened security at the patriarchate," said front man Father Dositheos Agnathostomatous. "It is doing everything to ensure the security of the patriarchate and the patriarch."
Agnathostomatous said however that Bartholomew I, the Archbishop of Constantinople, did not take the plot very seriously.
"His holiness does not believe that it is something serious," he said.
The development comes as several incidents have sown concerns among Turkey's Christian minority, which numbers 100,000 people.
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[Jpost] Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, gives Egyptian holy man diplomatic passport; PA leadership in Ramallah critical of holy man for deepening Paleostinian divisions.
The Paleostinian Authority announced over the weekend that Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi ...crackpot Egyptian Islamist theologian. He is best known for his program Shariah and Life on Al Jazeera, with an estimated audience of 60 million kindred souls worldwide. He is also well-known for IslamOnline, which occasionally advocates things like slavery and thumping the old lady with a rod no thicker than an inch, and has published more than 120 books, including Islam: The Future Civilization. Joe has long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Moslem Brüderbund. Some of his views have been controversial in the West, though less so among the rubes of the Mysterious East, and he was refused entry to the United Kingdom in 2008. In 2004, 2,500 Muslim academics from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and from the Palestinian territories condemned Qaradawi, and accused him of giving Islam a bad name.... , one of the world's leading Islamic scholars, is carrying a forged Paleostinian passport.
Qaradawi was granted the Paleostinian diplomatic passport by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... during his two-day visit to the Gazoo Strip, which ended on Friday.
The PA leadership, which had opposed Qaradawi's visit, said that it has notified all countries that the Egyptian-born scholar was carrying a forged passport.
The PA Interior Ministry in Ramallah called upon all countries "to take legal measures to seize the holder of the passport in accordance with international law."
An official in Ramallah was quoted on Saturday as saying that Interpol has contacted the PA leadership to ask for more details about the passport.
Qaradawi arrived in the Gazoo Strip on Wednesday at the head of a delegation of 50 top Islamic scholars from 14 countries.
The visit drew sharp criticism from the PA leadership in Ramallah, whose representatives accused Qaradawi of working to deepen Paleostinian divisions by recognizing Hamas as the legitimate government in the Gazoo Strip.
During the visit, Qaradawi expressed full support for Hamas. He expressed opposition to "giving up one inch of the land of Paleostine."
Qaradawi called for Paleostinian unity and refrained from directly attacking PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... Hamas said the PA's call for confiscating Qaradawi's passport was "rude."
A statement by Hamas said the call was issued by a PA ministry that "derives its legitimacy from Israeli occupation."
Ezat al-Risheq, a senior Hamas official, expressed regret over the PA's opposition to Qaradawi's visit. The scholar was granted a Paleostinian passport in honor of his "big and leading role in serving Paleostine and the causes of the Islamic nation," he said.
Risheq said the PA's stance on the passport was unjustified and harmful to all Paleostinians and would deepen divisions among the Paleostinians.
[JakartaPost] The National Police's counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, conducted a series of successful overnight operations against bully boyz with links to the Abu Omar and Autad Rawa groups, the police say.
The 20 terror suspects -- seven killed and 13 incarcerated I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! -- in the raids across Java are linked to the groups that collect money to support the activities of mujahidin (those engaged in jihad) in Poso, Central Sulawesi.
Early investigations indicated that the men had been involved in armed robberies at Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) offices in three cities.
"They stole Rp 790 million [US$81,192] from BRI in Batang and Rp 630 million from BRI Grobogan [both in Central Java]; and Rp 460 million from BRI Lampung. They also attempted to burn down Glodok Market in West Jakarta," said National Police front man Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar on Thursday as quoted by Antara news agency.
The suspects carried out various initiatives to collect money, including robbery.
"Four alleged bully boyz were planning a robbery in Kebumen [Central Java], when they were arrested in an overnight raid in the regency," said Boy.
It is alleged that one suspect, Abu Roban alias Untung, had been involved in some robbery cases -- a jewelry store in Tambora, West Jakarta; as well as the three BRI offices -- before Densus 88 officers killed him in Batang.
Police linked the suspects with Santoso, who is believed to be behind a series of attacks in Poso over the past few years.
Santoso himself is a former member of a terror group led by Basri, a member of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) group. Basri surrendered to police after a shootout on Feb. 1, 2007, in Poso where a Mohammedan-Christian conflict killed at least 1,000 people over the course of 1998 to 2002.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Densus 88 personnel raided areas in Batang, Kebumen and Kendal in Central Java; Bandung in West Java; and Banten. During the raids, the officers rubbed out seven suspects and 3 others were captured alive.
"The terror suspects killed during the raids were identified as Abu Roban, Bastari, Toni, Bayu alias Ucup, Budi alias Angga, Junet alias Encek and Sarame," Boy announced.
The suspects captured alive in Jakarta were Agus Widharto, Agung, Endang, Faisal alias Boim and Iman.
Iwan and Puryanto were arrested in Kendal. While four others -- Budi, Farel, Slamet and Wagiono -- were apprehended in Kebumen.
The two suspects arrested in Bandung were Haris Fauzi alias Jablud and William Maksum, alias Acum alias Dadan.
The bodies of the three dead men were flown to Dr. Sukamto Police Hospital in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta, on Thursday after being examined at Bhayangkara Hospital in Semarang.
