So why is Riyadh ready to spring the dough for the over-engineered and under-gunned corvettes?
First of all, the Saudi Arabian Navy is primarily dedicated to operations in littoral waters of the Persian Gulf, where shipping of ultra-valuable oil tankers faces harassment from Iran’s unconventional naval forces, and the Gulfs of Oman and Aden, where Saudi ships seeks to interdict arms and agents smuggled by Iran into Yemen.
Littoral combat ships, as their name suggests, were built for speed, maneuverability and stealth in coastal waters: they are agile and have shallow drafts ideal for “knife-fighting” small ships close to shore. Even their light armament—inadequate versus conventional warships of equivalent size—is optimized for sparring with smaller fast boats within visual range.
Saudi LCSs will also serve as a useful platform to deploy some of the ten advanced MH-60R Seahawk helicopters purchased by Riyadh in a $1.9 billion deal, the first of which was delivered in September 2018. The multi-mission choppers can help locate ships using their infrared sensors and multi-mode radars, perform search-and-rescue duties, detect submarines with their ALFS dipping sonar and attack them with Mark 54 torpedoes, and even blast surface targets with Hellfire missiles and laser-guided APKWS 70-millimeter rockets.
Second, the Saudi LCSs are of an enlarged 4,000-ton model called the Multi-Mission Surface Combatant which ditches the (unsuccessful) mission module concept for more powerful fixed sensors and weapons, and a crew expanded by fifty percent to between 110-130 personnel. Lockheed Martin was paid $450 million for the design and long-lead materials for the new variant. You can see photos of an MMSC model here.
Posted by: 3dc ||
08/04/2019
12:22 ||
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#1
makes more sense than a full-size cruiser
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019 12:44
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#2
Work for American shipwrights. Which heroes in the Senate will try to block it?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 14:00
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#3
Can we sell them the slightly-used ones we already have?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/04/2019 14:20
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#4
That Saudi up-gunned LCS looks like a proper warship. Can we buy some of those?
Foreign governments expect quality American equipment for the money. Can you name anyone fired on the American procurement team for delivering something less than expected?
#8
Sigh. #7, no, I cannot. Graft is a very generous word at this point for our procurement procedure. Graft as recently as the 90s still regularly resulted in stuff getting done. It has gotten to be like the famous kleptocracies of Detroit and California.
(WASHINGTON)- Rep. Elijah Cummings says he scared off an intruder at his Baltimore home last weekend, providing details for the first time after President Donald Trump tweeted about the break-in.
In a statement Friday, the Maryland Democrat said someone "attempted to gain entry into my residence at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 27."
"I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house," Cummings said. "I thank the Baltimore Police Department for nothing their response and ask that all further inquiries be directed to them."
#3
Hmm the reports I read said he wasn't there at the time.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/04/2019 16:30
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#4
Just like Trump's comments that "instigated it", he went back in time
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019 16:33
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#5
God, I hate this lying POS
Posted by: chris ||
08/04/2019 17:54
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China-Japan-Koreas
HT Clarice Feldman
[Newstatesman] The strategies of Hong Kong protesters, honed through weekly clashes with police, offer a masterclass to activists worldwide.
For almost two months, a wave of anti-government protests have rocked Hong Kong. Initially sparked by a government proposal to introduce a law that would allow the extradition of criminal suspects to stand trial in mainland Chinese courts, the protests have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement, demanding greater government accountability and universal suffrage. Protests have largely been driven by young activists, who have developed and adapted their strategies during weekly protests and clashes with police, offering a masterclass in protest for activists worldwide. Here are some of their key tactics....
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019
09:27 ||
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#1
Really interesting article on the protesters’ methods of countering the ChiCom forces. Almost a neural network. My concern is that the activities will escalate until the authorities will do a serious crackdown o the movement with lethal force. They will achieve a Pyrrhic victory. Repercussions can be serious to the Chicoms, but I think a lethal outcome is inevitable.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/04/2019 10:32
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#2
Yupp. Either it'll be Tienanmen once again, or China will suck balls in front of those watching in Asia.
