The Champ administration justified using drones to kill Americans suspected of terrorism overseas by citing the war against al-Qaida and by saying a surprise attack against an American in a foreign land would not violate the laws of war, according to a previously secret government memorandum released Monday.
The memo provided legal justification for the September 2011 killing in Yemen of Anwar Al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader who had been born in the United States, and another U.S. citizen, Samir Khan. An October 2011 strike also killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki's teenage son and also a U.S. citizen.
The memo, written by a Justice Department official, said the killing of al-Awlaki was justified under a law passed by Congress soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The law empowered the president to use force against organizations that planned, authorized and committed the attacks.
Al-Awlaki had been involved in an abortive attack against the United States and was planning other attacks from his base in Yemen, the memo said. It said the authority to use lethal force abroad may apply in appropriate circumstances to a U.S. citizen who is part of the forces of an enemy organization. Rather vague and unspecific I'd say. No mention of his contacts with Nidal Hasan.
#1
An October 2011 strike also killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki's teenage son and also a U.S. citizen.
Contrast that with President Obama willingness to ignore US laws for young illegal aliens on the basis they were brought to the US through no fault of their own.
#2
Another 'the dog eat my homework' excuse by government personnel caught cooking information. Time to repeal the Tenured Patronage Civil Service Act.
#3
Actually this has been known for a while but it's finally making it to more mainstream notice. I'm not sure HOW they thought they could go back and change the historical data and not have people notice.
I must admit, I have a bad attitude toward Warmers and their Religion.
#4
Put it on the stack over there ----> (along with fast and furious, Benghazi, voter fraud/intimidation, open border, releasing felon illegals, the IRS...)
#6
I've gotten into the habit of saving articles like this as PDF. In a month or two you won't be able to find it using Google or Bing -- unless you know the exact title, date and website. If you get your search perfect then suddenly these pop back up. Otherwise, it never happened.
#7
As SB pointed out, this has been known for a while. To "account" for urban heat sinks NOAA averaged the clearly hot stations with the cooler stations.
The result? Warmer temperatures!
Think about it; the systematic errors are all towards higher temperatures (e.g. weather stations on top of a tar roof; none have been put in freezers). Instead of discounting clearly invalid stations, by instead averaging them in you are "adjusting" good stations upwards. This was done with malice of forethought.
Scientist have known about this maladjustment for sometime and very few have stood-up to say that the king has no clothes.
I kinda wonder what they would do to get water if this keeps up.
North Korea's rivers, streams and reservoirs are running dry in a prolonged drought, state media said on Monday, prompting the isolated country to mobilize some of its million-strong army to try to protect precious crops.
The drought is the worst in North Korea for over a decade, state media reports have said, with some areas experiencing low rainfall levels since 1961.
Office workers, farmers and women have been mobilized to direct water into the dry floors of fields and rice paddies, the official KCNA news agency said. With what, their hands?
In the 1990s, food shortages led to a devastating famine which killed an estimated million people but gave rise to a fledgling black market that in some areas now provides the food the government can no longer supply.
Linda Lewis, of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-led NGO, confirmed the media reports and said managers on its North Korean partner farms had seen lower-than-usual rainfall levels in March and May.
"They expressed concern about 'serious drought' conditions and the impact this was having on spring ploughing and paddy field preparation," Lewis told Reuters via email.
In some areas, she said, farm managers had experienced 70 days without rain.
Higher-than average temperatures have exacerbated damage, affecting wheat, barley and maize, state media said.
North Korea has previously blamed drought and floods for chronic food shortages which observers say are the result of bad planning and a highly centralized economy.
Malaysia's top court ruled Monday that non-Muslims cannot use the word "Allah" to refer to God, delivering the final word on a contentious debate that has reinforced complaints that religious minorities are treated unfairly in the Muslim-majority country.
In a 4-3 judgment, the Federal Court rejected a challenge by the Roman Catholic Church and upheld a government ban on the use of the word. Most Christians in Malaysia worship in English, Tamil or various Chinese dialects, and refer to God in those languages but some Malay-speaking people on Borneo island have no other word for God but "Allah," a Malay word derived from Arabic.
The church had argued that the ban failed to consider the rights of all minorities in the largely Muslim nation. The lengthy court cases, which began in 2009, had also raised the fundamental question whether freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution is real.
The controversy has provoked violence in Malaysia.
Some experts believe the Allah issue is an attempt by Prime Minister Najib Razak's ruling Malay party to strengthen its conservative Muslim voter base. Religion has become an easy tool because government policies have made Islam and Malay identity inseparable.
The issue hasn't surfaced in other majority Muslim nations with sizeable Christian minorities.
"My question is, if in other countries, 'Allah' as a term for God is not made exclusive, I am surprised how come the use of the term can be limited by any religion elsewhere in the world," said Fr. Francis Lucas, president of the Catholic Media Network Corp., the broadcast arm of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Shocked! Amazed! Who could have foretold such a thing!
Fine, we'll call your false god "$#!+ for brains" then.
#3
Please note, all ye who submit articles: I've also trimmed the article to the key bits, because we apply fair use standards to all pieces that we got from American sources. Anything from abroad is fair game, however.
Ladies and gentlemen of the readership, scroll up and click on the article headline to read the rest. The details are quite interesting.
Baghdad: Iran has sent hundreds of military planes to Iraq to retaliate against the al-Qaeda linked Islamic-jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham ISIS in Mosul and Salahaddin Province. A source from the Iraqi Ministry of defense who asked to remain anonymous revealed that after Iran sent military supervisors and Quds force soldiers, they have now sent 130 military planes. The source also explained that the highly developed planes are capable of reaching specific targets in both Nineveh and Anbar province. However, according to the Iranian Ministry of defense, the planes are those that were confiscated by the Tehran Regime in 1991 while fighting with Iraq and that Iran has decided to give them back to Iraq. The official from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense rejected the statement from the Iranians. The news has not been confirmed by other sources. basnews.com | Ekurd.net
BOOK: HILLARY HAS BAD HEART
Sun Jun 22 2014 18:01:30 ET
*Exclusive**
A new provocative work by bestselling author Ed Klein claims Hillary Clinton's health problems are much more severe than she has publicly revealed!
"She had managed to keep her medical history secret out of fear that, should it become public, it would disqualify her from becoming president," writes Klein in BLOOD FEUD.
BLOOD FEUD hits the street this week [it ranked #89 on AMAZON Sunday afternoon.]
Page 193
The true story of what happened to Hillary, which is being recounted in these pages for the first time, was radically different from Reines's version.
To begin with, Hillary fainted while she was working in her seventh-floor office at the State Department, not at home, as Reines told the media. She was treated at the State Department's infirmary and then, at her own insistence, taken to Whitehaven to recover. However, as soon as Bill appeared on the scene and was able to assess Hillary's condition for himself, he ordered that she be immediately flown to New York�--Presbyterian Hospital in the Fort Washington section of Manhattan. When Reines subsequently released a statement confirming that Hillary was being treated at the hospital over the New Year's holiday, it naturally intensified speculation about the seriousness of her medical condition.
While she was at the hospital, doctors diagnosed Hillary with several problems.
She had a right transverse venous thrombosis, or a blood clot between her brain and skull. She had developed the clot in one of the veins that drains blood from the brain to the heart. The doctors explained that blood stagnates when you spend a lot of time on airplanes, and Hillary had clocked countless hours flying around the world.
To make matters worse, it turned out that Hillary had an intrinsic tendency to form clots and faint. In addition to the fainting spell she suffered in Buffalo a few years before, she had fainted boarding her plane in Yemen, fallen and fractured her elbow in 2009, and suffered other unspecified fainting episodes. Several years earlier, she had developed a clot in her leg and was put on anticoagulant therapy by her doctor. However, she had foolishly stopped taking her anticoagulant medicine, which might have explained the most recent thrombotic event.
"The unique thing about clotting in the brain is that it could have transformed into a stroke," said a cardiac specialist with knowledge of Hillary's condition.
Page 195
According to a source close to Hillary, a thorough medical examination revealed that Hillary's tendency to form clots was the least of her problems. She also suffered from a thyroid condition, which was common among women of her age, and her fainting spells indicated there was an underlying heart problem as well. A cardiac stress test indicated that her heart rhythm and heart valves were not normal. Put into layman's language, her heart valves were not pumping in a steady way.
When the author attempted to contact the Clintons' cardiologist, Dr. Allan Schwartz, he refused to comment, which made it impossible to determine the exact nature of Hillary's medical status or its long-term significance. However, sources who dis- cussed Hillary's medical condition with her were told that Hillary's doctors considered performing valve-replacement surgery. They ultimately decided against it. Still, before they released Hillary from the hospital, they warned Bill Clinton: "She has to be carefully monitored for the rest of her life."
#6
You guys are so mean! The poor woman will likely never get to be President because of her health! Wotta tragedy!
I think I'll cry myself to sleep tonight.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2014 14:48
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#7
Bobby, take these pills.
[ Normally I give these to Fred, but Ethel swipes 'em ]
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/23/2014 15:09
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#8
We're born with our organs and ankles;
When idiots mock them, it rankles.
So I would be grateful
That you not be hateful
About Hill's edematous thankles.
#9
'Neath a tat of Bill shaking his pickle,
On the right side, you'll find a plug nickle;
From the left, just a trickle
Of hammer and sickle;
You can't say her ticker is fickle.
#12
"I, Bubba, do swear and affirm
That if Hill, God forbid, is infirm,
With the help of young ladies
And the blood of Chink babies,
I'll willingly serve out her term!"
#13
Even I couldn't forget Mr. Trickle's name, but I would've confidently placed my awareness of it back in the early '80s, which doesn't seem likely, looking at his record. I guess whatever I live to see of old age is gonna be endlessly entertaining. I love the word "edematous" but yeah, its, um, instantiations aren't much fun.
In the space of 24 hours last week, two spectacular rescue operations were carried out in southern Germany.
Both involved men who had become trapped deep inside cave-like structures, and a large team working to set them free. But if explorer Johann Westhauser is expected to soon tell the world how he got trapped inside Germany's deepest cave, an anonymous exchange student might prefer to keep quiet about the story of how he got into a tight spot. Hey Mom! Turn on CNN!
On Friday afternoon, a young American in Tübingen had to be rescued by 22 firefighters after getting trapped inside a giant sculpture of a vagina. The Chacän-Pi (Making Love) artwork by the Peruvian artist Fernando de la Jara has been outside Tübingen University's institute for microbiology and virology since 2001 and had previously mainly attracted juvenile sniggers rather than adventurous explorers.
According to De la Jara, the 32-ton sculpture made out of red Veronese marble is meant to signify "the gateway to the world".
Police confirmed that the firefighters turned midwives delivered the student "by hand and without the application of tools".
The mayor of Tübingen told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he struggled to imagine how the accident could have happened, "even when considering the most extreme adolescent fantasies. To reward such a masterly achievement with the use of 22 firefighters almost pains my soul."
#2
Poor Johann. He spent 9 months trying to escape the first time. He'll no doubt spend the rest of his life in incidents just like this, attempting to get back in.
Three al-Jazeera journalists accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood have been jailed for seven years in Cairo. The court convicted Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed of spreading false news and supporting the now banned Brotherhood. The three had denied the charges.
Nine defendants tried in absentia, including three foreign journalists, received 10-year sentences. Correspondents say evidence that had been put forward in court did nothing to support the serious charges. The judge was shown photographs from Greste's family holiday, a Sky Arabia report on cruelty to horses and a video of a press conference in Nairobi.
The three al-Jazeera journalists, who have been detained in Egypt for six months now, were each sentenced to seven years in jail. Mohamed was sentenced to a further three years in jail on a separate charge involving possession of weapons.
#1
[Sowetan] Three Al Jazeera journalists were jailed for seven years in Egypt on Monday after a court convicted them of helping a "terrorist organisation" by spreading lies, in a case that has raised questions about the country's respect for media freedoms. Link
#1
Sourcesclose to the investigation confirmed to The Telegraph on Sunday that a deleted flight path had been recovered from Capt Zaharie's simulator which had been used to practice landing an aircraft on a small runway on an unnamed island in the far southern Indian Ocean.
I believe the simulator was sent to the FBI's forensics lab in Quantico. The article provided no source for the reporting, and as far as I know the FBI has not publicized any findings. Obviously however, any public discourse regarding the Bureau's well acknowledged 'system data recovery' would be particularly ill-advised in light of the IRS scandal.
#2
The southern Indian Ocean, between Indonesia and Australia, is broken up only by the Australian territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. These remote islands, with a population of fewer than 1,000 people, have a small airport.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/23/2014 13:17
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#8
Never found them Mullah, Flight Sim 1-3 used to come with an auxiliary dog-fighter game, which supposed used the same co-ordinate system as the regular flight sim, the fighting area was surrounded by mountains on all sides and i could never get the SPAD over them. But my understanding is that they do (did) exist in early versions of flight sim. And yeah, Flight Sim 3 in EGA blew up my head, it got better graphics over time and more planes, but for sheer HOLY COW look at this! It never got better.
#9
When a new version of Flight Simulator or a new Harpoon scenario pack arrived I tended to go into what DaveD used to call VIP, Vacation In Place. I can't focus like that anymore. I blame BusHitler and the Time Lords.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/23/2014 14:20
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#11
I did a loop around the Golden Gate Bridge in a Sopwith Camel.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/23/2014 15:41
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#12
Deacon, there's this Dam a big mother right outside Vegas, it's all famous and such, in gorgeous 3D (make sure you have a get video card), come up canyon 100 ft. above the Colorodo and climb like a cat on Meth at the last minute, then repeat, I've gotten wheels touching the wall while climbing, it's kinda like a skate park for the terminally insane pilot.
#14
I know that Dam, it's named after a vacuum cleaner.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/23/2014 20:07
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#15
Pssst, for a good time, dc3airways.com. They've got propheads over there with 1000's of hours in DC3s. Fly the Hump! Take the Scottish distillery tour! Great virtual airline. Use the MAAM DC3.