"They're dead, Jim."
"Dr. Quincy, however do you do it?!"
During the raid in Ciputat, Densus 88 officers confiscated Rp 25.48 million, while in the Bandung raid, the police found two revolvers, an FN Browning pistol, hundreds of bullets and Rp 6 million in cash.
But not a shutter gun in the bunch, nor a crossfire, nor Mahmoud the Weasel calling in the tip. The Rab are still Grand Champions at this kind of thing.
In Kendal, the police seized one revolver, nine bullets, a notebook and a USB,
...that last being particularly exciting...
while in Kebumen they found two pipe bombs, grenades and FN pistols, in a house in Kembaran hamlet.
Some residents in Kembaran said that the entourage of alleged bully boyz had only stayed for around 10 days in the hamlet and they had introduced themselves as jamu (herbal medicine) sellers.
Oddly enough, said one resident, the only herbs they had in stock were opium, ganja, and qat, all of which they steadfastly refused to part with.
Following the raids, West Java Police called on the owners of boarding houses to check the identity of their tenants.
"The owners must have copies of their occupants to avoid unexpected occurrences," West Java Police front man Sr. Comr. Martinus Sitompul said.
"We also asked the public to increase their awareness by organizing night patrols."
Some of the villagers in Kembaran, Kebumen regency, had returned to their houses by Thursday afternoon.
One of them, Hastuti, said her family had taken refuge at a relative's house on Wednesday night.
Others began repairing the damage inflicted on their houses following the shoot out between Densus 88 personnel and the alleged terrorists.
Ah ha! They did have a crossfire, after all! Things are looking up.
Santoso's link to a series of terror attacks
September 2012: police arrest a man named Hasan alias Wendi with suspected links to a Surakarta-based terrorist group at Pantoloan Port in Palu, Central Sulawesi. Hasan had reportedly participated at a military training conducted by Santoso in Poso where he was reportedly taught how to assemble explosives.
May 25, 2011: the shooting of three coppers in front of a Bank Central Asia (BCA) branch in Palu. Two dead, one injured.
Oct. 8, 2012: the murder of two coppers, Andi Sappa and Sudirman, in Tamanjeka hamlet, Poso Pesisir.
Oct. 9, 2012: a kaboom at a community hall in Kawua subdistrict, Poso.
Nov. 15, 2012: the shooting of Poso Pesisir Utara Police chief First Insp. Bastian Taruklabi.
Dec. 20, 2012: the shooting of six police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) members in North Poso Pesisir. Three dead and three others injured.
#1
"We also asked the public to increase their awareness by organizing night patrols."
So they also habitat in what passes for upazillas, they will be active during the nighttime hours, and earlier in the story is sounded like some of the miscreants were wanted on several warrants (systems). And the number od dearly desceased makes it sounds like the Spidey Sense took over and caused them to be undone before they could escape as if they had never been.
I sense the clandestine hand of a RAB Correspondence Course present.
#4
I really do need to get to work (I have joined Adobe Creative Klod!) on the RAB Wanted Posted. But I can't decide between a recruiting poster or a warning poster.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/12/2013 8:08
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#4
Yes, OEM is the desired outcome but sometimes it's difficult to discern in low level lighting. Cataracts and transition lenses are no help either. So why bother.
[Iran Press TV] A contingent of about 100 Tanzanian soldiers has arrived in Congo to join a United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... mission aimed at neutralizing gangs in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... According to peacekeeping mission front man Lt. Col. Felix Basse, the Tanzanian troops, who entered eastern Congo on Saturday, are the first batch to form the new 3,000-strong UN intervention force to be deployed in the African country.
On March 28, the UN Security Council passed a resolution, which not only renewed the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo for one year, but also created a special UN brigade that will fight gangs, rather than merely defend civilians.
On April 23, the commander of the UN intervention force arrived in Goma, but troops who were scheduled to be in eastern Congo by the end of April have only just started arriving there.
On May 4, March 23 movement (M23) rebels told Tanzania that they would attack and kill its troops if they join the UN mission.
"This is intimidation, they must stop it," Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe told parliament.
"We are not going to Congo as lords of war, we are going there as advocates of peace to help our neighbors," Membe stated.
Last month, Bertrand Bisimwa, the M23's political leader, sent a letter to Tanzania's parliament, saying the rebels had defeated even "larger and better equipped" armies. He warned that the same would happen to Tanzanian soldiers if they went ahead with their "dangerous adventure".
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[An Nahar] The race for Iran's highest elected office was revitalized on Saturday when former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was seriously injured. He has been described as a centrist and a pragmatic conservative without all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012... and top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili officially registered for the June 14 election.
Rafsanjani, who was president between 1989 and 1997, registered at the interior ministry in the closing minutes of the five-day registration process for the presidential vote which wrapped up on Saturday.
The final line-up of candidates will not be known until later this month when the Guardians Council releases the approved list of names after the vetting process.
"I came to serve. It is the right of the people to choose me or not," Rafsanjani was quoted by Iranian media as telling news hounds.
He is seeking to succeed Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad whose two-term presidency has left the Islamic republic isolated internationally, while the ailing economy struggles to cope with international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Rafsanjani, who will be 79 in August, had polarized Iran's complex political spectrum in recent weeks by announcing that he was considering standing again.