[CNN] Nine people are dead after a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, according to police. Dayton Police say the suspect also is dead. At least 26 other people were injured in the incident that took place within 13 hours of a shooting that left 20 dead in El Paso, Texas.
The Dayton shooting took place around 1 a.m. on East 5th Street in the city's Oregon District, a popular downtown area, Dayton Deputy Director and Assistant Chief of Police Lt. Col. Matt Carper told reporters early Sunday morning.
The suspect, who was shot and killed by responding officers, has not yet been identified. Carper said the shooter fired multiple rounds from a "long gun." The shooting happened as the suspect was making his way toward a bar called Ned Peppers, Montgomery County Emergency Services spokeswoman Deb Decker said.
The shooter wore body armor, Decker said.
No officers were injured in the confrontation, Carper said.
#5
Dqyton Daily News is live-blogging here, including live television reports.
Number of injured is up to 27.
The police know who the dead shooter is, but are not ready to reveal it to the public.
The downtown Oregon district is very lively, and well patrolled by uniformed police. They heard the shots and ran there within a minute, quickly stopping the vicious idiot.
As an aside, I was at a blues festival in a nearby community put on by the Dayton blues society. At least one of the bands there regularly plays in the Oregon district.
Betts described himself as offering “extensive customer service experience” and described himself as “good under pressure. Fast learner. Eager to overachieve.” But his employment history consisted of service positions.
According to Daily Beast, Betts’ sister, Megan, 21, and an unidentified male “were found shot in a car” near the mass shooting scene. On Facebook, Megan Betts wrote that she was a “tour Guide at Missoula Smokejumper Visitor Center” who “Studies at Wright State University Department of Biological Sciences.”
Shooting was focused around Ned Peppers. The Ned Peppers’ website describes it as a “traditional western-ish themed bar located right in the heart of the Oregon District in Dayton Ohio.”
According to a LinkedIn page in his name, Connor Betts was a crew member at Chipotle Mexican Grill starting in 2017 in Centerville, Ohio.
He was a registered Democrat, last voting as a Democrat in 2018. You can check it under the Green County, Ohio voter lookup here. There is no indication that politics had anything to do with his actions as of now. But he wasn’t pro-Trump or GOP, from what it appears.
My next question.... was his sister and/or her boyfriend Trump supporters? What about the nightclub, is it in a "Trump" area?
#12
Gun control is not going to stop anything. McVeigh took out a Federal building with a box truck full of fertilizer. Instead the establishment needs to focus on America and not Central America.
[IsraelTimes] A day after wowing fans with a long-awaited performance in front of a thrilled Tel Aviv audience, Jennifer Lopez on Friday visited Jerusalems Western Wall. Code Pink and Roger Waters, etc. put up a furious campaign to stop this enjoyable evening but failed.
along with her fiancé, former baseball player Alex Rodriguez, Rodriguez's two children from his first marriage, and Lopez's twins she had with fellow singer Marc Anthony; arrived in Israel on Tuesday, ahead of her concert in front of 57,000 fans Thursday night in Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park. She was set to leave on Saturday.
Video posted on social media showed the singer touching the stones at the holy site Friday and whispering in the ears of her children as she shielded them from the jostling crowd.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/04/2019
06:19 ||
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[Pirate's Cove] Now, California is a place of massive tectonic activity. Many massive faults, lots of smaller ones. The Pacific plate is diving under California. This is what creates those hills and mountains. And, you get erosion of those hills and mountains. A place of alternative dry and wet, and, in this case, right near the ocean. You know this. It’s called science. Geology. Etc.
Those are just a few of the unhinged responses, and, sure, you can say that these are just a few cranks, but, this is what the Cult of Climastrology is teaching. "No matter what happens, blame it on man-caused climate change."