[The Telegraph] Israeli warplanes bombed the Syrian military headquarters and a number of other targets inside Syria, the Israeli military said Monday, in a blistering response to a cross-border attack that left an Israeli teenager dead the previous day.
In all, Israel said it struck nine military targets inside Syria, and "direct hits were confirmed." In addition to the Syrian military headquarters, Israel said it targeted unspecified "launching positions." There was no immediate response from Syria.
In Sunday's attack, an Israeli civilian vehicle was struck by forces in Syria as it drove in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. A teenage boy was killed and two other people were wounded in the first deadly incident along the volatile Israeli-Syrian front since Syria's civil war erupted more than three years ago.
"Yesterday's attack was an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel, and a direct continuation to recent attacks that occurred in the area," said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman. He said the military "will not tolerate any attempt to breach Israel's sovereignty and will act in order to safeguard the civilians of the state of Israel."
The sudden burst of violence has added to the tense situation in Israel, where forces have spent the past week and half in a broad ground operation in the West Bank in search of three teenage boys believed to have been abducted by Hamas militants. UN condemnations and stern Champ regime warnings should arrive NLT midmorning, noon EST at the very latest.
#2
Wow, looks like Israel has decided to join The Banksters/Ghey EUrabia/Those Damn Neocons/Soviet Obamastan's Petrodollar Racket in trying to force their anti-Russian natural gas pipeline on peaceful Syria. When will they realize the Cold War Is Over?
[Daily Caller] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his opposition to wide scale American intervention in the Iraq crisis, advising President Champ that when your enemies are fighting one another, dont strengthen either one of them. Weaken both. What the Prime Minister fails to understand is that the Champ does not see either side as "enemies," but rather quarreling older siblings.
#6
As 300 troops are being sent to Iraq, Iraq's military is now out of ammunition.
As the world becomes unstable, even in the US as tens of thousands of illegals pour into the US across our now non-existent borders, any thing unexpected can and will happen in a moment.
#8
once ISIS is stopped intra-Islamist disputes will begin to take their toll on them like they have in syria
of course there will be thousands, if not tens of thousands of fatalities and millions of people oppressed, but after all, its Islam
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/23/2014 12:19
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#9
...of course there will be thousands, if not tens of thousands of fatalities and millions of people oppressed, but after all, its Islam.
Sounds a lot like most of 20th Century Europe as well. How'd all that "make the world safe for democracy" work out Woodrow? Notice how as we disengaging, things are returning to the fratricidal and authoritarian 'normal' again. There were reasons our forefathers left or were thrown out of the place to begin with. Pax Americana is indeed receding. Enjoy participating in the real patterns of history.
#10
The unwarranted assumption is that Obama actually sees all these folks, or any of these folks, as enemies.
When your psychotic narcissism is such that you consider yourself the best at everything and people are not bowing down to you than you are fine with the idea of burning down the world.
The only historical analog to Obama I can conjur is Nero.
"Effendi, I am come to report that the natives are getting restless again."
[AnNahar] A court in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... sentenced five young Shiites Sunday to jail terms ranging from three to six years for insulting the kingdom's flag during protests, an official source said.
They were prosecuted for lowering a flag from a school during demonstrations in Eastern Province and replacing it with a black Shiite banner.
The same source said the five replaced an official plaque on which was written "The Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" with one stating "The Kingdom of Qatif of Tomorrow."
Demonstrations in Eastern Province, where most of the mainly Sunni kingdom's two million Shiites live, erupted in 2011 alongside a Shiite-led protest movement in neighboring Bahrain.
They took a violent turn in 2012 and festivities between police and protesters have so far killed 24 people, including at least four coppers, according to activists.
Tensions eased later that year when seven senior Shiite dignitaries from Qatif responded favorably to a call from King Abdullah for the creation of a center for dialogue between Sunnis and Shiites.
[Ynet] Air Force attacks positions in Syrian-controlled Golan Heights in retaliation for missile attack which claimed life of 13-year-old teen.
The Israel Air Force launched attacks on nine Syrian military positions in the Golan Heights late Sunday night in response to a missile attack earlier in the day that killed a 13-year-old boy on the Israeli side of the border.
The IDF said the targets belonged to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's Syrian army, and included command posts and firing positions. The military confirmed direct hits on the targets. High-precision ground-to-ground Spike (Tamuz) missiles were also used in the attack.
Residents of northern Israel reported hearing kabooms from across the border with Syria.
The strikes were launched shortly after midnight, when IAF jets fired missiles on Syrian army positions on the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights.
Syrian opposition sources claimed that there were 3 attacks on Syrian army positions. They said the headquarters of Syria's 90th Division, which is stationed in Quneitra, was also attacked.
[DAWN] 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.... chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... on Sunday said the military should temporarily halt bombardments in areas of North Wazoo where the civilian population has not evacuated.
"The operation should not be conducted in villagers where women and kiddies are present as they are currently stranded," Imran said in a presser in the capital.
He also said that according to information available with the party, militancy will spread to areas bordering Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... in the wake of the operation and that the police and security should be beefed up.
He urged the federal government to meet with the provincial government and chalk out a plan to facilitate the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as well as growing security concerns.
"The prime minister should stop his foreign trips and plan for rehabilitation. This planning should have happened before but the KP government was not informed of the operation."
He also appealed to the Sindh and Punjab provincial governments to facilitate the IDPs. "I appeal to Sindh and Punjab not to stop people who are collateral damage of the operation from entering their provinces."
"These are Paks. It is not their fault. They are angry. They are being shunned."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[AnNahar] A suicide kaboom and a boom-mobile Sunday targeted people mourning an Iraqi police officer who died in festivities two days before, killing six people, police and a doctor said.
The jacket wallah detonated explosives inside a building near the city of Ramadi, west of Storied Baghdad, where people had gathered to pay their condolences to the family of Colonel Majid al-Fahdawi.
Later a boom-mobilewent kaboom! nearby. The two attacks killed a total of six people and wounding eight.
Iraqi security forces are battling a major Death Eater offensive that is advancing east through Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital.
Fahdawi was apparently killed in festivities in the border town of al-Qaim on Friday, which is now in the hands of Death Eaters.
Beginning late on June 9, gunnies led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) but also including a number of other groups such as loyalists of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, overran most of one province and parts of three others north of Storied Baghdad.
The security forces wilted in the face of the initial onslaught, in many cases abandoning vehicles, equipment and even their uniforms.
They appear to have recovered in the past few days, with officials touting gains against Death Eaters, though hard boyz have made territorial progress elsewhere.
[AnNahar] On a dusty patch of land off a highway in northern Iraq, Faisal watches his three-week-old son cry in the tent that is now his home.
The temperature hovers around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and aid being distributed to those at the camp, including mattresses and fans, has yet to reach Faisal's tent.
He brought his family here days earlier, fleeing the strategic Shiite-majority town of Tal Afar when Sunni bully boyz swept in.
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... pressed Egypt's former military leaders Sunday to allow greater political freedoms, warning the nation faced a "critical moment," as he arrived on a surprise visit.
D'you suppose the honourable Secretary of State still carries that hat with him everywhere?
Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi since he came to power earlier this month, as part of a rocky transition to democracy since the ousting of long-time leader Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... Continued on Page 49
* RUSSIA TODAY > "US WILL ACCEPT ANY EGYPTIAN AUTHORITY THAT CONTROLS [+ stabilizes] THE TERRITORY" [Country].
UK Professor of ME History Lawrence Donaldson.
Ditto from Libya to Ukraine-Crimea to Iraq + East Asia???
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [CNN] OBAMA: "NO SOLUTION" IFF IRAQI POLITICAL STRUCTURE NOT FIXED.
* SAME > OBAMA: NOTION THAT [newbie] SYRIAN OPPOSITION COULD HAVE OUTLASTED [andor OUTFOUGHT] ASSAD [+ veteran, violent Rival Militant-Opposition Groups] WID US ARMS IS A "FANTASY" - CBS NEWS.
#3
Active suppression of political opposition back home? Matthew 7:3 comes to mind. At least Egypt didn't have much of record of a real republic, something the Secretary can't claim when they do such stuff.
#5
Kerry is such a bloody embarrassment to the US and himself. His diplomatic trips are such a waste o' jet fuel.
Greetings from Glasgow, Rantburgers.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/23/2014 12:20
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#6
Greetings from Rantburg, Paul dear. Don't forget to post photos in the O Club so we all can enjoy your wanderings. (And thank goodness for that! Were it only for officers I should never have been allowed in.)
#8
U.S. officials also revealed that $572 million (420 million euros) in aid, which had been frozen since October, was released to the Cairo government about 10 days ago after finally winning a green light from Congress.
I guess I could tolerate the turd-polisher droning on a few hours for 572 rocks.
[Ynet] Suspected al-Qaeda forces of Evil killed a senior army officer in front of his home in the capital Sanaa, Yemen's Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said in a statement Saturday that two men on a cycle of violenceshot up Brigadier-General Abdullah al-Mehdar, a member of the committee assigned to restructure the armed forces, and fled.
[THETIMES.CO.UK] The mother of a young South Korean soldier who shot dead five of his comrades at a base close to the border with North Korea is pleading with him to surrender, as troops closed in on the school where he is making a final stand.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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#1
Not a good day for Moms, as a UK Mom is also making pleas for her Son-turned-Jihadi to come back home.
[AnNahar] Ukraine's unilateral ceasefire hung in the balance Sunday after festivities engulfed the separatist east and Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... put troops on "full combat alert".
The resurgence of violence in the 11-week pro-Russian uprising threatening to splinter the ex-Soviet state came as Washington accused the Kremlin of covertly arming the rebels and sternly warned Putin against sending troops into Ukraine.
Continued on Page 49
#3
O owns 2 utilities, 2 rails roads and Marvin Gardens and Park Place. 4 Monopolies have formed and houses are going up.
O sells Marvin Gardens for $1200 and feels good.
#7
g(r)omgoru stern still lives quietly in the north and still has MIRV if it make you feel any better. Stern is rarely seen anymore and even less frequently heard, but stern is still there.
[NEWS.YAHOO] A Polish magazine said Sunday it has obtained recordings of a conversation in which Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski says the country's strong alliance with the U.S. "isn't worth anything" and is "even harmful because it creates a false sense of security."
In a short transcript of the conversation, a person identified as Sikorski by the magazine Wprost tells former finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, that Poles naively believe the U.S. bolsters their security. Using vulgar language, the person argues that such beliefs are nonsense, and that the Polish-U.S. alliance alienates the Russians and Germans.
There has been no official confirmation that it is Sikorski who speaks in the conversation.
Wprost last week set off a political storm in Poland with the release of a recording of a conversation between central bank head Marek Belka and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz. In the recording the two discussed how the bank could help the governing party win re-election in 2015, an apparent violation of the bank's independence.
That publication has already threatened to bring down the government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and the new recording is expected to add to the troubles. Although the latest conversation doesn't reveal any illegal actions, the strong language and opinions would likely put the foreign minister on the defensive if they are confirmed to be true.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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#1
Again, unlike from Libya to the Ukraine + now possibly ISIS-threatened Iraq [Jordan?], there are several sovereign countries = US Allies andor US-leaning Neutrals in East Asia that could poten be hit at one time if "Mahanist", "post-US", #1 wannabe China decides to strike.
#3
See also BLOOMBERG > CHENEY SAYS US HEADED FOR "BIG TROUBLE" IN TERRORISM.
As due to the Bammer's refusal to recognize reality, + emphasis on withdrawing or pulling the US from that part of the world.
Looks like my Ancestors + dead HUGO CHAVEZ's RED BERET, PARROT may still end up being precognitive as per the US destroying or sinking strategic Pacific islands, e.g. Guam + Other, wid "Earthquake/Tectonic Bombs" as the US falls back across the Pacific towards CONUS.
* TOPIX > KERRY: "WE [us] WON'T PICK SIDES".
Therein lies the OWG Globalists greatest boon, as well as its greatest danger.
* REALTED GLOBAL TIMES > US WON'T TRY TO PICK IRAQ'S LEADERS: KERRY, IRAN SUPREME LEADER CONDEMNS US ROLE AS ISIS ADVANCES FURTHER.
VERSUS
* VOICE OF RUSSIA > OBAMA COULD BE IMPEACHED IFF ARMY [US Milfors] SENT TO IRAQ, WARNS WAR POWERS ACT AUTHOR [Paul Findley], iff he acts widout the US Congress.
* SAME > TERRORISM MOST DANGEROUS MIDDLE EAST THREAT, MAY TRIGGER NEW WAVE OF [Country] DISSOLUTIONS; LAVROV.
Yuuuppp, + see my Post above.
* GLOBAL TIMES > OPINION: US HAS LEFT REGION WRACKED BY SECTARIAN SPLITS.
D *** NG IT, MORIARITY, DON'T BE SILLY - THESE "SECTARIAN SPLITS" ARE INTENTIONAL!
#4
OOOOOPPPSSSSIES, forgot WORLD NEWS > OBAMA: ISIS COULD POSE A "MEDIUM TO LONG-TERM THREAT" TO THE US.
Clearly no Global Jihad is indicated or to be inferred, let alone a SOON-TO-BE-NUCLEAR-GLOBAL-JIHAD = "NUCLEAR ISLAM/CALIPHATE" IRONICALLY WID US, WESTERN [also read, JudeoChristian = non-Muslim/Islamic]] HELP + SUPPORT.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/23/2014 7:24
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#6
Polish minister says US ties worthless
Bears poop in the woods and the Pope is Catholic.
Maybe if some people spent their own money on their own defense instead of suckling on the American military welfare tit for generations, others would have the ability to step in and really take up the slack. This is just playing out as the old Monty Python skit 'What have the Romans ever given us'. And in the other hand was all that Euro money pumped into the American speculative paper market because it couldn't find a decent return on investment back in the home markets. That ultimately lead to the financial chaos, exploited by the usual suspects, that leaves the old welfare coffers now dry beyond much more sustainment. Oh, and the Americans have picked up that Euro disease of socialism redirecting the old republic's responsibilities of national defense with the new oligarchy's politics of robbing the Treasury to buy votes. Yep, you're on your own. Meanwhile, we have our own invasion to deal with right here in this hemisphere. Good luck.