He has been isolated by ultra-conservatives since Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in 2009 sparked massive street protests, leading to a heavy-handed regime crackdown and the arrest of hundreds of journalists, activists and reformist supporters.
Rafsanjani at the time called for the release of those rounded up during the demonstrations.
Also on Saturday, Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and close figure to all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly showed up at the ministry and registered his candidacy.
A veteran of the 1980s war with Iraq in which he lost his lower right leg, Jalili, 47, did not speak to news hounds, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent said.
Jalili heads the team in negotiations with world powers over Tehran's controversial atomic activities which the West fears are aimed at developing a military capacity, a claim denied by Iran.
In Istanbul on May 15 Jalili is scheduled to meet the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's top diplomat Catherine Ashton, who represents the so-called P5+1 group of Britannia, China, La Belle France, Russia and the United States plus Germany in nuclear talks with Iran.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Ignoring its own manifesto, the BNP has extended its support to the Hefajat-e Islam's movement that seeks a realisation of its 13-point demand. The demands, if implemented, will severely hinder women's empowerment as well as lead to some other consequences.
The main opposition party in its manifesto declares that it will take multi-pronged measures to ensure women's empowerment. It speaks of the overall emancipation and progress of the women.
It promises to keep making various efforts for the empowerment of women through ensuring their employment in various sectors, particularly in social welfare, rural development, local government and small and medium industries.
The BNP also promises to provide youths, both male and female, with scientific, technical and vocational education so that they can rid themselves of the curse of unemployment and contribute to nation-building.
Its manifesto mentions neither any discrimination against nor imposes any restrictions on what the Hefajat has termed "free mingling of men and women".
The Hefajat's demands are contrary to what the BNP promises in its manifesto. The Hefajat demands the imposition of a ban on "free-mingling of men and women". If such restrictions are imposed, hundreds of thousands of female workers will be pushed into unemployment; and co-education in schools, colleges and universities will have to be discarded.
That will hamper women's empowerment and will go against the very spirit of the constitution.
The Hefajat has also demanded the scrapping of the women development policy, which contradicts the policy mentioned in the BNP manifesto regarding various steps to be taken for the overall development of women.
The Hefajat's demand for a stop to the building of sculptures at intersections, colleges and universities also runs contrary to what the BNP promises in its manifesto -- to identify various incidents and places related to the War of Liberation and take measures to preserve them.
Besides, at least six of the Hefajat's demands run counter to the country's constitution.
Earlier, at a meeting last month, BNP policymakers discussed the Hefajat demands and resolved that the party did not agree with most of those.
Yet the BNP extended support to the Hefajat's movement. It provided food and drink to Hefajat men who joined the long march to Dhaka on April 6 and a party delegation joined the Hefajat's rally on the day and expressed solidarity with the movement.
The BNP went further on May 5 when party chief Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... urged party leaders and workers to stand beside the Hefajat men who had suddenly begun a sit-in at Shapla Chattar in the capital, vowing not to leave until their demands were met.
She also urged her party men and the city dwellers to provide the Hefajat men with food and drink.
The BNP-led 18-party alliance even enforced a two-day countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... on May 8 and 9 in protest against the law enforcers' action in driving away Hefajat men from Shapla Chattar in the early hours of May 6, in the process "killing more than two thousand people".
The main opposition, in order to gain political mileage out of a volatile situation, clearly did not go back to its manifesto before extending support to the Hefajat movement. Its organizational weakness has prompted some of its policymakers to rely on the Hefajat men to intensify its one-point movement to oust the government.
But on both occasions, the BNP was upset. That left some lessons for the party to learn.
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[Libya Herald] Militiamen who have been besieging the Foreign Ministry this evening fled when hundreds of pro-democracy supporters arrived at the building to demonstrate their support for the government.
Around 200 demonstrators had marched from Algeria Square along the Corniche to the Ministry but were quickly joined by others along the way, overwhelming the couple of dozen or so bully boyz who were still mounting their siege outside the Ministry buildings.
Some of these retreated further along the Corniche. Around six or seven others rushed behind the walls of the Ministry annexe across the road from the main building and from there tried to berate the protestors. When these ripped down the militiamen's signs, one of the latter tried to hit out at protestors from the top of the wall with a long stick. The result was that dozens of demonstrators started banging on the gate to try and get in and then rushed round to the side entrance, hoping to grab the man.
There then followed some quick negotiations at the gate between the two sides in which the militiamen, claiming to be from Benghazi and there to guard the ministry, said that they would deal with the man. They then retired to a corner of the compound and took no further part in proceedings.
Earlier in Algeria Square, around 400 anti-militia protesters brought traffic to a halt. Placards read: "With our blood we will defence the legitimacy of the government", "No to bringing down the government with arms" and "Get rid of the guns in your hands and start building Libya".
"I don't like Zeidan", said a protestor, "but he was appointed by a democratically-elected Congresss. "We must support him".
Others agreed. "I don't want him removed this way", said one of them. "It must be Congress that decides."
The crowd roared anti-militia chants interspersed with takbeers ("Allahu Akbar") and occasional barbs at Qatar.