#7
Point Loma and other formations, which are ALL sedimentary ocean deposits of sandstone, some cemented with paralic deposits, subject to "calving" as with a glacier. Surface clefts/faces are adversely affected by landscape watering above
Why yes, I have been deposed before, why do you ask?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019 20:26
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[InsideHook] The next time you think about buying a car, instead of only looking at Consumer Reports (or Elon Musk’s tweets), there is another important resource to consider: the Highway Loss Data Institute’s list of vehicles most likely to be stolen.
The branch of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just released the most recent version of the list, looking into how likely cars from 2016-2018 model years are to be swiped in the United States, and it doesn’t look good for Dodge owners packing horsepower under the hood.
You can find the list below, but first let’s go over a few caveats. This list details theft rates, not overall theft numbers. If HLDI listed total thefts, the top 10 would obviously include more popular cars. Also the "whole-vehicle" theft data differs from standard theft data because it doesn’t include stolen parts or items stolen from inside vehicles. We’re just talking about whole vehicles.
"The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system."[1]
‐ Elizabeth Warren
"[P]rivate insurance companies in this country spend between 12 and 18 percent on administration costs.... We can save approximately $500 billion a year just in administration costs."[2]
‐ Bernie Sanders
"It is inhumane to make people go through a system where they cannot literally receive the benefit of what medical science can offer because some insurance company has decided it doesn’t meet their bottom line in terms of their profit motivation."[3]
‐ Kamala Harris
Reality
Health insurance is expensive because spending on hospital and physician services is high. Insurers are unpopular because they bear the main responsibility for controlling this spending‐but their doing so saves consumers money and focuses resources toward better care. A comparison of plan options under Medicare can quantify the value added by private insurance management. Private plans reduce costs by about 10%, allowing them to provide over $1,000 in extra health-care coverage to each Medicare enrollee every year.
[HOT AIR] The ongoing social media battle between President Trump and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland has drawn in all sorts of supporters on both sides and provided more than a few amusing moments. One of the most recent spun off from a claim that the President made about Baltimore (Cummings’ home town) having a higher murder rate than some of the most dangerous places in the western hemisphere. It actually came from the White House account, not Trump’s personal one.
As usual, this had heads exploding among democrats who rushed to defend Cummings and claim that the President was "lying" again. Unfortunately for them, at least a few media outlets did their homework and went to fact check the numbers. CBS in Baltimore did the required digging and was forced to concede the unpleasant truth. The President was right. (Emphasis added)
[LI] Over the weekend of July 27th, the city of West Chicago, Illinois played host to the largest steam locomotive in North America. The locomotive, nicknamed "Big Boy," was built in 1941 for the Union Pacific Railroad. It was retired from active service in 1959 with the discontinuation of steam service on American railroads and turned into a display piece in Pomona, California.
In 2012, the Union Pacific railroad announced the plan to acquire one of the eight surviving locomotives of its type on display and to restore it as part of the Union Pacific Heritage Fleet, which operates the only activate steam locomotive repair shop owned by a major railroad in the United States. After being removed from its display and an arduous five-year restoration process, the locomotive was officially placed in service as an excursion train in May of this year.
At the beginning of July, the locomotive began the leg of a much larger month-long journey that is currently underway, taking the behemoth of a locomotive across the Midwest states of Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois before begins its return journey to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
#1
The Big Boy was restored to take part in the 150th anniversary of the completion of the 'transcontinental railroad' at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.
So called 'transcontinental', because you still had to change trains in Chicago, take a ferry across the Mississippi and Missouri to get to Omaha, where the Union Pacific began. But it was the 19th century equivalent of the July 20, 1968 moon landing.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/04/2019 6:32
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#2
Shipman would be ecstatic.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/04/2019 7:45
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#3
Aye, he would
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019 8:56
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#4
Diesel locomotives took over from steam because they were modular, efficient, economical, and much easier to operate and maintain. However, steam built this country. The articulated locomotive of the Union Pacific—the Big Boy—and the cab forward AC-12s of the Southern Pacific were the zenith of steam locomotive design. It is good that we preserve our history with these giants so we know where we came from.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/04/2019 9:53
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#5
My youngest, his son and I traveled to see the 4014 in Altoona, Wisconsin. It Was Awsome!.