#7
Fuck him. He's equating America to that poser in office. America fought two wars in europe. We, the United States, not Poland defeated Russia and gave them opportunity for their solidarity movement. We are weak right now, granted. We were weak before WWI and weak before WWII. Don't ever underestimate us.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/23/2014 10:07
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#9
Poland has been spending money to modernize and upgrade their military. And to be fair, we weren't all that dependable for Georgia, back when George W. Bush was president
#10
TW, I was referring to the old West. Somewhere around 1980 Western Europe (vs the old Soviet empire) exceeded the US in combined GDP and population, yet instead of picking up the responsibilities, choose to keep the Americans as their defense nanny at great cost to the American taxpayer so they could enjoy the benefits of redistribution. Those same nations haven't done much to readjust their budgets recently. These are first world nations. Also, while everyone has been concerned with casualties the last 10 years of the WOT, no one likewise concerned themselves with the body count in Cold War Europe due to training and on site work accidents and the usual road kill. We're not talking just handfuls.
For the Poles, its all a matter of (historical) timing. They're stuck in the same place they found themselves in 1939, between Germans and Russians looking out for their own interests and gains. I suspect they find the Brits and French as useful as they were back then, unprepared to do anything beyond words. Just as America had no play in those events, if ever adults get back in charge in the Beltway again, I doubt the will or means will change that status either. After twice being dragged into European affairs in the 20th Century, it's going to be hard to convince people to do it again at great expense and commitment.
#12
Bush wanted to base a European ABM defense in Poland. This would have housed US Troops. Just as US troops in the ROK are a tripwire and a guarantee of US support, so would this have been for Poland. But the 'beamer killed the project.
[DAWN] A free-will couple along with their four-year-old child were killed by relatives in Almas Road area of Quetta, police said.
Mehmood Notezai, the Superintendent of Police told Dawn that family members had killed the couple to punish them for love-marriage.
Police reached the mud-walled house where the couple was living for past five years.
"Husband, wife and their son, all were beaten to death", Notezai said.
He said the accused had used blunt weapons to kill the couple adding that, "The accused family members escaped after committing the heinous crime."
The couple belonged to Sibi city of 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... and had secretly married five years ago against the will of the girl's family members, Notezai added.
The bodies were shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta for postmortem.
Police had yet to make any arrests in relation to the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[Beirut Daily Star] The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has become the most prominent religious group in the United States to endorse divestment as a protest against Israeli policies toward Palestinians, voting to sell church stock in three companies whose products Israel uses in the occupied territories. The General Assembly voted Friday by a razor-thin margin — 310-303 — to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.
Omar Barghouti, a founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, praised the vote as a "sweet victory for human rights."
He said Presbyterian supporters of Palestinian rights have introduced divestment into the U.S. mainstream and have given Palestinians "real hope in the face of the relentless and intensifying cruelty of Israel's regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid."
The top Presbyterian legislative body has been considering divestment for a decade. Representatives of the Presbyterian socially responsible investment arm told the national meeting in Detroit that their efforts to lobby the three companies for change had failed. Carol Hylkema of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a Presbyterian group that advocates for Palestinians and spearheaded the drive for divestment, said their action was modeled on the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa. The 2012 assembly had endorsed a boycott of Israeli products made in the Palestinian territories.
"Because we are a historical peacemaking church, what we have done is, we have stood up for nonviolent means of resistance to oppression and we have sent a clear message to a struggling society that we support their efforts to resist in a nonviolent way the oppression being thrust upon them," said the Rev. Jeffrey De Yoe, of the Israel/ Palestine Mission Network.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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#1
Carol Hylkema of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, a Presbyterian group that advocates for Palestinians and spearheaded the drive for divestment, said their action was modeled on the divestment movement to end apartheid in South Africa.
That "ending apartheid" certainly worked out well now didn't it? Perhaps Presbyterians the world over will find the following apology of some comfort:
'To the Previously Disadvantaged'
We are sorry that our ancestors were intelligent, advanced and daring enough to explore the wild oceans to discover new countries and develop them.
We are sorry that those who came before us took you out of the bush and taught you that there was more to life than beating drums, killing each other and chasing animals with sticks and stones.
We are sorry that they planned, funded and developed roads, towns, mines, factories, airports and harbours, all of which you now claim to be your long deprived inheritance giving you every right to change and rename these at your discretion.
We are sorry that our parents taught us the value of small but strong families, to not breed like rabbits and end up as underfed, diseased, illiterate shack dwellers living in poverty.
We are sorry that when the evil apartheid government provided you with schools, you decided they'd look better without windows or in piles of ashes.
We happily gave up those bad days of getting spanked in our all white Schools for doing something wrong, and much prefer these days of freedom where problems can be resolved with knives and guns.
We are sorry that it is hard to shake off the bitterness of the past when you keep on raping, torturing and killing our friends and family members, and then hide behind the fence of 'human rights' with smiles on your faces.
We are sorry that we do not trust the government... We have no reason to be so suspicious because none of these poor "hard working intellectuals" have ever been involved in any form of "corruption or irregularities".
We are sorry that we do not trust the police force and, even though they have openly admitted that they have lost the war against crime and criminals, we should not be negative and just ignore their corruption and carry on hoping for the best.
We are sorry that it is more important to you to have players of colour in our national teams than winning games and promoting patriotism. We know that sponsorship doesn't depend on a team's success.
We are sorry that our border posts have been flung open and now left you competing for jobs against illegal immigrants from our beautiful neighbouring countries. All of them countries that have grown into economic powerhouses after kicking out the 'settlers'.
We are sorry that we don't believe in witchcraft, beet root and garlic cures, urinating on street corners, virginity testing, slaughtering of bulls in our back yards, trading women for cattle and other barbaric practices. Maybe we just grew up differently.
We are sorry that your medical care, water supplies, roads, railways and electricity supplies are going down the toilet because skilled people who could have planned for and resolved these issues had to be thrown away because they were of the wrong ethnic background and now have to work in foreign countries where their skills are highly appreciated.
We are so sorry that we'd like this country to fulfil its potential so we can once again be proud.
PS. In the old regime... we had medical insurance, the Rule of Law, lights, and water !
>
#2
the PCUSA fell below 2M in 2011 and has been losing about 70-90k members each year since.
they also allow their clergy to officiate at gay marriages
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/23/2014 8:23
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#3
BDS is a pacifist movement for one side of a fight. In other words, a trick. Their going pacifist is the principle reason so-called mainline churches hemorrhage members: http://theological-geography.net/?p=6397
#4
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has given up on God, so it comes as no surprise they've given up on Israel. Personally, I've given up on the Presbyterian Church (USA). I'd rather be an apostate than someone who belongs to a "church" that denies the Word of God.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/23/2014 14:57
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#5
There are a number of other Presbyterian churches (synods?) about, all of them conservative rather than liberal, all not anti-Israel, and all growing. I looked it up the first couple of times this came up for a vote among the P(USA) lot.
[DAWN] With hours left in the expected arrival of Pakistain Awami Tehrik (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... in the country, Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ...Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz Uncle Fester Sharif. He is noted for his vocal anti-American railing in the National Assembly. However (comma) Khan told the U.S. ambassador that he was in fact pro-American but he and the PML-N would have to be critical of US actions in order to remain publicly credible. Khan cited his wife and children's US citizenship as proof, which means he's lying to one side or the other and probably both. He wears a wig, but you probably guessed that. since hair doesn't grow naturally in that shape or texture... on Sunday night warned against any attempts to disrupt peace through protest march on the federal capital.
"There shouldn't be any doubts ⦠no one will be allowed to march on Islamabad in the disguise of rallies or sit-ins," he was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the interior ministry.
"Despite the fact that holding a political rally is everyone's right, those who claim that they would topple the democratic government illegally will be brought to books," said the minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[BBC] The Iraqi government appears to have lost control of its western borders after Sunni turbans reportedly captured crossings to Syria and Jordan.
Officials said the rebels took two key crossings in Anbar on Sunday, a day after seizing one at Qaim, a town in the province that borders Syria.
The strategically important airport in the northern town of Tal Afar has also reportedly fallen to the rebels.
Isis-led turbans have cut a swathe through parts of Iraq.
Since the fall of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... in early June, Isis - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - have helped win large areas in the west and north.
They have taken four strategically important towns in the predominantly Sunni Anbar province - Qaim, Rutba, Rawa and Anah - in the last two days.
Gunmen reportedly captured the border posts of al-Waleed, on the Syrian frontier, and Turaibil, on the Jordanian border, on Sunday after government forces pulled out.
The capture of frontier crossings could help Isis transport weapons and other equipment to different battlefields, analysts say.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[Ynet] Islamic forces of Evil have made further territorial gains in Iraq Sunday including the capture of a border crossing with Jordan, feeding fears that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) may try to spread operations to Israel's closest neighbors reported the News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Militants also took control of a Western border crossing with Syira according the report, bringing the large majority of western Iraq under ISIS control.
Sources in the Jordanian army reported Sunday that the country had announced large troop transfers to cover the border with Iraq after the krazed killer group the Islamic state of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) captured the main border crossing between Jordan and Iraq.
The sources said that the military had sent dozens of units to the area.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/23/2014
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#1
FYI, someonen in US Mil knew this was a possibility. An old friend of mine has been over in Jordan since Thanksgiving of last year training Jordnaian units, along with US Army Special Forces "train the trainer" mission that was instituted at that time as well in Jordan.
#2
One other thing: ISIS will find out that the Jordanians have a professional western the army of Hashemite tribe, not a sunni or shia rabble. This is the only Arab army that can be considered well trained and professional - they are of Birtish origin and training, and have longevity with British and US Liaison work. If the ISIS tries it, the ISIS will likely die in large numbers for no gain. Plus the Mafraq (thats the border province in Jordan) Is very sparse, and anyone trying to infiltrate or move there is quite open to a fairly capable Jordanian Air Force F-16s. And the ISIS will get a hell of a surprise from the very capable Jordanian Special Ops forces, who approach western levels of skill training and equipment.
#3
Could ISIS be depending on a Jordanian branch of Al Qaeda for help from behind the lines, OldSpook? Not that I know of such a thing existing, but everyone else seems to have one these days. Or perhaps the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, which was acting uppity not so long ago?
#6
They did will enough in '67 and Black September, but yeah, all that was a long time ago. Still Martial skills tend to stick thru generations if they got a good hold the first time.
#7
The other thing to consider is that Jordan is not a religious state. There are large numbers of Christian churches in Amman. When I was in Amman, I stayed at the Hyatt and I had a beautiful view of the main Mosque but within a couple of blocks in each direction of the Mosque were four Christian Churches. I took a picture to send home, you can see the steeples and the crosses in the same frame with the Mosque.
After Zaqawi's attempted chemical terrorist attack on Amman and the two bombings of the Intercontinental and the Hyatt in Amman, there is no love lost between the Jordanians and Al Qaeda or any other fanatic Rabble
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
06/23/2014 15:09
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[DAWN] Pakistain Awami Tehrik (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... on Sunday said that if his supporters are harmed upon his arrival in Pakistain, then Prime Minister 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... would be held responsible and the party would hold protests outside the Prime Minister house in Islamabad.
Addressing the media from the passenger seat of an SUV outside Heathrow airport in London, where a large number of PAT supporters including women had gathered to bid farewell to their party chief, Dr Qadri claimed that PAT workers and activist were being locked away You have the right to remain silent... and tortured.
Criticising the Pakistain Moslem League - Nawaz (PML-N) government, he said, "I have even witnessed the Bhutto era but have never seen such oppression by a government."
"People carrying loudspeakers were arrested, Is this what you call politics and democracy? Take me instead of my workers," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[REUTERS] Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni forces of Evil drove toward Storied Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's condemnation of U.S. action came three days after President Barack Obama I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody... offered to send 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government. Khamenei may want to block any U.S. choice of a new prime minister after grumbling in Washington about Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki.
The supreme leader did not mention the Iranian president's recent suggestion of cooperation with Shi'ite Tehran's old U.S. adversary in defense of their mutual ally in Storied Baghdad.
On Sunday, forces of Evil overran a second frontier post on the Syrian border, extending two weeks of swift territorial gains as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) pursues the goal of its own power base, a "caliphate" straddling both countries that has raised alarm across the Middle East and in the West.
"We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq," IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. "We don't approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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#1
Ditto as per Rafsanjani, whom like other Iran bigwigs is also now questionning the Bammer's motives + willingness to defend Iraq from the ISIS.
#2
What about Iran's interference in Iraq? Using Iraqi airspace to resupply Syria? Iran and Maliki bear their share of the blame for what is happening in Iraq. By making Iraq a partner in the civil war in Syria they invited reprisals. So boohoohoo.
Besides, Iran doesn't have a say in how the US acts. I wish 'bamer would get a clue.
#3
* RELATED? BHARAT RAKSHAK > [NSNBC International] US EMBASSY IN ANKARA [ordered + supported] FOR ISIS WAR ON IRAQ - HARIRI INSIDER.
Oh my.
* FYI SAME > [News18 = Uttar Pradesh] INDIA SHIA ORGANIZATION OFFERS YOUNG BOYS [age 15-30 y.o.] RS 140 LAKH TO FIGHT ISIS MILITANTS IN IRAQ.
VERSUS
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > IRAQI FORCES CAN'T TURN THE TIDE [CAN OBAMAHDI DO WIDOUT "IRAQ WAR III"? WHERE'S IRAN?] | [Kuwait Times] SCANT HOPE SEEN FOR IRAQI FORCES TO TURN THE TIDE.
[DAWN] Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab... on Sunday said that politics of protest and confrontation hinders and undermines the national ideals of progress and development.