"We don't want to be ruled by Mozah and Hamid," they shouted -- a reference to the Emir of Qatar, Hamid bin Khalifa Al-Thani and his wife, Sheikha Mozah, who was brought up in Libya. Qatar is accused by many of interfering in Libya by funding Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... and other Islamists.
Placards also called on Qatar to stop interfering.
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[Pak Daily Times] Almost all political parties announced boycott of election in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Hyderabad over alleged rigging and violence.
Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... (JI) on Saturday announced it would boycott elections in Karachi and Hyderabad, accusing rival MQM of rigging and violence. "These are false elections, armed workers of the MQM are terrorising people and rigging the elections," Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, a JI party leader announced at a presser.
Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... 's Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) also accused the MQM of major rigging in the city. JI withdrew all of its 29 candidates who were contesting for national and provincial seats, as well as withdrawing from Hyderabad.
The election commission also raised concerns about threats to its staff in the port city, which it says has prevented them from performing their duties. "In other instances, attempts have been made to hijack the vehicles transporting voting material from the returning officers to the polling stations. This has caused serious delays in polling," it said in a statement.
The independent Free and Fair Election Network tweeted from its account that three of its observers had been beaten up by MQM workers in a district of Karachi. Arif Alvi, a senior PTI leader, also charged that "extensive rigging" had taken place, claiming that thousands of its supporters had been prevented from voting. However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... PTI only announced to boycott elections from Hyderabad. JI also complained of a delayed start in voting in many parts of Karachi, which last year saw record violence linked to ethnic and political tensions.
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, there was another kaboom... MQM candidate Nabil Gabol announced to boycott elections from NA-248, PS-108 and PS-109 Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... constituencies. During a presser in Karachi on Saturday, Gabol said MQM's polling agents were harassed in Lyari, adding that despite constant demands for extra security in area no such arrangements were seen. Following Jamaat-e-Islami's boycott, other political and politico-religious parties also announced to pull their candidates out of the polling race because of vote-rigging in Karachi and Hyderabad.
The Pakistain People's Party (PPP) has also expressed its doubts in the fairness of the elections, saying that rigging is being carried in Karachi under an effective plan. Addressing a presser, senior PPP leader Taj Haider alleged elections have massively been rigged in Karachi and subsequently their results would also be tampered. The MQM also complained of rigging. Addressing a presser, MQM's Farooq Sattar alleged that rigging is underway at some polling stations of Karachi.
MQM chief Altaf Hussain telephoned Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G Ebrahim and complained about delay in the start of polling in various constituencies. Chief of Muhajir Qaumi Movement-Haqeeqi Afaq Ahmed also announced boycott of elections in Karachi, saying that the polling was not being held free and fair. Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) also pulled its candidates out of the polling race in Karachi. The SIC alleged that rigging was being carried out in an organized way.
Another key religious party, Jamaat Ulema-e-Pakistain (JUP) followed suit. During a presser, JUP central leader Sahibzada Abul-Khair Muhammad Zubair complained of rigging in Karachi and Hyderabad and announced to boycotts elections in the two cities. The chief of Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) Talal Akbar Bugti announced to boycott the elections completely, terming them a fraud. While talking to the media, he claimed that elections were not free, fair and transparent, adding that candidates had been pre-decided for selection. The Jamiaat Ulema-e-Pakistain (JUP) also announced to boycott the elections of the National and Sindh Assembly constituencies of Karachi and Hyderabad.
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The foto in the rollout looks strikingly familiar. Seems as though I remember one of our UAV's crashing, or crash landing somewhere a while back and never being recovered. Now where could that have been ?
#1
I would imagine that all they need to do is make the appropriate sized donation to the right re-election campaigns, and they will get our contractors to design and furnish complete shop drawings. No serious espionage efforts required.
Sometimes the contractors even provide the technical assistance intentionally (see Loral Aerospace during the Clinton administration for details)
[Bangla Daily Star] International rights watchdog Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... (HRW) has asked the Bangladeshi authorities to immediately set up an independent commission to investigate the large numbers of deaths and injuries during the Hefajat-e Islam-led protests in Dhaka and elsewhere on May 5 to 6.
The commission should also investigate violence that killed dozens in February, March, and April after protests and counter-protests broke out following the announcement of verdicts by the country's international crimes tribunals (ICT), said a press statement of the New York-based rights body which was published on May 11.
The exact number of deaths during the May 5 to 6 protest remains unclear, with figures ranging from the official government figure of 11 deaths to Hefajat's estimate of thousands.
Independent news sources put the figure at approximately 50 dead, with others succumbing to injuries later. The dead include several security personnel, said the blurb.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... the HRW said that claims of "genocide" by Hefajat and other opposition parties are unfounded and have only served to heighten tensions.
"The toxic swirl of rumour and rhetoric surrounding the protest of May 5 to 6 will only get worse unless the government acts quickly in a transparent manner," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Given the lack of trust between various parties, it is imperative that these answers come from an independent and impartial body," he added.
"Bangladesh will see a plethora of demonstrations this year in response to additional verdicts from the ICT and in the run-up to national elections," said Adams.
"Without an independent investigation, accountability, and improved policing methods, we could see serial bloodbaths," he further added.
The HRW also called on opposition parties, including BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , as well as independent organizations such as Hefajat, to condemn and take steps to deter their supporters from carrying out unlawful attacks, including on law enforcement officers or members of the public with different political views.