Highly recommended is you get the chance. Schedule
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/04/2019 10:02
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#6
Seen it. One stopped in my small town a few years ago. It was indeed awesome.
[LA Times] Trader Joe’s is taking some of its Chinese food off the menu.
The Monrovia-based grocery store chain, known for its selection of budget gourmet and ethnic offerings, said Monday that it would phase out the sale of single-ingredient items -- such as garlic and spinach -- that are imported from China.
"Our customers have voiced their concerns about products from this region and we have listened," the company said in a statement.
The statement didn’t detail what those concerns were or identify the products about which customers complained. Executives with the company declined to comment on specifics of the move.
In the last year, imports from China have been under increased scrutiny because of a string of discoveries of tainted goods from that country.
Mattel Inc. and other toy makers recalled millions of Chinese-made toys when it was determined they were contaminated with lead paint. Pet food made from Chinese grain was found to be laced with melamine, a chemical that made the food appear to have high protein levels, and sickened or killed thousands of cats and dogs.
As for food for human consumption, some Trader Joe’s regulars said Monday that they had never thought to be worried. "I didn’t know they were buying food from China in the first place," Ken Blickenstaff said as he was leaving his car to shop at the Trader Joe’s in Upland. "It does make a difference."
Blickenstaff added that he had been concerned about the use of pesticides in China and that, whenever possible, he buys food grown locally.
[Washington Examiner] President Trump’s threat to put tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods has hurt businesses' ability to plan, trade groups say, even though the tariffs are at least four weeks away and trade talks are ongoing.
Businesses need to make decisions regarding purchases and sales months in advance and to have stable supply chains. The threat of tariffs disrupts their ability to do that. Here's a tip. Forget your cheap Chinese labor, imported junk. Come up with a new plan. Diversify your sources: Viet Nam, Laos, etc., offer cheap labor as well
"We’re coming up on the holiday season for retailers and we’re well into the manufacturing cycle for that time and we have to deal with all of this uncertainty," Sage Chandler, vice president of international trade for the Consumer Technology Association, told the Washington Examiner. "They don’t know if they can get things to customers in time or if they have to figure in price increases and then be noncompetitive with others from outside the U.S."
September and October are the busiest months for the retail industry, noted Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation. "Retail is trying to figure out what is next and what steps they can take to mitigate things ‐ if at all. For example, the president’s Sept. 1 date to start the tariffs: Does that meet when goods enter the U.S., or when they leave their port?"
#2
Maybe we could find a way to grow our economy by producing things that make life better - like, I dunno, cures for diseases, healthier foods, a better culture, for starters - as opposed to cheap shiny Chinese-made crap?
#3
Only thing they are planning for is moar cheap labor brought across the border illegally, employed illegally all at taxpayer expense.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 7:02
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#4
Only thing they are planning for is moar cheap labor brought across the border illegally, employed illegally all at taxpayer expense.
Gone well beyond the "planning" stages I'm afraid.
Border security, appears to be a lost art. Perhaps some former Stasi or Deutsche Volkspolizei experts could be brought in to teach us proper wall maintenance and security.
#5
Ah, another Chamber of Commerce propaganda piece. You know at least slave owners had to pay out of their own pockets to feed, cloth, and shelter their slaves. They weren't subsidized by the tax payers to support their cheap labor with housing, food stamps, and free medical.
[VOE] As the Pride festival in Stockholm continues, it has turned out that several leading persons in the organisation have been convicted for sexual crimes. Rape, child pornography and grooming against under-aged boys and girls are listed among the crimes carried out by men as well as women.
It is the Christian news site Världen idag which has examined cases of child molestation within the Swedish LGBT community. The Pride organisation’s press department does not want to respond to questions from the news site since it considers that the questions "are incorrectly asked".