Speaking to a delegation of national and provincial politicians, he said the country has been passing through a critical phase and was facing internal and external challenges, adding that it cannot afford the 'protest politics.'
The statement comes in the wake of Pakistain Awmi Tehrik (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... 's expected arrival in the country.
Qadri earlier had said that if his supporters are harmed upon his arrival, then Prime Minister 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... would be held responsible and the party would hold protests outside the Prime Minister house in Islamabad.
The chief minister said the elements engaged in politics of agitation were trying to hamper the ongoing process of progress and development, but 180 million patriotic and enlightened people of Pakistain will reject the politics of sabotage and chaos.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2014
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[Ynet] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave updates regarding the operation to locate the three missing teens in the West Bank at the opening of the weekly Cabinet meeting and stressed once again that Israel sees Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, as responsible for carrying out the kidnapping.
"We have unequivocal evidence that it is Hamas (that is behind the kidnapping)," the prime minister said, adding that "we are transferring this information to several countries in the world. Soon this information will be in the public's hands and then the words of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... will be tested regarding his willingness to break the partnership with Hamas that kidnapped the teens and calls for the destruction of Israel."
Reports from Walla on Sunday indicated that the Paleostinian Forgein Minister Riad al-Malki recently commented on the continuing Israeli operation in the West Bank saying that it's possible that Israel staged the kidnapping of three youths as a pretext to launch military operations against Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and the Paleostinian unity government.
Senior Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, official Ismail al-Ashkar responded to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusations that the movement is behind the kidnapping of the three teens in the West Bank. "The kidnapping is a great honor we can neither confirm nor deny," al-Ashkar said in an official statement to the Hamas weekly al-Risala.
He added: "The statements made by leaders of the occupation and their claims about the movement's involvement in the incident do not interest us." Al-Ashkar further said that Israel is helpless in its efforts to search for the kidnapped teens.
Five people were tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... on Sunday in the Bekaa region on suspicion of plotting an act of terror.
"Army intelligence agents apprehended a group of five people who were plotting a terrorist act," state-run National News Agency reported.
"They were referred to the relevant judicial authorities and an investigation is underway," NNA added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Kinnison began his slow infiltration of the sewer system... Voice of Leb radio (93.3) said the army arrested "five Lebanese and Syrian gunnies, among them Omar al-Satem, who were en route to Arsal."
It described al-Satem as "one of the most dangerous runaways," saying the gunnies were arrested a checkpoint in Baalbek on suspicion that they were plotting an act of terror.
Later on Sunday, the Army Command issued a statement saying the five suspects were arrested at the Hrabta-al-Labweh checkpoint in coordination with the intelligence directorate.
It identified the detained men as "Lebanese nationals Omar Mnawer al-Satem -- a cousin of the terrorist Qutaiba al-Satem who had blown himself up in Haret Hreik — and Ibrahim Ali al-Braidi, in addition to the Syrians Atallah Rashed al-Berri, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Bakkour and Jawdat Rashid Kammoun."
The statement said they were arrested on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Kinnison began his slow infiltration of the sewer system... al-Satem family, which hails from the northern region of Wadi Khaled, issued a statement clarifying that Omar Mnawer al-Satem who was arrested by the army "is not the runaway wanted by the Lebanese state" and that the name of his mother is Suad.
"The runaway is called Omar Ahmed al-Satem and the name of his mother is al-Sheikha," the family clarified.
[AnNahar] Security forces kicked off on Saturday a security campaign at the Sunday Market in the Sin el-Fil area of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.
According to NNA, security forces are inspecting the identification papers of foreigners and checking their residency permits.
The news agency said that the precautions measures come in light of the implementation of a security plan across Leb.
Several people from different nationalities and who don't have their legal papers were detained.
The army recently boosted its security measures after obtaining information of a terrorist act planned to be carried out across Leb by a group linked to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades ... Leb's current al-Qaeda affiliate, named after a guy whose car the current head of al-Qaeda had boomed...
[AnNahar] Army forces on Saturday cordoned off the al-Qobbeh area in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... after a man riding a cycle of violence did not comply to a checkpoint's orders to stop.
The state-run National News Agency reported that troops fired gunshots at a person driving a cycle of violence in al-Qobbeh because he did not stop when army forces ordered him to do so.
Troops then condoned off the region where it was suspected that the man headed to, in an attempt to capture him.
Radio Voice of Leb (100.5) added that all roads leading to the area were closed by military forces.
OTV, meanwhile, reported that a person was maimed in the Tripoli shooting, noting that it happened in the surroundings of Tripoli's state hospital.
Saturday's incident comes one day after a deadly kaboom took place in the Bekaa region of Dahr al-Baydar, when a jacket wallah driving a car went kaboom! just as troops at an Internal Security Forces checkpoint ordered him to stop.
The blast resulted in the death of Chief Warrant Officer Mahmoud Jamaleddine and in the injury of 33 others.
[AnNahar] The United Arab Emirates urged its citizens on Saturday to refrain from traveling to Leb citing the country's "shaky security situation" as a cause.
"Emiratis currently present in Leb must leave the country immediately," UAE's charge d'affaires Hamad Mohammed al-Junaibi said.
He called on UAE's citizens to contact their embassy in Leb or reach out to their country's Foreign Ministry "for coordination and to facilitate their departure."
"The warning was issued out of the (foreign) ministry's keenness on its citizens' safety while abroad," a statement released by the charge d'affaires explained.
"We urge citizens to abide by this warning until another notice is released, and to take precautions," al-Junaibi stressed.
The warning comes one day after a deadly kaboom rocked the Bekaa's region of Dahr al-Baydar on Friday, killing Chief Warrant Officer Mahmoud Jamaleddine and wounding 33 others.
The attack also coincided with a series of raids in the Lebanese capital following reports of a plot to target security posts.
The last kaboom to hit Leb occurred on March 29, when a jacket wallah in a boom-mobile targeted a Lebanese army checkpoint near the Syrian border, killing three people. Earlier in the year, a series of boom-mobiles struck Shiite areas across Leb, killing and wounding hundreds of people.
The French embassy in Leb on Friday also advised its resident nationals to limit their movements on Lebanese territories.
[AnNahar] Investigations in Friday's boom-mobileing in the Dahr al-Baydar region are underway with the concerned authorities looking into telephone calls linked to the incident, as well as surveillance camera footage, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Sunday.
It revealed that the authorities have obtained the telecom data connected to the attack.
The data will help uncover the activities prior to the bombing and the route taken by the attacker.
The data may also lead to other potential attacks, said the daily.
The security forces have meanwhile been conducting searches for potential jacket wallahs.
They have carried out sweeps of several regions where suspected bully boyz may be hiding, added al-Hayat.
The security forces did not however disclose the areas they have been searching.
A member of the Internal Security Forces was killed and at least 30 people were maimed in a boom-mobileing that targeted an ISF checkpoint in the Dahr al-Baydar area in the eastern Bekaa region on Friday.
[AnNahar] The Internal Security Forces announced on Saturday afternoon the arrest of over 20 runaways in the northern region of Majdlaya.
"As forces continue the implementation of the security plan in the North, the regional police department managed to arrest 26 runaways in the surroundings of the Vehicle Registration Authority in Majdlaya," the ISF said in a released statement.
The ISF noted that the detainees have several judicial warrants against them.
They are wanted "on charges of insulting and attacking security forces, being involved in robberies, firing gunshots, possessing a knife, and violating traffic rules, amongst other wrongdoings," the statement elaborated.
Earlier on Saturday, the state-run National News Agency reported the arrest of "several people from different nationalities" at the Sunday Market in the Sin el-Fil area of Beirut.
The implementation of the aforementioned security plan kicked off earlier this year in an attempt to restore calm and stability in several Lebanese regions, particularly in the North, the Bekaa and Beirut.
And in the past few days, the army boosted its security measures after obtaining information of a terrorist act planned to be carried out across Leb by a group linked to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades ... Leb's current al-Qaeda affiliate, named after a guy whose car the current head of al-Qaeda had boomed...
On Friday morning, the Hamra area in Beirut was the scene of a major crackdown over a suspected terror plot, with security forces arresting 102 people at a number of hotels, among whom only 17 remain in jug.
[AnNahar] Investigations are ongoing with three of the suspects placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! during a security raid in the Hamra neighborhood in Beirut on Friday, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... on Sunday.
It said that one of the suspects is French national with Arab origins. Jean-Abdul Meauhammed is his name...
He is believed to have played a central role in a terrorist network, the name of which was not revealed. Explosifs sont his game.
It also remains to be seen whether this network is behind Friday's Dahr al-Bydar bombing. "Gentilhommes, we mus' bomb le Dahr al-Bydar ajourd'hui!"
"I'm busy ajourd'hui. How about demain?"
The investigations have so far discovered the network and that the French-Arab is its leader. "Le réseau de la terreur c'est moi!"
Al-Mustaqbal reported that contacts are ongoing between Lebanese and French authorities for further details on his identity.
The Hamra area in Beirut was the scene of a major crackdown over a suspected terror plot on Friday, with security forces arresting 102 people at a number of hotels, among whom only 17 remain in jug.
"These terrorist groups were plotting to carry out a major terrorist act against a ceremony that was scheduled to be held before noon at the UNESCO Palace" in Beirut, reported the National News Agency.
Earlier on Friday, AMAL Movement decided to postpone a conference at the UNESCO Palace after receiving security warnings and following contacts with Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq. Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... was supposed to attend the conference.
#2
But of course, Shipman! All those lovely Francophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention in the Maghreb -- Morocco and Algeria and all -- and then of course there's Lebanon. Mr. Wife found his high school French a lifesaver in Morocco, where the Arabic is as different from what he'd learnt in Cairo and Jeddah as Cantonese is from Mandarin.
#3
Well maybe he picked up snatches of it in the belly of an air force Neptune or some such.
My understanding, such as it is, is that the proprietor of this blog studied the classics, Vietnamese and Russian. But then again, maybe he traveled thru Rhode Island a lot, it's hard to know, a mystery. Only Atomic Conspiracy knows for sure, and he ain't talking.
[DAWN] Chief Coordinator of Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N), Siddiq al-Farooq on Sunday said that last week's incident in Lahore's Model Town, in which 12 'innocent' persons were killed, was a conspiracy against the elected government.
At least 12 people including Pakistain Awmi Tehrik (PAT) supporters were killed when they clashed with local police on Tuesday.
"PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri ...Pak politician, founder and head of Tehreek-e-Minhajul Quran. He usually resides in Canada, but returns to Pakistain periodically to foam at the mouth and lead demonstrations. Depending on which way the wind's blowing, Qadri claims to be the author of Pak's blasphemy law. Other times he says it wasn't him... , who was a Canadian national, wanted to run the affairs of the country and both the Tehrik-e-Minhajul Koran (TMQ) and Pakistain Mohammedan League (PML-Q) have been exposed," said Farooq.
He claimed that the plot behind the Model Town incident was prepared by Tahirul Qadri and PML-Q leader Pervaiz Ellahi in their London meeting last month.
Siddiq al-Farooq, who was addressing a presser here at PML-N Secretariat, said the conspiracy was hatched at a time when the Pakistain Army under the command of Gen Raheel Sharif, was engaged in the operation against snuffies in North Wazoo.
"Some armed people of TMQ and police personnel faithful to Pervaiz Ellahi were behind the firing," he alleged.
He claimed that due to fear of being exposed, both TMQ and PML-Q had boycotted the judicial commission formed to probe into the incident.
The PML-N leader hoped that the judicial commission would soon complete its investigation and lay bare the facts about the incident before the nation.
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[DAWN] With the Zarb-e-Azb operation underway in North Wazoo Agency, the 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. Police launched a massive search operation on Sunday, arresting more than 118 illegal residents, including a Sri Lankan national, from the posh Hayatabad Township bordering Khyber Agency.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Najeeb-ur-Rehman said more than 700 police officials, including lady police personnel, took part in the operation.
Sniffer dogs were also used in Phase 6 and 7 of Hayatabad Township area raids.
He added that the operation in North Waziristan tribal region was also a reason that the suspects may intrude in posh Township areas.
The operation started at about 5am and was launched after the paramilitary forces received a tip-off about the presence of suspects in the area.
Station House Officer (SHO) of the Tatara cop shoppe Riaz Khan said that the operation was divided in eight phases.
He added that most of the suspects in Hayatabad were living illegally or could not provide identification documents. An investigation to determine their identity is underway.
He further added that the operation was also conducted to sensitise people about the present Tenant Law and identify illegal residents living in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... 's capital Peshawar.
The government has recently introduced a new Tenant Law according to which every person living on rent in KP should register themselves with the local police.
They are required to provide complete details of their family members and No Objection Certificate (NoC) to the concerned cop shoppe.
Previously, a number of suspects living in parts of Peshawar including Hayatabad had been tossed in the slammer Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! , which prompted the KP government to enact a law in order to trace the illegal residents in the area.
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[AnNahar] A jacket wallah on Sunday rammed his car into a military checkpoint in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... 's Borno state near the border with Cameroon killing three soldiers in an attack blamed on 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... Islamists, residents said.
Three other soldiers were also injured in the early morning attack in Gwoza town, a resident, Dahiru Yunusa, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"It was a suicide kaboom by a man believed to be a Boko Haram (member) who drove his car into the checkpoint and killed three soldiers," Yunusa said. "The huge blast which was heard throughout the town."
The attack in Gwoza, 100 kilometers (60 miles) from state capital Maiduguri, happened when the bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into the checkpoint outside a secondary school in the town that has come under repeated attack by the krazed killers, leaving dozens dead.
It occurred around 7:00 am (0600 GMT) but the news of the incident took several hours to emerge due to the area's poor telephone network following the destruction of telecom masts in previous Boko Haram attacks.
Musa Buzu, another resident who gave a similar account, said the military cordoned off the scene of the blast until 4:00 pm.
Residents thronged the scene to look at the mangled remains of the car used by the suicide bomber, Buzu said.