The rights body also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... that Hefajat recruited boys from madrasas to participate in the "siege." Many of the boys were unaware of the risks of marching into Dhaka.
Independent journalists told the HRW that after the protests were broken up by security forces, they encountered groups of boys who had never been to Dhaka before and were terrified by the experience of seeing dead bodies and large-scale violence.
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Chinas first carrier-based aviation unit has been established in Northeastern Chinas
Liaoning province. On Friday, the Chinese Navy announced the establishment of its first carrier-based aviation unit. Pilots have been specially selected from Chinas Air Force. All of them have flown more than 5 different types of aircraft, and have logged more than 1000 hours of flight time.
It is very difficult and risky for carrier-based aircraft to land on a limited landing area on a moving carrier under a complex marine environment. So the candidates must go through a strict screening process, said Liu Changhong, commander for flight testing, Chinese Navy. The pilots have also been well educated in navigation, maritime law, and meteorology.
Experts say the full establishment of the fighter jet fleet means that the aircraft carrier is now more ready to operate to its full potential. It brings the carrier a crucial step closer towards becoming a genuine naval combat force. But building up any air fleet is no easy task.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
some stuff can't be stolen. like the training they are gonna need.
Posted by: chris ||
05/12/2013 7:44
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#2
See also BHARAT RAKSHAK > [PRI.org] CHINA"S ECONOMY AT CROSSROADS BETWEEN FREER ENTERPRISE [not just "free"], STATE CONTROL.
IMO "State Control" also read, COMMUNISM-SOCIALISM + IDEO "CENTRALISM".
Prolly the best example for Beijing is to study rival Japan's [non-Militarism based]rapid modernization, industrialization, + geopol expansionism following the Meiji restoration in the late 19th century.
[ALLAFRICA] Federal Government, yesterday, told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that investigations revealed that the Islamist sect, Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... , received sponsor-ship from another terrorist organization based in Algeria.
The Federal Government, which made the disclosure on a day the high court commenced trial of one of alleged kingpins of the sect, Kabiru Umar, a.k.a Kabiru Sokoto, who allegedly criminal masterminded the Christmas day kaboom that killed about 44 persons and maimed 75 others at St. Theresa's Catholic Church at Madalla, Niger State, in 2011, gave the name of the Algerian terrorist group as Muslimiyama.
Witness' account
A masked witness, who was identified as Mr. XYZ in his testimony, further told the court that the sect not only received funds from the foreign terror network, but also robbed Christians whenever the need for money arose.
He added that the accused person, in a statement he made on January 14, 2012, confessed that it was in the process of sharing a particular fund that was received from Muslimiyama, that the Boko Haram sect became factionalised.
Narrating how Kabiru Sokoto was caught, the witness, who told the court that he was a terrorism expert, said the accused person had confessed that he was inducted into the sect by Hameel Abdulrazak in 2007, noting that prior to that time, the accused worked as a laboratory assistant at a Specialist Hospital in Sokoto State.
He told the court that before the accused person was apprehended at Borno State Government Lodge on January 13, 2012, after the police searched for him in so many northern states following his alleged complicity in sundry acts of terrorism, he had been an ardent follower of the late leader of the sect, Mohammed Yusufu, who was killed in 2009.
The witness said: "I had trailed the accused to Abaji where he has a house, I stayed there three days but he was nowhere to be found.
"However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... I later got information that he was sighted at Borno State Governor's Lodge, so I immediately went there with my team. We searched the lodge and got to the boys quarters where he ran and hid at room two.
Given away by phone
"When we knocked for over 30 minutes and he didn't open, I decided to break the door with my leg, but the accused pushed from the inside until I called my team and we overpowered him.
"Because we didn't know him in person then, I asked him if he was Kabiru Sokoto and he denied. Then I searched him and found an LG phone on him which I used and dialed my own number only for Kabiru Sokoto's number, which we have been using to trail him to appear.
"Then I asked him again, and he said he was not Kabiru Sokoto but Kabiru Umar.
"My Lord, he spoke in fluent English and told me he lives at Abaji but hails from Sokoto State."
The witness told the court that when he took the accused to the station, he informed the dismissed Commissioner of Police for the FCT, Mr. Zakari Biu, who he said arrived from Kano.
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#1
Yes I read that as Boko Haram Gets Scholarship From Algeria and was on the verge of acute cognitive dissidence until I remember Algeria is Division III.
[An Nahar] Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim Saturday called Malaysia's recent elections "the mother of all frauds" as he kept up the pressure over polls he says were stolen by the 56-year-old regime.
Anwar addressed tens of thousands in the opposition-governed northern state of Penang three days after a massive rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur kicked off a series of protest gatherings.
Anwar has branded the May 5 elections -- won by the Barisan Nasional (National Front) ruling coalition -- a heist by Prime Minister Najib Razak and accused the Election Commission (EC) of bias.
"The EC were cheats. The last (election)... is the mother of all frauds," he told the crowd.
"In these elections, we demand answers, and we demand the answers now."
Anwar called the rallies to pressure Najib over the elections, the worst performance ever by the regime, which has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957. He has said he will soon produce evidence of fraud.
Najib's government insists the elections were free and fair.
Any move to overturn the result looks doomed to fail, with the three-party opposition accusing the EC and courts of being in the government's pocket.