Here is a list:
39-year-old man ‐ convicted for rape
For several years, the man has participated in seminars and exhibitions at Stockholm Pride. In June, he was convicted to three years and nine months in prison for child rape, gross abuse of child for sexual posing, sexual harassment and severe child pornography crimes. The man, who was involved in the Swedish Medical Association and complained about homophobic attitudes in the world of medicine, met the boy he molested at the Internet dating site Cruiser. He is also sentenced to pay SEK 165,000 (€15,000) to his victim.
40-year-old woman ‐ child pornography
The woman took images of children’s genitals in their home environments and transferred the pictures to a network of paedophiles. She was one in a group of molesters who were simultaneously convicted and the woman was sentenced to eight months in prison for child pornography crimes.
Earlier, she was one of the front figures for women’s rights for insemination and told a Swedish newspaper that she intended to go to Denmark with her partner for insemination.
40-year old man ‐ Previous to last year’s Pride festival, twconvicted for child rapeo senior managers in the Pride organisation resigned. It turned out that one of them had been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for the rape against an under-aged child, some years before. The other man was accused of sex purchase from an under-aged boy.
Stockholm Pride was aware of the two cases but the managers were not dismissed until the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote about it in late 2017. It turned out that employees at Stockholm Pride knew about the rape sentence of the 40-year-old, without reacting. The charges of sex purchase facing the second manager were dropped since the boy victim did not want to participate in the investigation.
42-year-old man, convicted for child pornography
In 2016, one of the front figures for Luleå Pride was convicted to probation with defined treatment plan for severe child pornography crimes, found in the man’s computer. Before, the man was employed at the Region of Norrbotten and worked as a project manager for equality and diversity.
44-year-old man ‐ convicted for child molestation
The man, a school leader and connected to the Swedish governmental organisation for sexual enlightening, RFSU, was three weeks ago convicted to two years and six months by Stockholm district court for 21 sexual abuses against children.
30-year-old man convicted for child pornography
The man represented the Swedish Defence Force at a Pride parade in Luleå 2016. Three weeks later, the Police found 13.656 pornographic images and 302 films of child pornography in his computer. In February, the man, who during the investigation changed his sex into a woman, was convicted to prohibition with special treatment for severe crimes of child pornography.
#5
BUT, BUT, How else they gonna procreate?? The demo rats are wanting this continue because Anus baby's come out as demorats? I've been told. sarc off.
[Rudaw] Around 10 Christian villages in the northern Kurdistan Region have been evacuated due to frequent and increasing Ottoman Turkish bombings targeting apparent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions.
Rudaw visited Christian villages in the Kani Masi District, where some homes are locked up and abandoned. There are 25 such villages in the district, including 10 or so evacuated ones, according to district officials. One local told Rudaw the PKK should leave the area.
"PKK better to go back to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... , and fight against the Ottoman Turkish army inside Turkey, and leave Kurdistan region for peace," said Shlimon Aseel from the village of Duri, where 15 of the 40 homes have been evacuated.
The PKK is a Kurdish krazed killer group that has fought the Ottoman Turkish state for decades for greater autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist group and regularly strikes apparent targets of the group in the Kurdistan Region. The PKK is based in the Qandil mountains along the Turkey-Iraq border.
PKK fighters are present in the areas around the city of Amedi where Kani Masi is. The area is in the Duhok Province amd close to the Ottoman Turkish border. Most Christians in the there identify as ethnic Assyrians.
Sarbast Sabri, the head of Kani Masi District, says the Ottoman TurkishArclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s hit the district on a daily basis, and negatively impact the lives of civilians.
"Civilians in the area are living in continuous panic, due to the Ottoman Turkish bombardments and PKK movements in the areas of Kani Masi," he told Rudaw.
Civilians are frequently caught in the crossfire between Turkey and the PKK, and people empty the villages to escape the fighting.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has repeatedly asked PKK fighters to stay away from populated areas and villages. Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani has also voiced concerns to Turkey over civilian deaths resulting from Turkey’s airstrikes.