"The town was still asleep when the suicide bomber attacked the checkpoint with a deafening kaboom that awoke the whole town," he said.
Military spokesmen were not available to comment on the attack.
Last month, the traditional monarch of Gwoza, Idrissa Timta, was killed when Boko Haram gunnies ambushed the convoy of three emirs on their way to the funeral of another influential emir.
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[DAWN] At least two suspected gunnies belonging to a banned murderous Moslem organization were killed in an encounter with police during a search operation conducted Sunday in Afghan Basti of 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... 's Sohrab Goth area near the Superhighway, DawnNews reported.
Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Malir confirmed that the operation was conducted in the area upon receiving a tip-off about the presence of foreign murderous Moslems, adding that the police's raid team came under gun attack during the operation.
Police personnel returned the gunfire as a result of which two suspected gunnies were killed, he added.
Sources said that five suspected foreign gunnies were also taken into custody during the operation.
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[Ynet] Analysis: Facing pressure from both Paleostinian Authority and Israel, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, is expected to open a front against Israel in the Gazoo Strip, a conflict that is sure to make Islamic organization stronger.
Considering the fact the Ramadan month, that is starting in 10 days, was expected to lead to a substantial decrease in IDF arrests and raids, conducted as part of the ongoing effort to find three Israeli teens who were kidnapped a week ago, officials in Israel believe that the operational activity in the West Bank will turn into clandestine intelligence activity. The next stage in this ongoing operation would take place in the Gazoo Strip, they say, and it seems like it would be a lot sooner than previously thought.
The bigger picture indicates that Hamas is now in an unclear position. In the past two years, the organization has been suffering from increasing regional isolation. To get out of this isolation, the Hamas leadership decided to take the path of reconciliation. With an attitude of "falling in order to rise again," Hamas has decided to make the following move: "We'll make peace with the Paleostinian Authority, seemingly give up control of Gazoo, wait for the elections, win, and then get the West Bank as well."
But reality is always much more complex. The intra-Paleostinian reconciliation is moving very slowly: the crisis over salaries of tens of thousands of Hamas government employees continues, and the mechanism that is supposed to ensure they get paid has yet to be put into motion. At the same time, the Rafah border crossing is still closed, restoring the smuggling tunnels to their former glory remains but a dream, and Hamas' relations with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's regime in Egypt are worse than ever. Life in Gazoo is difficult, and the pressure on Hamas is only increasing.
On the other side, Israel has launched an extensive operation in the West Bank, and has taken advantage of the opportunity that presented itself following the kidnapping to conduct two operations at the same time: locating the kidnappers and kidnapped, while at the same time delivering a powerful blow to Hamas' infrastructure in the West Bank. It doesn't necessarily get Israel any closer to finding the kidnapped teens, but it definitely allows it to use this one-time opportunity to strike institutions, symbols and leaders of the organization, with the international community's support and the roaring silence of the Arab world in the background.
And if all of that wasn't enough, Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... came out with a declaration that those who kidnapped the teens are trying to destroy the PA. "We will have a different kind of dialogue" with Hamas, Abbas said. It appears that it's not just Jerusalem that believes Hamas' infrastructure is behind the kidnapping, the PA does as well. And it is likely the dialogue the PA president is talking about will put the Paleostinian reconciliation in danger.
This pressure coming from both ends shrinks Hamas' power, increases the pressure on the Islamic organization, and decreases support of it accordingly.
As the noose tightens around Hamas' neck, the response from Gazoo is becoming more and more murderous Moslem.
Hamas front manSami Abu Zuhri ...a senior spokesman for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gaza. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... said Thursday that the coming days will prove that Hamas has the ability to fight back, implying that the organization has some powerful cards up its sleeve. He is talking about the ever-growing arsenal of rockets Hamas possesses. At present, Hamas is capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and perhaps even north of that, with dozens of rockets.
Recent history shows that Hamas emerges from rounds of violence stronger: public support of the organization increases, the understandings reached with Israel make life easier for Paleostinians living in the Strip, and ties with Egypt grow warmer as Cairo mediates between Hamas and Israel.
It appears Hamas is at a low point in every possible scenario, with a fake reconciliation and without it, and so Israeli officials believe that another round of violence in the Gazoo Strip is coming, sooner rather than later.
#1
IIRC HAMAS views Al-Sisi as illegitimate, refusing to acknowledge his ascendancy + formal authority. This infers that Hamas may ultimately question Egypt's right or control oer Gaza???
#2
But Egypt doesn't control Gaza, JosephMendiola. Israel does....sorta. Egypt just doesn't have to let Gaza exit their illicit tunnels or come through their licit crossing.
India has decided to enhance transparency of its nuclear infrastructure by ratifying an Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — a step that in a single stroke can be leveraged to boost energy security and lift international confidence.
With the proposal languishing for over five years, the new government has decided to go ahead with the ratification process, clearing the decks for large imports of nuclear technology, boosting power generation and other civilian purposes. “The move is clearly tied to the new government’s push for enhancing energy security, which is slated to have a significant nuclear component. It will not be surprising if countries such as Japan, France and the United States now enhance the level of their civilian nuclear trade with India,” official sources said.
The Additional Protocol will cover only those facilities which are monitored by the IAEA, and will have no bearing on the non-safeguarded facilities which are used for building weapons.
Sources pointed out that unlike the “model” document that the IAEA has signed with several Non-Nuclear Weapon States, the Additional Protocol inked with India is far less intrusive. “It essentially will ensure the collection of data of India’s nuclear exports, to guarantee that the material is not diverted for unauthorised use,” the sources said.
The new arrangement would also facilitate regular entry and exit of the IAEA personnel by providing them with multi-entry visas, apart from guaranteeing “free communication” generated by the surveillance or measurement devices of the IAEA that are already in place in facilities that are under international safeguards. Analysts point out that the Additional Protocol’s ratification, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington in September, sends the right signals to the U.S. It fulfils India’s commitment anchored in the Indo-U.S. joint statement of July 2005, which stated unambiguously that New Delhi would conclude “an additional protocol” with the IAEA.
The ratification, concluded last week, also appears well timed with the meeting on Monday in Buenos Aires of the Nuclear Suppliers Group — the elite 45-country club India aspires to join, which controls the global flows of nuclear wherewithal.
The safeguards agreement with the IAEA covered 20 facilities that include the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, Tarapur atomic power plant, Rajasthan Atomic Power Station, both units at Kudankulam, and the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station.
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[AnNahar] South Korean troops shot it out near an elementary school Sunday with a cornered conscript soldier who had fled after shooting dead five members of his unit on the border with North Korea.
The 23-year-old army sergeant, surnamed Lim, had opened fire on fellow soldiers at a guard post on the eastern section of the heavily guarded frontier Saturday night.
The shooting spree left five dead and seven maimed -- and triggered a massive manhunt after Lee expeditiously departed at a goodly pace armed with a K-2 assault rifle and a stash of ammunition.
A defense ministry front man said Lim, who had an apparent record of instability, had been tracked and cornered just before 2:30 pm (0530 GMT) Sunday to a location 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border.
"He shot at the pursuing troops and they returned fire," the front man said, adding that one officer had been maimed in the arm.
"The situation is still ongoing," he said.
Yonhap news agency said Lim's parents had been brought to the scene and had pleaded with their son to surrender.
Kim So-Rae, a college student who lives in a nearby village, said she had heard at least three separate exchanges of gunfire.
"It's pretty scary," she told YTN television shortly before the army ordered the villagers to evacuate their homes.
According to the military, Lim was due to be discharged in the next few months after completing his compulsory military service.
All those killed or maimed in Saturday's incident were members of Lim's unit, the 22nd infantry division, in the eastern province of Gangwon.
The army issued its highest state of alert in nearby areas during the search for Lim, which involved thousands of soldiers, Colonel Roh Jae-Chun told news hounds.
Special forces units and army helicopters were also brought in, while local residents were warned to stay indoors.
Lim had difficulty adapting to the military, and past psychological evaluations had advised senior officers to pay him special attention, a defense ministry official who wished to remain anonymous told AFP.
This is not the first time the 22nd infantry has been involved in such an incident.
In 1984 a private belonging to the same division opened fire and threw a grenade at fellow soldiers in their barracks, killing 15.
The soldier, Cho Jun-Hee, then crossed the border to defect to the North, a move which Pyongyang's state media later confirmed.
The site of Saturday's shooting is just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) -- a buffer strip that runs the full length of the 250-kilometer (155-mile) frontier.
The four-kilometer-wide DMZ -- known as the world's last Cold War frontier -- features guard posts manned by the rival armies, barbed wire and roads bisecting minefields.
Because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas technically remain at war.
Many of the South Korean soldiers on border duty are young male recruits doing their mandatory two-year military service.
These young men make up a large part of the South's 691,000-strong troop presence, compared to 1.17 million in the North.
Most of the victims in Saturday's shooting were conscripts, aged from 19 to 23.
The defense ministry issued a "sincere apology" over the incident.
"We pray for the souls of the victims and express our deepest regret for the victims, the injured and their families," it said.
Bullying and cruelty in the barracks have long tarnished the armed forces, and been blamed for suicides and similar shooting incidents.
In July 2011 a 19-year-old marine conscript killed four colleagues in a shooting spree on Ganghwa island near the border.
In June 2005 eight soldiers were killed and two seriously maimed when a 22-year-old conscript threw a grenade and sprayed bullets over sleeping colleagues at a front-line guard post north of Seoul.
In both those cases the men were court-martialed and sentenced to death, although the penalty was not carried out.
The armed forces have in recent years taken steps to stamp out bullying, which they called part of a "distorted military culture".
#1
"Troops surrounded Yim so closely Monday in the forest about 7 kilometres from the border outpost that they could toss him a mobile phone to talk to his father. Yim, who still refused to surrender, had ammunition and officials feared he South Korea Border Shooting"
#2
South Korea Border Shootingmight "commit an extreme act" - an apparent reference to suicide - Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said at a briefing."
[BBC] It will be a curious nomination. Almost certainly this week the EU's heads of government will nominate the centre-right politician Jean-Claude Juncker to be the most powerful official in the EU.
Why curious? Because very few officials or heads of government believe he is the best man to lead the EU at a moment of growing disenchantment with the European project.
He is the classic Brussels insider, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Europe's rules; a man who prefers the secret, early-hours deal-making to the role of open persuader; a man deeply committed to further European integration.
So a typical conversation - which I have had many times over the past week - goes like this: "Do you think Mr Juncker is the right face for the EU at this time?"
Answer: "We're not interested in faces or personalities, it is the agenda that counts." So the question is neatly side-stepped.
Private misgivings
It is very difficult to find anyone who can explain why Mr Juncker is the best candidate to lead the EU in a fresh direction.
From various conversations it seems that several heads of government are likely to back him at a summit later this week while not believing in him.
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#3
"...a man who prefers the secret, early-hours deal-making to the role of open persuader..."
Completely contrasting UKIP's Nigel Farage, now MEP, who is adept at convincing open forums and probably a non-bureaucrat. It'll be interesting to see who comes out the best between the two.
#5
This guy is the EU equivalent of the IRS crashed hard drive.
They're saying "When we want your opinion, we'll give you one."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/23/2014 7:28
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#6
lead the EU in a fresh direction
WTF? This is equivalent to expecting the MoBros to lead the Muslims in a fresh direction. This is a strong statement in favor of complete integration of all the EU into an un-democratic centrally controlled state.
[Ynet] Elite engineering unit Yahalom uncovers hiding holes and weapon caches in homes of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, activists in Hebron area.
The IDF has discovered dozens of suspected terror tunnels in the Hebron area during Operation Brother's Keeper. Members of Israel's elite engineering unit Yahalom uncovered the tunnels and hiding holes while searching for the three teens kidnapped in the West Bank ten days ago.
Some of the tunnels were found by soldiers inside the homes of Paleostinians, under large pieces of furniture and laundry machines. According to one senior officer in the engineering corps, the IDF had no prior intelligence reports regarding the tunnels.
Using their specialized equipment, Yahalom (diamond in Hebrew) forces participated in dozens of raids on the homes of Paleostinian activists across the West Bank, confiscating caches of weapons and explosives.
The unit's forces discovered close to 20 laboratories for manufacturing improvised explosives devices hidden in homes they searched. "We would arrive at a suspicious hope and find a family living on the first floor and a laboratory with explosives on the third floor," said a senior officer in the unit.
"We also discovered underground spaces in the Hebron area which we had not known about previously. Because of the intensive operations, we have had to cut short the advanced training for some of our soldiers in order to reinforce the units in the field, even as we continue our operations in the Gazoo sector and GOC Northern Command," he added.
IDF forces continued to comb the area north of Hebron on Sunday, searching wells, water reservoirs, pits and ditches on agricultural lands, and homes in order to find the kidnappers or a clue that will lead Israeli forces to them.
Situation assessment
IDF leadership is expected to conduct an assessment of the situation at midweek to decide on whether to continue the massive search or to transfer the thousands of soldiers to another area. They will also decide on whether to continue tightening restrictions on the Paleostinian population during the month-long Ramadan holiday that begins next week.
IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz said the IDF has focused its efforts on finding the missing teens. "We are conducting an enormous intelligence effort in cooperation with Shin Bet personnel and with guidance from the civil authorities. This effort will continue in the coming days."
[AnNahar] Turkey said Saturday it will provide fuel to Iraq's Kurdistan region to make up for a shortage caused by a murderous Moslem offensive that has shut down the country's biggest oil refinery.
Militants led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) have seized a vast swathe of territory in northern Iraq since overrunning the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... on June 10.
As a result of the fighting, the Baiji refinery in Salaheddin province has been shut down and the supply route to Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region cut off.
The fuel shortage has caused long queues to form at gas stations in Kurdish cities.
Despite coming under under heavy attack from ISIL in recent days, Iraqi government forces still control the Baiji refinery.
But the festivities caused several storage tanks to catch fire, sending jitters through international energy markets.
Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Saturday the shutdown of the refinery has created a daily requirement in Iraqi Kurdistan of 4,000 tonnes of gasoline.
"We have received a request that Turkey meet this need," Yildiz said.
Yildiz said Turkey's state-owned Tupras refinery could meet northern Iraq's shortage, but warned that shipping the fuel by tanker would lead to long queues at border crossings.
Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, is the second-biggest producer of oil among OPEC countries, but the recent unrest has sparked fears its exports could be hit.
Turkey was criticized by the central government in Storied Baghdad when it started to facilitate the transfer of oil pumped from Iraqi Kurdistan to world markets last month.
Storied Baghdad, which insists it has the sole right to develop and export the country's natural resources, has lodged an arbitration case against Ankara, accusing the government of being "driven by greed".
Fuel shortages in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region will last for at least another week, government officials said on Sunday, as sweeping advances by Sunni Moslembully boyz further south put a heavy strain on supply lines.
An influx of displaced families, an attack by the bully boyz of the Islamic State of Syria and al Shams on Iraq's largest refinery and fuel smuggling into bad boy-controlled towns have all hit supplies, though government officials say the situation is slowly easing.
#3
I was wondering the same thing. Initially thought it might be to establish some goodwill with the Kurds in anticipation of accessing the proximal oil reserves, but given the history with Abdullah Ocolan PKK etc, the significant Kurdish populations in Turkey/Iran, I now think the Turkish Government is trying to placate those populations in the event total Kurdish independence is established in Iraq, having regional influence over the others.
#5
Thanks Shipman. Working theory is as the Sunni Shiite factions wear each other down, and the semi-autonomous Kurdish state (with cohesive military) and backed by oil funding, now in control of Kirkuk (which was theirs before Sadam intervened), will be a key state and regional player very soon.
#6
Recently, Turkish PM Erdogan has begun to use the word "Kurdistan" in his conversation. This is a seachange. He is perfectly aware that the oil card can be played by energy poor Turkey and energy rich Iraqi Kurdistan to the benefit of both.
[AnNahar] Jihadists fighting in Syria's war put to use for the first time on Sunday American-made Humvees that they seized during a lightening offensive in Iraq this month, a monitor said.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... , or ISIL, used the armored vehicles to capture the villages of Eksar and Maalal in Aleppo province, which borders Turkey, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It came after heavy fighting against the Islamic Front and its al-Qaeda-affiliated ally, the al-Nusra Front, said the Observatory, a Britannia-based group that gets its information from a network of sources on the ground.
The two villages are located near the town of Azaz, which ISIL Death Eaters abandoned at the end of February under attack from rebels fighting to oust Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... ISIL, which espouses a radical interpretation of Islam and aims to set up a state stretching across the Syria-Iraq border, is now expected to launch a bid to retake Aazaz.
ISIL seized the Humvees and sent them to Syria after Iraqi soldiers abandoned them during a surprise Sunni jihadist offensive that claimed Iraq's second city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and swathes of other territory in mid-June.
Also on Sunday, ISIL gunnieskidnapped 20 Kurdish students on the road between Hasakeh and Qamishli in northeastern Syria, said the Observatory.
It comes three weeks after ISIL kidnapped 145 Kurdish students in Aleppo, as well as 193 Kurdish civilians at Qabasine village in the same province.
Parents of five students who managed to escape said the jihadists demanded that they join them in the fighting.
Kurdish militias, who are also trying to expand their autonomous region, have fought for months with ISIL, which has been seeking to seize from their control oil fields in northern and eastern areas.
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#1
Unless the Champ extends the service warrantee and maintenance contract, these vehicles will quickly disappear from service. Too bad actually. These Humvees dramatically simplify the Russian assisted targeting challenge.
[AnNahar] Sunni turbans advanced through west Iraq after seizing a strategic Syria border crossing, as U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... arrived in the region Sunday aiming to bridge widening rifts.
The latest assaults saw the security forces making "tactical" withdrawals in the face of an murderous Moslem onslaught that has displaced hundreds of thousands and alarmed the world amid fears Iraq could tear itself apart.
The bad boys, led by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL), seized the towns of Rawa and Ana after taking the Al-Qaim border crossing on Saturday, residents said.
The government said its forces had made a "tactical" withdrawal from the towns, control of which has allowed the turbans to open up a strategic route to neighboring Syria, where they also control swathes of countryside along the Euphrates river valley.
ISIL aims to create an Islamic state that will incorporate both Iraq and Syria, where the group has become a major force in the rebellion against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... .
Washington wants Arab states to bring pressure on Iraq's leaders to speed up government formation, which has made little headway since elections in April.
While American leaders have stopped short of calling for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to step down -- arguing that it is up to the Iraqis to choose their own leaders -- they have left little doubt that they feel the Shiite premier has squandered the opportunity to rebuild his country since US troops withdrew in 2011.
"We gave Iraq the chance to have an inclusive democracy. To work across sectarian lines, to provide a better future for their children," President Barack Obama I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money... told CNN Friday.
"Unfortunately what we've seen is a breakdown of trust."
The seizure of Al-Qaim leaves just one of three official border crossings with Syria in the hands of the federal government. The third is controlled by Kurdish forces.
Anti-government fighters already hold areas of the western desert province of Anbar, which abuts the Syrian border, after taking all of one city and parts of another earlier in the year.
Elsewhere, Iraqi government forces, fighting back against the snuffies after initially wilting before their onslaught, Sunday launched an air strike on the bad boy-held city of Tikrit, killing at least seven people, residents of the city said.
The snuffies also clashed with security forces and pro-government tribal fighters in Al-Alam, just east of Tikrit, with turbans killing the women's affairs adviser to the provincial governor.
The firefight, which began Saturday evening, continued into Sunday.
The fighting came as Kerry landed in Cairo on a trip to the Middle East and Europe, with the US aiming to unite Iraq's fractious leaders and repel the bad boys.
America's top diplomat was also due to visit Amman, Brussels and Gay Paree, where Washington is also expected to push for greater efforts to cut off funding to ISIL.
"First and foremost, we are urging countries that have diplomatic dealings with Iraq and that are in the region to take that threat as seriously as we do," a senior State Department official said.
"Second, we are underscoring the need for Iraqi leaders to expedite their government formation process and to come together around a new government that is inclusive."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , also noted that "a lot of the funding and support that has over a long period of time fueled extremism inside Iraq has flowed into Iraq from its neighbors."
While Kerry is also expected to travel to Iraq for his second visit since taking over as secretary of state in early 2013, it was not known when he would do so.
Washington had initially favored Maliki when he first became prime minister in 2006 as he was seen to be cracking down on Shiite militias while reaching out to Sunni leaders.
But in recent months, he has made what critics say are increasingly sectarian moves, triggering calls from U.S. leaders for him to represent all Iraqi people, particularly minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Obama has offered to send up to 300 military advisers back to Iraq, but has so far not backed air strikes that have been requested by Storied Baghdad.
U.N. aid agencies said they were rushing supplies to Iraq to help more than one million people displaced by the latest violence and unrest earlier this year.
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06/23/2014
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#1
If Obama and the idiots at stet keep pressing for unity, they will get it - Sunnis unified under an ISIS banner.
#2
The snuffies also clashed with security forces and pro-government tribal fighters in Al-Alam, just east of Tikrit, with turbans killing the women's affairs adviser to the provincial governor.
Al Alam is a Sunni area, so it's clear that not all Sunnis are pro-ISIS.
#3
ZF, Im aware that not all Sunni are ISIS, but the fact remains that so manyhave joined ISIS, that the non ISIS Sunni will be rolled pretty quickly by neighboring tribes. Its the Prisoner's Dilemma, writ large. The key is the inability of the ISF (IA, Police) to provide any security for those sunni who wish to fight the ISIS.
Thats why the Obama solution of doing nothing will end up wit ISIS having their own Caliphate in the middle of Iraq. What is needed is some way to support the Sunni tribes in the middle in an autonomous self-rule area, like the Kurds are doing up north. That is why Obama will fail - he has no ballls to override State, anbd he simply isnt smart enought to carry this off, and he is too arrogant to task the CIA and Mil assets to achieve this end via assets operating openly in Jordan and Kurdistan, semi-clandestine fashion - which means some officials uniformed elements openly training in places liek Camp Taji, and the hard ops guys operating covered/covert in rural/remote areas, and completely clandestinely in Syria. The Open Support would be airpower strikes on any and all ISIS command elements and any large enough groups of forces.
Problem is that the groudwork for this should have been laid in a while back, and I doubt that anyone in the administration now had the foresight and guts to do so.
#4
Addressing future US Army officers at West Point, the President declared: 'Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.'
Seems like Obama is no carpenter. He is destroying US power and prestige in the world. I never thought that I would say this but please, bring back Jimmy Carter.
#5
OS man, read your second paragraph, you are making a huge leap, the leap being that the President gives a damn. I doubt he could get thru that paragraph, excellent tho it is, with out eye glazing and NBA dreams wiping out all information.
He doesn't care. He's got 2.3 years of damn fine living ahead of him and this kinda shit is not going to screw that up.
#6
Maybe he doesn't care about Iraq - that's no big deal. The problem is the wider sweep of things if the ISIS is allowed to control a geographic keystone of the middle east - and the ISIS has promised to strike at us. I take that at face value, and even Obama cannot be that stupid or narcissistic.... or can he? To use an old phrase, Obama may not be interested in war, but war will certainly be interested in him.
[AnNahar] Some 17 Yemeni coppers were maimed in an ambush by Shiite Houthis as fighting between government forces and the rebels neared the capital, officials said on Sunday.
The Huthis -- also known as Ansarullah -- have been pushing out of their northern mountain strongholds towards Sanaa in a suspected bid to expand their sphere of influence as Yemen is reorganized into six regions.
"Armed turbans belonging to the Ansarullah Huthi (rebels) shot up security patrols carrying out their duties in the capital" on Saturday, state news agency Saba said.
Militants blocked a road in Sanaa's Al-Jarraf district, where the rebels have a representative office near to the interior ministry, and opened fire on police patrols from surrounding buildings.
Seventeen coppers, including three officers, were maimed in the assault, it added.
Security officials told AFP the incident took place after authorities jugged You have the right to remain silent... two wanted rebels and tried to arrest others.
Ansarullah said in a statement security forces "targeted" the rebels' bureau in Sanaa to "ignite a meaningless war."
On Saturday, hundreds of Yemenis protested outside the presidential residence in Sanaa over what they say is the authorities' inaction over the Shiite rebel advance on the capital.
Battles between troops and rebels neared Sanaa on Friday, with festivities reaching the town of Bani Matar, only 15 kilometers (nine miles) northwest of the capital, tribal and security sources said.
The sources said that "dozens" have been killed, but were unable to provide a toll.
Military officials have said Yemeni jet fighters have pounded rebel positions over the past two days, destroying an arms depot in the northern town of Hamdan, while army reinforcements have been deployed around Sanaa.
A new round of festivities between rebels and security forces erupted in Yemen's north a week ago, ending an 11-day truce agreed after mediation backed by United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... envoy Jamal Benomar.
Huthis have been battling the central government for years from their Saada heartland, complaining of marginalization under Saleh, who stepped down in 2012 after a year-long uprising.
They had said that a federalization plan agreed in February following national talks as part of a political transition would divide Yemen into rich and poor regions.
They seized areas of Amran province in fighting with tribes in February that killed more than 150 people.
In addition to the Shiite rebellion, the government in Sanaa is also facing a southern separatist movement and an Al-Qaeda insurgency.
Members of the security forces, particularly officers, are frequently targeted in attacks.
"Unknown gunnies" rubbed out General Abdullah al-Mehdar, an instructor at Yemen's military academy, as he was leaving a mosque in Sanaa late on Saturday, a security official told AFP.
The two assailants escaped in the vehicle they were traveling in, the same source said.
Al-Qaeda turbans are usually blamed for such hit-and-run attacks. But members of the network have never claimed the assaults.
[DAWN] An extension in curfew delayed a ground operation in North Wazoo, which was expected to be launched on Saturday.
The human dimension continued to aggravate as the number of registered displaced people swelled to over 300,000.
According to the ISPR, air strikes against faceless myrmidons have been extended to Khyber Agency. "The ground offensive will begin as soon as the evacuation process is completed," an official told Dawn.
The military operation against faceless myrmidons in North Waziristan was launched on June 15 with air strikes on their hideouts. Security officials claimed that over 200 local and foreign faceless myrmidons had been killed in the bombings.
Fata Additional Chief Secretary Arbab Muhammad Arif said at a press briefing here that the curfew would be relaxed on Sunday to ensure evacuation of civilians. "This is a big human tragedy, especially for those who have fled their homes for the sake of the country," he said.
The ISPR said 30 bad boyz were potted in targeted strikes by jets in Khyber and North Waziristan Agencies in the small hours of Saturday.
Jets destroyed two hideouts close to the Afghan border in Khyber Agency, killing 10 terrorists, it said.
Three hideouts were destroyed in Hassu Khel area of North Waziristan, killing 20 terrorists.
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... the official claims could not be confirmed from independent sources.
The Fata Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) said 307,501 people, among them 132,973 children, had been registered at Saidgi checkpoint by Saturday afternoon.
Mobile teams of the National Database and Registration Authority have been deployed to provide computerised national identity cards to the displaced people.
A mass exodus from North Waziristan continued and thousands of displaced men, women and kiddies were waiting in scorching heat on the Bannu-Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... road for security clearance. Security personnel give clearance to displaced people to cross into the settled area after verification.
On directives of the government, the FDMA began distribution of Rs7,000 grants for each displaced family on the spot. Another Rs5,000 is given to each family for buying non-food items.
Arbab Arif said the government machinery had been mobilised to facilitate the internally displaced persons (IDPs). He said 20 registration desks, four health mobile units backed by five ambulances and six mobile units of Nadra had been deployed at Saidgi post.
He said health workers were administering polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccine drops to children.