Anwar indicated Saturday the opposition would focus less on challenging the result and more on exposing pro-government biases in the electoral system.
The charismatic Anwar, 65, has battled Barisan ever since he was ousted from its top ranks in a 1998 power struggle and placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! for six years on sex and corruption charges widely seen as trumped-up.
The vote was touted as the first in which the opposition had a chance to unseat Barisan.
But the coalition retained a solid majority in parliament despite winning a minority of the popular vote, a factor blamed on pro-Barisan parliamentary redistricting.
Police have said speakers at the larger initial rally in the capital Wednesday could face sedition charges, but no action has yet been taken.
On Saturday authorities in neighboring Singapore, where several hundred thousand Malaysians live and work, said they incarcerated Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! 21 Malaysians for staging an illegal protest, apparently in support of the Penang rally.
A police front man told Agence La Belle France Presse the Malaysians were held under the Public Order Act, under which organizers of illegal protests can be placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! for up to six months or fined Sg$10,000 ($8,100).
Indelible ink used in the May 5 polls to thwart multiple-voting easily washed off voter's hands, and there were numerous accounts of angry citizens confronting suspected foreign "voters" at polling centers.
Anwar had earlier alleged a government scheme to fly tens of thousands of "dubious" and possibly foreign voters to flood key constituencies.
The opposition also has raised a number of cases in which they said voting patterns or handling of ballot boxes were suspicious.
The opposition has said another rally will be held Sunday in the state of Perak, near Penang, followed by a swing to the nation's east coast.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/12/2013
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#1
I thought the Mother of All Frauds was Stanley Ann Dunham
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/12/2013 10:07
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#2
This has all the signs of putting local Muslims on a violent collision course wid the increasing numbers of Chinese emigres to the country.
But thats why China has its offshore Sansha/Sasha province, + PLAN, in what was formerly known as the South China Sea, now isn't it.
[Bangla Daily Star] Police incarcerated Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! 22 leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir ... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh... in Chittagong and Rajshahi on Saturday.
Of the total, 16 were detained in Rajshahi while the rest in Chittagong.
RAJSHAHI
Police locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! 16 Shibir activists at Kharkhari, Narikelbaria and Ujirpur, on the outskirts of the city, for plotting subversive activities in the city ahead of the Sunday's hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... , said Tanvir Haider, deputy commissioner of Rajshahi Metropolitan Police.
Jamaat called the countrywide daylong hartal protesting the death penalty against Muhammad Kamaruzzaman.
International Crimes Tribunal on May 9 awarded death penalty to Kamaruzzaman for his crimes against humanity in 1971.
Among the arrestees, Golam Mostafa received rubber bullet injury in his back as he tried to escape the arrest around 6:00am, reports our Rajshahi correspondent quoting Ziaur Rahman, OC of Boalia cop shoppe.
Around 200 coppers conducted the raid at three spots for two hours, the DC said adding that police conducted the raid acting on a tip off from the always reliable Mahmoud the Weasel given by some Shibir activists arrested earlier.
All the arrestees were brought to Boalia Police Station, the OC added.
CHITTAGONG
Police nabbed six leaders and activists of Jamaat-Shibir on charges of vandalism after their leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was given death penalty for his wartime offences.
Jamaat activists Md Ali Asgar and Kamal Uddin at Rampura and Latifpur of the port city were arrested during a drive from 1:00am to 4:30am, reports our Chittagong correspondent quoting officers-in-charge (OCs) of Halishahar and Pahartali cop shoppes.
Faruk-e-Azam, a central leader of Shibir and also the office secretary of its district unit, was nabbed from Mistripara, according to the police.
Police picked up party activists Hassan Mahmud from Rampura and Md Monir and Md Ismail from Karnaphuli Bridge.
Jamaat-Shibir men set a bus ablaze in second Shah Amanat Bridge area of Chittagong city Thursday evening protesting the verdict against Kamaruzzaman that sentenced him to death for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/12/2013
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Once the first trickle seeps through the dam, can the flood be far behind?
Also, Uncle Phester and USN, Ret. both posted links yesterday about the IRS having initiated this approach as far back as the second quarter of 2011 with senior management approval. See here.
#4
it wasn't Jewish 501 orgs, it was pro Israel 501s that were given the special inquisition
lord garth, from the article link:
And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel, and also demanded the organization [d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel.
#15
The problem for Champ is that most people who see this story will instantly grasp that he is a bad person. Not just a bad president. Not someone you disagree with. A nasty, bitter, petty, rotten, twisted mean guy.
This of course completely undermines the persona his MSM collaborators have created for him, but worse. It is a message the squishy middle will understand and care about.
#16
And at least one purely religious Jewish organization, one not focused on Israel, was the recipient of bizarre and highly inappropriate questions about Israel. Those questions also came from the same non-profit division of the IRS at issue for inappropriately targeting politically conservative groups. The IRS required that Jewish organization to state "whether [it] supports the existence of the land of Israel," and also demanded the organization "[d]escribe [its] religious belief system toward the land of Israel."
NOTE THE PHRASING.
They didn't ask "Do you support or oppose such and such an apartment block in Jerusalem" or "do you support or oppose such and such a settlement."
It's the existance of Israel itself that is the dividing line.