Baghdad has likewise called on Turkey to end its attacks,while simultaneously demanding the PKK leave their territories.
Turkey launched Operation claw in late May to drive the PKK away from its border with the Kurdistan Region.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
01:26 ||
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#1
Christians to the slaughter. How Democratic islamic.
[AnNahar] The Paleostinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hellhole was on Saturday witnessing cautious calm after a Paleostinian "security operation" that ended in the withdrawal of an Islamist group from a camp's neighborhood and the escape of its leader.
Leb's National News Agency said the operation was carried out in the al-Ras al-Ahmar neighborhood, the bastion of "Bilal al-Orqoub's group."
NNA said the group is accused of assassinating Hussein Alaeddine, aka Abu Hassan Khomeini,
...the son of a former Fatah official, he was shot dead by masked gunman while participating in protests against new Lebanese labor rules that force Palestinians to get work permits...
on Friday. The fighting had erupted in the wake of the incident.
"The Paleostinian National Security forces managed to seize control of the house of the runaway Bilal al-Orqoub, amid reports that he fled with his son Youssef to an unknown destination," NNA said.
Several houses were burned during the festivities and other material damage was recordes.
Stray bullets meanwhile reached areas in the camp's vicinity and damaged the glass facade of a bakery in the area.
The heavy fighting had renewed on Saturday morning after a night thay witnessed intermittent shooting.
[Jpost] Amid mounting tensions between the Paleostinians and 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... , the Paleostinian Authority is considering dispatching a senior delegation to Riyadh for urgent talks with members of the Saudi royal family and government officials on ways to avert a further deterioration.
There seems to be one problem, however: the Saudis are not responding to Paleostinian requests to arrange such a visit.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
01:26 ||
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#3
The Yemen situation is vexing the saudis mightily. They have no incentive to continue supporting entities that have truck with the iranians simply to claim "solidarity" with the paliswinians.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 9:17
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#4
"Obviously, we are headed toward a major crisis between Saudi Arabia and the Paleostinians," said a retired Paleostinian academic who worked for more than three decades in various Gulf states.
"There’s a feeling that things are quickly spiraling out of control. If we don’t fix the situation, the Paleostinians in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries will pay a heavy price. We must not forget what happened after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait," he said, referring to the 200,000 Paleostinians who fled or were driven out of Kuwait in 1990-1991. "We paid a heavy price after Kuwait was liberated because of our support for the invasion. Let’s make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past."
...Wanna know why I think this dude isn't Palestinian? Because he thinks they might not make the same mistake twice.
Never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/04/2019 10:50
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#5
Paleo Proverb: "Any mistake is worth repeating oncetwice endlessly"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2019 12:22
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#6
It's been 20 years since I worked in Saudi. But back then, they imported about 3 million workers from almost every Moslem nation on earth to do the actual work. But Palestinians and Iranians were very conspicuous by their absence, even back then.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/04/2019 13:27
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#7
#6: Next to winning the lottery the most difficult win is a Palestinian getting approval to work in Saudi Arabia.
[AnNahar] Washington wants to quickly deploy new intermediate-range missiles in Asia, to counter the rise of China in the region, new U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Saturday.
"Yes I would like to," Esper said when asked if the U.S. was considering deploying new medium-range conventional weapons in Asia now Washington is no longer bound by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.
"We would like to deploy a capability sooner rather than later," Esper told news hounds on a plane to Sydney at the start of a week-long tour of Asia. "I would prefer months ... But these things tend to take longer than you expect."
The new Pentagon chief did not specify where the U.S. intended to deploy these weapons.
"I would not speculate because those things depend on plans, it's those things you always discuss with your allies," he said.
Washington withdrew from the INF treaty on Friday after accusing Russia of violating it for years.
Under the pact signed in 1987 by then U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington and Moscow agreed to limit the use of conventional and nuclear medium-range missiles (with a range of 500-5,000 kilometers, 300-3,000 miles).