He said only 19 families had reached a relief camp in Bakakhel area of North Waziristan.
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[AnNahar] Six years after Kenya erupted into ferocious ethnic battles and post-election violence, security guard John Mboya is fearful once again, after twin massacres on the coast brought political rivalries to the surface.
"When the leaders argue, it is people like me who will suffer if a fight starts," bemoaned Mboya, recalling the intensity of 2007-8 violence, when communities in his crowded slum in the capital Nairobi divided along tribal lines and turned on each other after disputed elections.
"People are very worried, they don't understand what will happen," he said.
Attacks last week on the coastal Mpeketoni district left at least 60 dead and were claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab murderous Moslems, though President Uhuru Kenyatta blamed "well-planned, orchestrated and politically motivated ethnic violence" carried out by "local political networks".
The reaction served to highlight the intensity of the rivalry between Kenyatta and his old rival Raila Odinga, a former prime minister who failed in a bid for the presidency last year.
"Kenya is on such a knife-edge that the intensifying prospect of instability has millions of Kenyans deeply worried," The Star newspaper said in an editorial.
Bitter memories are still fresh from 2007, when elections escalated into ethnic conflict in which more than 1,200 people were killed, violence for which Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto face crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... (ICC).
"It is certainly not inevitable the political rhetoric could descend into violence, but it is possible, and that is the worrying part," said Cedric Barnes of the International Crisis Group.
Externally, there are major threats from Somalia's Shabaab, who have carried out a string of Dire Revenge™ attacks for Kenya's military role in southern Somalia, including last year's siege of the Westgate shopping mall that left 67 people dead.
The Mpeketoni attacks, however, were unprecedented: heavily armed turbans storming an urban center deep inside Kenya, and fleeing before ill-equipped security could react, echoing tactics used by Nigeria's 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... Islamist myrmidons.
Western security officials -- and the Shabaab themselves -- are adamant it was them, albeit with local Kenyan knowledge from recruits or Islamist supporters on the ground.
"The snuffies have us in a bind, divided and inattentive to the larger picture," former deputy president Musalia Mudavadi wrote in Kenya's media.
The gunnies appeared to choose the target and timing of the attack for maximum impact.
"The target was ideal if they wanted to divide Kenyans," one Western security official said, noting it targeted a town settled decades ago by the Kikuyu people, the same tribe as Kenyatta.
"The president took it as an attack on his people," the security source added.
Tensions were already high following Odinga's announcement last month that he planned to stage mass anti-government rallies on July 7, the anniversary of protests for multi-party democracy in the 1990s.
Foreign diplomats say the leadership feels genuinely threatened by Odinga's planned rallies.
Anti-western sentiment has grown in some quarters, over the backing for the ICC trials and Odinga, who has also recently returned from several months in the U.S.
On Wednesday, youths torched effigies of Odinga in central Nairobi along with British and American flags.
Despite efforts to heal the wounds of the ethnic killings, tensions still run deep between communities, with many key grievances that fed into the violence -- most notably land ownership rights and claims that minorities are being marginalized -- still unresolved.
The 2007-8 violence erupted when Odinga accused then president Mwai Kibaki of rigging his way to re-election, but what began as political riots quickly turned into ethnic killings of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, the country's largest single group.
In turn, they launched reprisal attacks, plunging Kenya into its worst wave of violence since independence in 1963.
Kenya's influential Daily Nation newspaper has called for leaders to focus on the country, warning that recent attacks should not be "used as an excuse to muzzle the opposition or stifle debate".
"Working together to douse the flames consuming us all is far more urgent than doggedly sticking to our own positions," it warned.
[JPOST] Four days after Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... strongly condemned the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu acknowledged Sunday that the Paleostinian leader's words were "good."
"I think it was good that he said that, and I think it would be tested now by his willingness to stop the incitement against Israel and the glorification of terrorists," Netanyahu said on NBC's Meet the Press.
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[AnNahar] Nigeria's 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... and his embattled ruling party have wrested a key state from the opposition ahead of general polls next year, results showed Sunday.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Peter Ayodele Fayose was elected governor in southwestern Ekiti state, beating the incumbent John Kayode Fayemi by a two-to-one margin, the electoral commission said.
The PDP -- never out of power nationally since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 -- lost Ekiti to the All Progressives Congress (APC) four years ago and until Saturday controlled none of the six southwestern states.
The victory will boost the party's chances in elections next February by creating a possible foothold in the southwest region.
But nationally, the party still faces an uphill battle after several defections of influential state governors, mostly from the north, last year that prompted dozens of PDP politicians to switch to the APC.
The defections were caused in part by Jonathan's expected bid for re-election in defiance of an unwritten PDP rule calling for the presidency to rotate between Christian southerners and northern Moslems.
The head of state, under fire for his handling of the Islamist 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... insurgency and especially his response to the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in April, has not officially declared his intention to run.
But the rebel governors are convinced that he will.
[Ynet] Paleostinian youths threw stones and bricks at a Paleostinian Authority cop shoppe in Ramallah following recent security incidents in the West Bank in the past several days. In addition, the youths threw stones at IDF vehicles in the area. According to the Paleostinians, a Paleostinian was killed overnight Saturday during festivities with IDF soldiers.
Because boys will be idiots, and just now being idiotic in the direction of the IDF can get a lad killed for realsies, not just Paliwood style.
[AnNahar] Militants killed 21 leaders in the western Iraq towns of Rawa and Ana during two days of violence, officers and doctors said Sunday, after security forces made a "tactical" withdrawal, as the government lost control of another border crossing with Syria.
Some of those killed were rubbed out on Saturday, when the Death Eaters moved into the towns, while others were slain the following day.
The killings came after Iraqi security forces members departed the towns, clearing the way for the Death Eater takeover.
"The military units' withdrawal (from Rawa and Ana and al-Qaim) was for the purpose of redeployment," Lieutenant General Qassem Atta said, referring to it as a "tactical" move.
Witnesses said Death Eaters moved into Rawa and Ana, in Anbar province, on Saturday evening, after security officers and witnesses also reported Death Eaters entering al-Qaim, a town on the Syrian border, earlier in the day.
Anti-government fighters have held all of one city in Anbar province, where the towns are located, and areas of a second since early January.
The control of Rawa and Ana allows the Death Eaters to open a strategic route to neighboring Syria where they also control swathes of countryside along the Euphrates river valley.
ISIL aims to create an Islamic state incorporating both Iraq and Syria, where the group has become a major force in the rebellion against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... .
Media reports said Death Eaters seized control of the al-Walid border crossing with Syria on Sunday.
Anti-government fighters already hold areas of the western desert province of Anbar which abuts the Syrian border, after taking all of one city and parts of another earlier in the year.
Elsewhere, government forces launched an air strike on the Death Eater-held city of Tikrit, killing at least seven people, residents said, as the defense ministry announced air strikes on the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... .
The Death Eaters also clashed with security forces and pro-government tribal fighters in al-Alam east of Tikrit, with Death Eaters killing the women's affairs adviser to the provincial governor.
Beginning late on June 9, Death Eaters led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) but also including a number of other groups such as loyalists of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, overran most of one province and parts of three others north of Storied Baghdad.
The security forces wilted in the face of the initial onslaught, in many cases abandoning vehicles, equipment and even their uniforms.
They appear to have recovered in the past few days, with officials touting gains against Death Eaters, though Death Eaters have made territorial progress elsewhere.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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#4
Interesting, B, how many of those lady pols have been involved in scandals involving racy photos. I'm thinking if anybody was ever interested in looking at racy photos of male politicians they'd be every bit as prone to such misbehavior. Witness Anthony Weiner, or don't if you want to spare yourself. I'm just thinking there is something about the average politician, male or female, that makes them unashamed.
#7
I seem to remember a post from GB USMC some months ago saying he was all right but involved in major work projects. Or so dying brain cells signal....Caveat emptor...
Posted by: Titus Ebbineger6329 ||
06/23/2014 14:31
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[AnNahar] Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... official Mohammed Raad called on Saturday for further coordination between security agencies in the fight against terrorism, stressing that jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... (ISIL) will not find safe haven in Leb.
"The security developments in Leb require discreet, accurate and serious followup," MP Raad, the head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc said.
He praised the efforts exerted by the security agencies, in particular the army intelligence, to apprehend "terrorist Death Eater groups."
On Friday', a suicide kaboom targeted an Internal Security Forces check point in Dahr al-Baydar, killing an officer and wounding several others.
General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim had driven past the site of the kaboom in his convoy shortly before the blast.
The attack also coincided with a series of raids in the Lebanese capital following reports of a plot to target security posts.
"Had we not interfered in battles in Syria at the appropriate moment, ISIL would have done the same" in Beirut, Raad said, reiterating Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah's stance.
"There is no place in Leb for ISIL or those who are supporting it," Raad noted.
ISIL, which grew from the ranks of al-Qaeda before splitting with the global terror network, is active in both Syria and neighboring Iraq and seeks to set up an Islamic state that straddles both countries.
[Ynet] For first time in more than a year, and amid West Bank searches and IAF attacks in Gazoo, a Paleostinian was tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! after he managed to cross Gazoo border fence and penetrate into Israel.
A terrorist armed with a hand grenade was arrested on Sunday after infiltrating into Israel from Gazoo Strip.
He was caught in an area between the communities of Yated and Sdei Abraham in the north-western Negev by a local guard. IDF forces that were dispatched to the area arrested him and took him in for questioning. No injuries were reported in the incident.
This was the first time in more than a year that a terrorist from the blockaded Gazoo Strip penetrated into Israel,
The border fence works?! But everyone knows fences don't work!
and came as tensions in the area were already high.
In the West Bank, IDF forces were in the midst of conducting Operation Brother's Keeper in a bid to find three missing Israel teens Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, leading a massive arrest operation which has seen more than 300 Paleostinians arrested and at least three killed.
In the Gazoo area, IAF forces responded overnight to ongoing rocket fire by attacking terror targets, signaling the end of yet another tit-for-tat fire exchange between Israel and Gazooforces of Evil organizations.
A preliminary investigation indicated that the terrorist had infiltrated into Israel by crossing the border fence near southern Gazoo Strip at approximately 4 am Sunday.
The IDF spokesperson said that circumstances of the incident were still being investigated.
Haim Levin, head of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, said "this is a very serious event and highlights the need for local security coordinators in the communities themselves, 24-hours a day."
His comments referred to a 2013 Home Front Command decision to stop funding security coordinators and IDF patrols in some 22 border communities. The IDF said the move has yet to be implemented, and a military source said "it is too soon to connect the decision to the incident."
The last time a similar incident took place was a year and a half ago when a Paleostinian from Gazoo managed to infiltrate into Israel and was killed after entering a residence in the very same Sdei Abraham community, lightly wounding one. He was shot and killed by the IDF.
Rocket fire
IAF fighter jets attacked three terror activity sites in the southern Gazoo Strip and one terror activity site in the central Gazoo Strip overnight Saturday, in response to rocket fire into Israel on Saturday night.
Three rockets went kaboom! onto open areas in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council on Saturday night. No one was hurt and no damage was caused.
The first rocket hit at around 8:40 pm, while the other two fell about three hours later.
A rocket hit a road in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council on Saturday morning. No one was hurt in that incident either, but damage was caused to the road.
Since the beginning of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank to find the three kidnapped Israeli teens, over 20 rockets were fired from the Gazoo Strip at Israel.
Cities and towns in southern Israel prepared for such a contingency following the kidnapping.
Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni said during the week that "for now, we're giving the IDF all the time it needs to strike them (Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,) and bring the boys back home safe and sound."
Two volunteer rangers were killed in an ambush in Narathiwat province yesterday evening. A pickup truck carrying a group of volunteer rangers was on its way to a local school to provide security for a student sporting event when it was sprayed with bullets from both sides of the road as it passed through a village. Seven rangers were wounded in the attack. Two of them were later pronounced dead in the hospital.
In another attack, military informant Abdulkolik Cheha was gunned down by gunmen as he arrived home from a village mosque.
[AnNahar] The campaign team of Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... on Sunday released audio recordings which they said contained evidence of fraud against a senior member of the country's Independent Election Commission (IEC).
The accusation came as hundreds of Abdullah's supporters held protests against alleged irregularities for a second day across Kabul, as a political stalemate deepens in the country.
Abdullah won the first round of the poll to succeed President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... , gaining 45 percent of the vote while his nearest rival Ashraf Ghani won 31.6 percent.
But he has boycotted the vote count after the second round run-off, accusing Karzai of interfering to favor his rival.
The dispute threatens to pitch Afghanistan into crisis as 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... combat troops withdraw from a 13-year war against Taliban Death Eaters.
A smooth election was seen as a key benchmark for the U.S.-led coalition that has fought against the Taliban and donated billions of dollars in aid since 2001.
The allegations are centered around the secretary of the IEC, Zia ul Haq Amarkhail, who stands accused of irregularities during the transporting of unused ballots during the June 14 poll.
Abdullah's team at a presser released the recordings, which total 13 minutes of poor-quality audio and purport to be conversations between Amarkhail, other IEC officials and "a member of Ghani's team."
They include Amarkhail allegedly reassuring the member of Ghani's team that staff would be "used" to favor his election.
In one recording, Amarkhail allegedly tells an IEC member from the northwestern province of Faryab to fire his entire staff and change them for Pashtuns and Uzbeks.
Ghani is a Pashtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, which is strongest in the Taliban heartlands of the south and east. One of his running mates, infamous warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... is a popular Uzbek leader.
Abdullah's team has refused to disclose how it obtained the recordings and it is not possible to confirm their authenticity.
Amarkhail could not immediately be reached for comment.
Baryalai Arsalai, Abdullah's campaign manager, on Sunday said the IEC had conspired with "senior members of the government... in supporting one candidate in the election, they have organized rigging, cheating and manipulation."
He promised to release further "proof" of fraud to the media in the coming days.
Earlier, protesters who had gathered by the presidential palace chanted "Long live Abdullah" and called for the death of Afghanistan's electoral commission chief, who is handling the fraud allegations.