And it's the dividing line the Jug Eared Fuck pretends to be on the other side of in the light of day.
Maybe this will get through the bubbles of some people. Maybe it won't. I dunno.
#20
So, of course, the next time Chump gives a political speech in a church the IRS will investigate the church's tax exempt status. Right? Right? Oh, yeah. I guess not.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/12/2013 19:10
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[An Nahar] Tunisian Foreign Minister Othmane Jarandi told Agence La Belle France Presse on Saturday that some 800 Tunisians are fighting in Islamist rebel ranks in Syria and said the country would work to repatriate its citizens taken prisoner there.
"We don't have exact numbers, since several people left the country illegally, but the most accurate estimate is a maximum of 800," fighting in Syria, he said.
Tunis has been criticized by non-government organizations and the opposition since diplomatic relations with Damascus were severed in February 2011, and has been accused of abandoning Tunisians in Syria to their fate.
"The repatriation of Tunisians can be facilitated by the embassy in Leb after the government makes contact with the Syrian authorities about imprisoned Tunisian citizens," Jarandi said.
In March, an inquiry was begun into Islamist networks in Tunisia that channel fighters into the ranks of Islamist groups battling forces loyal to the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... The interior ministry said border controls had prevented the departure of some 1,000 Tunisians headed for Syria, where the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... says more than 70,000 people have been killed since the March 2011.
Local Tunisian radio station Express FM said 132 Tunisian fighters were killed in and round the northern city of Aleppo in February alone, mostly from the town of Sidi Bouzid, birthplace of the first Arab Spring uprising.
Tunisian experts say the country's mosques play a key role in spurring young jihadists to leave for the conflict in Syria, influenced by the teachings of radical imams.
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[Pak Daily Times] Dozens of people were killed in attacks across the country as the nation voted on Saturday. A kaboom claimed by the Taliban killed 11 people and maimed around 40 others in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , but it appeared to have little effect on enthusiastic turnout in other parts of the city, as well as Islamabad, Lahore and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. . The Taliban targeted a provincial assembly candidate for the Awami National Party (ANP). An AFP photographer said a child aged three or four was among 11 dead laid out in the morgue. Police said one of the candidate's guards was also killed. The target, Amanullah Mehsud, escaped unhurt, senior police official Mazhar Nawaz said. A jacket wallah rammed his cycle of violence into a Rangers' picket in the city on Saturday, killing two personnel and injuring five others. The attack took place on Mangho Pir Road. Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... as many as seven people, including a child, were killed and dozens injured, including two security personnel and two children, in separate incidents of violence at the polling stations in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . Many polling stations were shut after they were attacked by the armed hard boyz with bombs and rockets. Unidentified persons threw a hand grenade at the polling stations in Killi Shabo, Quetta, killing one child and injuring eight others. Four people were killed in an armed clash between two rival groups in Chaman's Kili Fezo area. At least 11 people were reportedly killed and 12 others injured in a bomb and gun attack on a convoy in Chhattar some 60km from Dera Murad Jamali. A man was killed and 14 others sustained bullet injuries in a clash between two rival political groups in Shikarpur. One person died on spot while 14 others were maimed. Police and paramilitary forces rushed to the scene. In Peshawar, a suicide bomber was killed and 17 others, including a cop, were maimed in the blast near a polling station.
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[Al Ahram] At a Saturday presser, Egyptian Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim voiced his willingness to withdraw a complaint filed earlier against April 6 Youth Movement founder Ahmed Maher.
Maher was locked away Book 'im, Mahmoud! on Friday afternoon upon his arrival to Cairo International Airport en route from Vienna, following a visit he made to the United States.
Maher will reportedly be held by authorities for four days pending further investigation.
On Saturday, the office of the prosecutor-general ordered Maher's release, although charges against him remain in place.
According an interior ministry official cited by state news agency MENA, Maher has been charged with inciting demonstrations outside the interior minister's Cairo residence in March.
On 29 March, four April 6 members were arrested and charged with rioting and resisting police after security forces dispersed a protest organised by the youth group outside Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim's home in the capital's New Cairo district.
Protesters held up banners -- along with women's undergarments -- accusing the ministry of "prostituting" itself to the administration of President Mohamed Morsi.
One month later, a New Cairo court ordered the four April 6 members' release. It remains unclear, however, whether the charges against the four activists have been dropped.
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Remembering that this is a historic situation for Pakistan: from one elected government to the next without a military coup interceding. However, it does remain to be seen how long the Army of the Pure can restrain themselves before taking over again.
[Pak Daily Times] The Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Saturday emerged as the leading political party in the general election, with Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI)'s 'tsunami' heading towards the second largest gainer, along with the Pakistain People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), the former ruling party in the Centre. Poor, sad Pakistain. The choice is between the rapaciousness and ineptitude of the PPP, the rapaciousness and incompetence of PML-N, and the lunacy of PTI.
The PTI, of course, never having won enough votes to be able to practice serious rapacity. but they and their formerly handsome figurehead live in hope.
The electoral gains of mainstream political parties -- the PML-N, the PTI and the PPPP -- varied from province to province, as the former overwhelmed the rivals in Punjab and the PTI dominated Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... (KP) and some areas of Punjab. The PPPP dominated the rural parts of Sindh by retaining a majority of its seats in the province.