But its unraveling had been on the cards for months amid worsening ties between Russia and the U.S.
Washington is now free to compete with China, whose arsenal is largely made up of weapons prohibited under the INF Treaty, to which Beijing was never a signatory.
Esper said China should not be surprised by the U.S. plans.
"That should be no surprise because we have been talking about that for some time now," he said.
"And I want to say that 80 percent of their inventory is INF range systems. So that should not surprise that we would want to have a like capability," he said.
[AlAhram] Libya's Mitiga airport halted air traffic on Saturday after a shelling, the airport authority said on its Facebook page.
Mitiga is the only working airport in the Libyan capital 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... , which has been under attack by the Libyan National Army, commanded by Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... .
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
00:03 ||
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[14 views]
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Ankara (IraqiNews.com) ‐ The Ottoman Turkish Armed Forces have neutralized at least six PKK murderous Moslems in northern Iraq under the scope of the ongoing Operation Claw, Yeni Safak quoted the Ottoman Turkish National Defense Ministry as saying on Saturday.
Ottoman Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralized" in their statements to imply that the murderous Moslems in question either surrendered or were killed or captured.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
00:03 ||
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[BREITBART] Illinois State Senator Tom Cullerton, a powerful reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... Democrat, is facing federal embezzlement charges for taking over $200,000 a year from an Illinois union for a no-show job.
In 2013, Cullerton began receiving a $188,320 per year salary and $64,068 in health benefits supposedly for serving as a Teamsters union organizer, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The 49-year-old Cullerton, who is the brother of Democrat Senate President John Cullerton, also received cash bonuses every year since 2013, despite doing little to no work for the union.
Now, Cullerton faces a federal indictment for conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and an employee benefits plan. He also faces an additional 39 counts of embezzlement from a labor union as well as a single count of making false statements about the health care benefits.
Federal prosecutors allege that Cullerton and former Teamsters boss John T. Coli conspired to set the politician up with the fake union job and when he rarely showed up to do any work, Coli ignored Cullerton’s actions.
The indictment comes on the heels of Coli’s guilty plea for trying to shake down a Chicago-based film company for $325,000. Coli may be handed a 20-month prison sentence.
The Cullerton indictment is not a surprise as during the Coli trial federal prosecutors issued a subpoena for Cullerton’s financial records.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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#1
Let's see. If banning guns in the hands of the law abiding is the leftist plan to prevent gun crime, then I guess banning honest politicians and denying the law abiding access to money will solve this too.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 7:46
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#2
What an idiot - all he had to do was at least show up at the office two days a week and pretend to work.
Question - why doesn't a union organizer stare out the window in the morning?
Answer - so he'll have something to do in the afternoon!
Pres. Trump to be blamed soon, possibly last evening.
Information as of midnight Saturday. The first reports of the massacre can be seen here.
[Independent] Suspect believed to have posted racist manifesto online before attack
The suspect in the El Paso shooting in which 20 people have been killed, has been named a young white man in his 20s – Patrick Crusius – and investigators are reportedly examining a racist online manifesto he is believed to have written.
As the nation reeled from the latest act of mass gun violence to destroy lives and stun communities, multiple reports said police officials had said the 21-year-old, detained after the incident in which more than 20 people were shot, came from the city Texas city of Alen, 650 miles to the west of El Paso.
Cell phone footage from the scene showed people running in fear from the Cielo Vista Mall, where a gunman entered a Walmart store armed with a rifle and opened fire.
A spokesman for the El Paso police department later said the operation was now becoming a murder investigation after a person had been taken into custody.
Sgt Robert Gomez said they did not believe any suspects were “outstanding”, but said the situation was fluid.
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” said Mr Gomez said.
The “manifesto” said to have been written by the suspect claimed the attack was a response to the “Hispanic invasion of Texas”. It refers to the so-called “Great Replacement”, a white supremacist conspiracy theory that claims people of European descent are being overwhelmed.