A similar-sized gathering in the western city of Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... saw a group largely composed of students burn their voter registration cards in protest at alleged irregularities.
Abdullah, a former foreign minister who says he was also cheated of victory in the 2009 election against Karzai, has alleged that the turnout figure of seven million in the run-off was exaggerated, and that in several provinces there were more votes than eligible voters.
Sunday's protests came a day after more than 1,000 of Abdullah's supporters marched through Kabul in another largely peaceful demonstration.
The two days of "anti-fraud" rallies were not organized by Abdullah's campaign, but the crowds appeared to be made up of Abdullah supporters.
The United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Sunday urged "responsible" use of social media platforms to avoid increasing tensions.
"There has been a disturbing tone in some social media platforms, and we urge supporters of the candidates in the Afghanistan's Caped Presidential elections to refrain from inflammatory statements, hate speech or statements which promote divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... ethnic mobilization," said Jan Kubis, head of UNAMA.
Abdullah and Karzai have asked the U.N. to step in to solve the political deadlock.
The threat of ethnic unrest is a grim prospect for Afghanistan, where tribal loyalties are still fierce after the 1992-1996 civil war.
Abdullah's support is based among the Tajik minority and other northern tribes.
[Ynet] While search for missing teens continues, 2 Paleostinians killed, 11 maimed during festivities in Ramallah, Nablus; Forces arrest 9 Paleostinians, raid 5 charity organizations
Two Paleostinians were killed overnight Saturday and 11 were maimed during festivities with the IDF in Ramallah and Nablus. In addition, IDF forces tossed in the clink Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! nine Paleostinians as the search for the three teens who went missing in Hebron continues.
Since Gil-Ad Shaer, 16, from Talmon, Naftali Frenkel, 16, from Nof Ayalon, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, from Elad. disappeared last Thursday, the IDF has conducted a massive search operation in the West Bank, which has seen over 300 Paleostinians arrested and at least four killed.
In Nablus, Muhammad Atalla was killed during festivities between youths and IDF forces, and 11 Paleostinians were maimed. The festivities broke out when the youths attempted to prevent the IDF from conducting arrests in the area.
Israeli border coppers shot and killed 36-year-old Ahmed Haled in the Al-Ain Refugee camp in Nablus, after he approached the forces in what was described as a threatening manner. The army reported that they fired warning shots before shooting him. IDF sources says it appears the Paleostinian was mentally unstable.
The majority of search efforts for the three is still in the area northwest of Hebron and efforts over the next day or two will continue in the same area.
IDF's wave of arrest continued overnight Saturday, as nine Paleostinians were arrested. In addition, military forces raided five 'Dawa' Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, affiliated charities.
"We are receiving stronger evidence about the link between Dawa and terrorism," a senior military official said. The official stressed that "the fact that there dozens of people are being arrested every night does not mean that we are taking the foot off the pedal, but that we are concentrating our efforts in searches north of Hebron. A total of 350 people have been arrested since the beginning of the operation and nearly 1,300 targets have been scanned."
Special rescue units stationed in the West Bank were rushed to the Hebron area on Saturday where, according to police and other security sources, they focused searching through caves and wells with the help of the Paratrooper brigade as part of Operation Brother's Keeper to find the missing teens continues.
Despite the extensive search, there haven't been any breakthroughs in the search so far. Without any concrete intelligence leads, the IDF started searching a wider area - starting in Highway 35, north of Hebron, where the kidnapping occurred, and continuing west towards Highway 60.
[AnNahar] Syrian troops backed by fighters from Leb's Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... on Sunday launched an assault to oust rebels from the foothills of the Qalamun mountains north of the capital, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said.
Regime forces took parts of the strategic Qalamun region near the border with Leb in April, but some 2,000 rebel fighters withdrew to the hills, from where they have launched guerrilla attacks.
Fourteen fighters from Hizbullah have been killed in the area over the past two weeks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syria's state broadcaster showed footage of the troops, saying they had taken "some hills overlooking the Rankus plain and are pursuing terrorist groups who tried to infiltrate the region from Leb."
An interviewed by the channel said "the army has cut the route off to terrorist groups who try to return to the region from time to time. The operation is continuing until the whole of the Qalamun area has been cleansed.
"This land will be a cemetery for all Death Eaters who decide to return."
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... 's regime refers to l
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said that "rebels hiding in the heights and in caves have been attacking army and Hizbullah positions for weeks after being pushed out of the region, which also prompted regime forces to withdraw."
He said the rebels had launched a counter attack "and succeeded in retaking their positions and expanding their presence."
Since the Syria conflict erupted in March 2011, more than 162,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.
Meanwhile fighters were expected to exit the embattled Yarmuk camp in southern Damascus "within hours", a Paleostinian official told Agence La Belle France Presse in the Syrian capital on Sunday.
Anwar Abdel Hadi, political director of the Paleostine Liberation Organization in Syria, said "the gunnies will pull out of the camp, checkpoints will be dismantled and rubble removed."
The pullout is part of a truce agreed between the PLO and gunnies "with the approval of the Syrian government," he said, adding that the fragile ceasefire went into force at 1500 GMT Saturday.
In mid-February, a truce paved the way for the withdrawal of fighters from al-Qaeda's franchise in Syria, al-Nusra Front, from Yarmuk, but fighting flared again in March.
The jihadists had accused regime forces besieging Yarmuk of violating the earlier ceasefire agreement.
Once home to 150,000 Paleostinians as well as Syrians, Yarmuk has been under total army siege for the past year.
[AnNahar] At least 43 people have died in opposition protests against President Nicolas Maduro that began in February, a non-government group said Saturday after a student died from a bullet wound.
Alfredo Romero, who heads the Penal Forum group, said Josue Farias died in the western city of Maracaibo from a gunshot injury sustained during an anti-government protest nearly a month ago on May 29.
Farias was an accounting student at a Zulia state university.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets to march against rampant crime, runaway inflation and shortages of basic goods in the country with the world's largest proven oil reserves.
Government authorities have yet to add this latest death to its own official count of those who died in the sometimes bloody protests.
In their latest report on June 11, they counted 42 deaths and 873 people injured in the demonstrations that have decreased in intensity in recent weeks.
Efforts to resolve differences between the government and opposition through dialogue have faltered in the wake of the arrest of more than 200 students last month, when authorities demolished protest camps.
Venezuela, an OPEC nation, is struggling with inflation near 60 percent, as well as rampant crime and shortages of goods as basic as toilet paper, milk and sugar.
Most economic experts blame the South American country's problems on a decade of rigid currency and price controls, as well as rising debt, dependence on imports and stagnant growth.
#7
True that, TW. I knew we (the U.S.) was on the rise, but is that statement true based upon the "previous" rankings? Or is it shoddy news work?
Posted by: BA ||
06/23/2014 13:52
Comments ||
Top||
#8
i've no idea, BA. it's not the kind of thing I pay close attention to, caring only that we become less dependent on those who use our money to finance terror. But I'm sure there are those here who do know and will tell us. :-)
#9
Venezuela has massive, massive reserves of very, very heavy oil in the Orinco. This oil is not much lighter than bitumen and requires upgrading pretty much on the spot to travel. Upgraders are expensive has hell and maintenance heavy. So yeah, it's there, but no one will invest without a major change in government. Which means not in the next 100 years.
Meanwhile they will fuck up what medium weight oil they have, by deferring maintenance until such a time as is politically and financially feasible. which means not in the next 100 years. The Chinese are starting to understand the game and not loaning any cash except under credit cards terms. This is the absolute perfect case of screwing up a piss-up in a brewery.
#10
Shipman: if you look at Venezuela as being run for Russia's, China's, Saudi Arabia's and Iran's benefit rather than for Venezuela's, it makes more sense. Yes, it's screwed up for the Venezuelans, but they don't matter in the New Colonial World Order. As far as China's concerned, they got to resell Venezuelan oil at a couple thousand percent markup, and Russia/Iran/Saudi Arabia make money out of Venezuela's production being further crippled.
#11
To be more exact Snowy, Venezuela is being run for the Castros benefit in particular and Cuba in general. It's shameless. Pretty much everyone here knows I have a major soft spot for the Cuban people, but their hanging on to the Venezuelan teat is killing them both.
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda gunnies have killed two people in southeast Yemen because they believed they were practicing witchcraft and sorcery, which are forbidden under Islam, a security official told Agence La Belle France Presse on Sunday. "Hah! Youse cannot kill me! I am invisible!"
"I can still see you."
"I meant invincible!"
The killings took place late on Saturday in the town of Shehr in Hadramawt province, the official said. "[Gasp!] [Groan!] ... See? I'm not dead! I'm merely... merely... rosebud!"
"Al-Qaeda gunnies on a cycle of violence opened fire on Omar Abdelhafiz, killing him immediately," the official said. "Lookitdat! The wizard caught the bullet with his teeth!"
"I think he swallowed it wrong, though..."
Several hours later, two other gunnies killed another Shehr resident, hairdresser Saeed al-Hadrami, the source added. "They killed hairdresser Saeed al-Hadrami? But... but... I had an appointment with him on Tuesday!"
Jihadists had several times threatened both men, accusing them of "practicing witchcraft and sorcery", the official said. "It took a lot of goats sacrificed to Shaitain to make Fatima look presentable!"
[AnNahar] Sri Lanka's media showed rare unity in condemning police Sunday for their failure to control anti-Moslem Buddhist hard boyz as religious tensions grow in the wake of riots in the island's south.
A day after a Moslem-owned shop was burnt down outside the capital Colombo, the privately-run The Nation weekly took the unusual step of publishing its editorial as the main story on its front page, with the blunt headline: "The IGP (Inspector-General of Police) must resign".
Other media joined in blasting police for failing to rein in a hardline Buddhist group known as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS or the Buddhist Force), blamed for much of the unrest.
They pointed the finger at the bully boy monks for the anti-Moslem riots that erupted a week ago, leaving four people dead, 80 maimed and hundreds of homes and shops destroyed.
"Arrest him," the Sunday Leader newspaper demanded in a headline, referring to the head of the BBS, Galagodaatte Gnanasara, who has publicly denied causing trouble.
Sri Lanka's Sunday Times said the burning down of a Moslem-owned clothing store outside Colombo on Saturday "is an indication that some people might want this violence to spread".
Sri Lankan police were investigating the cause of the blaze, which Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem, the most senior Moslem in President Mahinda Rajapakse's cabinet, described Saturday as an arson attack.
The Sunday Times said a majority of Buddhists in the country did not support the bully boy views of the few monks who were behind the hate campaign, and that they should be dealt with before the unrest escalates further.
Some media reports also suggested that patronage by senior government figures may have held police back from acting against the BBS.
Justice Minister Hakeem has asked the government to order an independent probe into the riots since last week.
Hakeem, in a statement issued on Saturday night, blamed the government for failing to control the BBS.
"Irrespective of who is responsible for the terrible events that unfolded... none would dispute that it was a serious dislocation of the ability of the state to maintain the rule of law," Hakeem said after an emergency meeting Saturday with Rajapakse.
The president has said he is ordering a probe into "recent disturbances".
Moslems account for about 10 percent of Sri Lanka's 20 million population, who are mainly Buddhist.
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.
Malaysia's top court ruled Monday that non-Muslims cannot use the word "Allah" to refer to God, delivering the final word on a contentious debate that has reinforced complaints that religious minorities are treated unfairly in the Muslim-majority country.
In the space of 24 hours last week, two spectacular rescue operations were carried out in southern Germany.
Three al-Jazeera journalists accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood have been jailed for seven years in Cairo. The court convicted Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed of spreading false news and supporting the now banned Brotherhood. The three had denied the charges.
Unless you're facilitating terrorism. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] On a dusty patch of land off a highway in northern Iraq, Faisal watches his three-week-old son cry in the tent that is now his home.
[AnNahar] U.S. Secretary of State 
[Ynet] Suspected al-Qaeda 
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[Beirut Daily Star] The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has become the most prominent religious group in the United States to endorse divestment as a protest against Israeli policies toward Palestinians, voting to sell church stock in three companies whose products Israel uses in the occupied territories. The General Assembly voted Friday by a razor-thin margin — 310-303 — to sell stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Two years ago, the General Assembly rejected a similar divestment proposal by two votes.
Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz 
in the world. Soon this information will be in the public's hands and then the words of 
[AnNahar] Security forces kicked off on Saturday a security campaign at the Sunday Market in the Sin el-Fil area of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.
[AnNahar] Army forces on Saturday cordoned off the al-Qobbeh area in the northern city of 
[AnNahar] The United Arab Emirates urged its citizens on Saturday to refrain from traveling to 
[AnNahar] Investigations in Friday's 
[AnNahar] The Internal Security Forces announced on Saturday afternoon the arrest of over 20 
[AnNahar] Investigations are ongoing with three of the suspects 
[DAWN] Chief Coordinator of Pakistain 
Wazoo
North Korea
[BBC] It will be a curious nomination. Almost certainly this week the EU's heads of government will nominate the centre-right politician Jean-Claude Juncker to be the most powerful official in the EU.
[Ynet] Elite engineering unit Yahalom uncovers hiding holes and weapon caches in homes of 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] Sunni 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[AnNahar] Some 17 Yemeni 
[AnNahar] Six years after Kenya erupted into ferocious ethnic battles and post-election violence, security guard John Mboya is fearful once again, after twin massacres on the coast brought political rivalries to the surface.
International Criminal Court
Goodluck Jonathan
[Ynet] Paleostinian youths threw stones and bricks at a Paleostinian Authority 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Ynet] For first time in more than a year, and amid West Bank searches and IAF attacks in 
Two Paleostinians were killed overnight Saturday and 11 were 
[AnNahar] Syrian troops backed by fighters from 
[AnNahar] At least 43 people have died in opposition protests against President Nicolas Maduro that began in February, a non-government group said Saturday after a student died from a bullet wound.
[AnNahar] Al-Qaeda 