The ANP, the former ruling party of KP, remained the big loser, as it appeared to lose its grip completely on the province at the hands of the PTI. The MQM's lead on most of the seats in urban parts of Sindh that it secured in the last general election. According to preliminary results of the general election, the PML-N kept its grip on its stronghold in Punjab by dominating a majority of seats, except a few upsets in Rawalpindi, where it faced defeat at the hands of PTI and Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed of the Awami Mohammedan League.
The PTI, making a dent in the stronghold of the PML-N and grabbing some seats in the province, secured big electoral gains in KP where it uprooted the Awami National Party and the PPPP, especially in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. and Swat.
The polls results indicate the PML-N leading with more than 110 seats against its political rivals, particularly in Punjab, whereas the PTI seems to have secured around 40 seats, particularly in KP, Rawalpindi division and Islamabad.
The PPPP appears dominating its stronghold Sindh where it is retaining a majority of its seats. In Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , the National Party (NP) was going ahead, with the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party -- led by Mahmood Khan Achakzai -- and the JUI-F overtaking their rivals in the Pashtun belt of the province.
PTI's Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... was heading towards a big electoral victory in an individual capacity, as the poll results suggested that he had won the NA-1 Peshawar seat. Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... , Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif secured their seats, whereas Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was comfortably leading in one of the constituencies.
PPPP bigwigs in Punjab -- former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Manzoor Wattoo, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar and Arbab Alamgir -- lost the seats to their rivals.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Tolo News] The Deputy Chief of Intelligence of Nuristan province Mohammad Faiz was killed when a bomb went kaboom! in his home in Wigal District on Saturday afternoon, officials said.
Mohammad Faiz Deputy Chief of Intelligence of Nuristan province was killed today afternoon when a bomb went kaboom! in his home, Nuristan governor's front man Mohammad Zahir Bahand told TOLOnews.
"Today at 12:00pm afternoon, a bomb that was placed in his home went kaboom! wounding him seriously, but unfortunately he died after an hour," said Zahir Bahand.
He is the most senior police officer to be killed in a Taliban attack in the province this year.
No group including the Taliban has grabbed credit for the attack.
Wigal District is among the most insecure districts in Nuristan province.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Syrian troops fought rebels on Saturday in a bid to take back a key supply route linking the center of the country to Aleppo in the north, a monitoring group said.
"Fierce battles raged pitting troops against rebels. Regime troops fought to reopen the road linking Hama to Aleppo," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Rebels cut off the so-called Desert Road on Thursday. The army had been using it as its main supply route to Aleppo province, large swathes of which are under myrmidon control.
In March the army's command had announced "the return of safety and security" to villages located along the road.
The road leads to Aleppo international airport, scene of heavy fighting pitting rebels against troops for several weeks.
Rebels launched in February a bid to take over airports and air bases in Aleppo province in a bid to take out the air force's capacity to deploy.
With large parts of the province out of army hands, the rebels' main obstacle in the north is the regime's air force.
In central Syria, meanwhile, fierce battles raged in Qusayr in the province of Homs, with rebels fighting troops, pro-regime militia and members of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, which supports the Damascus regime.
The town, under rebel hands for more than a year, was pounded Saturday using rockets and tank fire, said the Observatory.
Further south, seven army troops were killed in a rebel raid on a checkpoint in the town of Abel, added the Observatory.
At least 22 people were killed across Syria on Saturday, according to a preliminary toll by the Britannia-based watchdog, which relies on a broad network of activists, doctors and lawyers for its reports.
At least 95 people were killed in Syria on Friday, it said.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"SeeBS News President David Rhodes and ABSee News President Ben Sherwood, both of them have spawn that not only work at the White House, that not only work for the Champ, but they work at the National Insecurity Council on foreign policy issues directly related to Benghazi." 
But even some of Obama's allies worry privately that his difficulties may be made worse by his 
[Israel Times] A parched Syria turned to war, scholar says, and Egypt may be next: Prof. Arnon Sofer sets out the link between drought, Assad's civil war, and the wider strains in the Middle East; Jordan and 
Pervez 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Goodluck Jonathan
Hillary Clinton
[Jpost] 
The PA leadership, which had opposed Qaradawi's visit, said that it has notified all countries that the Egyptian-born scholar was carrying a forged passport.
[JakartaPost] The National Police's counterterrorism unit, Densus 88, conducted a series of successful overnight operations against 
Mahmoud 
Khaleda Zia
[ALLAFRICA] Federal Government, yesterday, told a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja that investigations revealed that the Islamist sect, 
[An Nahar] Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim Saturday called Malaysia's recent elections "the mother of all frauds" as he kept up the pressure over polls he says were stolen by the 56-year-old regime.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Pak Daily Times] The Pakistain 
The ANP, the former ruling party of KP, remained the big loser, as it appeared to lose its grip completely on the province at the hands of the PTI. The MQM's lead on most of the seats in urban parts of Sindh that it secured in the last general election. According to preliminary results of the general election, the PML-N kept its grip on its stronghold in Punjab by dominating a majority of seats, except a few upsets in Rawalpindi, where it faced defeat at the hands of PTI and Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed of the Awami 
[An Nahar] Syrian troops fought rebels on Saturday in a bid to take back a key supply route linking the center of the country to Aleppo in the north, a monitoring group said.