“Even if other non-immigrant targets would have a greater impact, I can’t bring myself to kill my fellow Americans,” it reportedly said. “In short, America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades.”
It also voiced support for the suspect in the Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 51 people were killed in two consecutive attacks in March. It also said automation was people taking people’s jobs and that immigration ought to be ended.
CNN said that Facebook was working with police in the aftermath of the shooting to remove a Facebook and Instagram account associated with the suspect.
“Our thoughts are with the victims and their families,” the company said in a statement. “Content that praises, supports or represents the shooting or anyone responsible violates our community standards and we will continue to remove as soon as we identify it.”
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said there were at least 15 fatalities and that the number could be higher. “You know that number keeps changing. I hate to pin down a certain number, but I think it was definitely a large number,” he said.
Asked about the motivate and reports of a manifesto, Mr Paxton said he was not surprised if that was true. It said he was currently being questioned by officers.
“That would perhaps why he did this,” he said.
The manifesto said the plan to launch the attack pre-dated the election of Donald Trump.
“I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump’s rhetoric,” it said. “The media is infamous for fake news. Their reaction to this attack will likely just confirm that.”
#1
Texas city of Alen, 650 miles to the west of El Paso.
Corrections to the story:
Alen should be Allen
650 miles to the west of El Paso should read 650 miles to the EAST of El Paso
#4
His name is Francis O'Rourke. O'Rourke is Irish, Francis is French, the name he wants to be called is Beto which is Spanish meaning "Gift of God" used by Latinos, which by the way Francis is not a Latino.
#5
I have to say that if it is racially motivated by a white person against other nonwhite races it is white supremacist terrorism, not white terrorism.
#7
Looking at articles on both, it mentions in both El Paso and Dayton, the shooters wearing ear muffs. Given that NO mass shooter prior to this was found to be wearing them, it's a really odd coincidence if they are not linked somehow.
Also, I've read that the manifesto might not actually have been posted by the shooter as well. First sniff says to me this might be a lefty cell running false flag operation. Still inside 48 hours so it's only a theory but this whole thing stinks of SOME kind of setup.
#8
It's a really weird Manifesto. I mean REALLY weird. Claims not to be racist, that killing non-white americans is wrong, and that we need to seperate the "races" for genetic diversity. Also seems to say he's had these views well before Trump. It's just... BIZARRE. We won't have anything definitive until Monday most likely.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/04/2019 6:26
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#9
“This is unprecedented in El Paso,” said Mr Gomez said.
Juarez
Another place another government has lost control because it is compromised and corrupted by money/power.
#10
We won't have anything definitive until Monday most likely.
Yes, like the Las Vegas thing, it will all become perfectly clear in just a few days.
/cynic
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 9:34
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#11
#8 Looking at articles on both, it mentions in both El Paso and Dayton, the shooters wearing ear muffs. Given that NO mass shooter prior to this was found to be wearing them, it's a really odd coincidence if they are not linked somehow.
That is weird. The shooters don't want to damage their hearing but they are O.K. with getting killed or nabbed and getting the death penalty?
#12
I could see this being provoked by the left more than the right. The left would get a four-fer: everyone will be calling for gun control, sympathy for illegals (open-border advocates), Trump will be blamed, and it is a distraction from many things that will be coming that affect the Dems (declass, Epstein, wide-spread corruption previous admin., phony RussiaGate, IG report...). How would the right benefit?
the article has a photo of the shooter standing quietly while police handcuff him. He appears pale-skinned, and is dressed in a baggy black t-shirt and baggier tan slacks.
the manifesto was circulating on 8chan before the shooting. police are not claiming that the shooter wrote it. Charles and Silentbrick are clearly not he only ones to find it suspiciously convenient.
the shooter has been a loner much of his life, and was terribly bullied at school in Plano, a suburb of Dallas.
he reportedly told the police he wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.
#14
The manifesto did have the usual alarmist democrat tells, like climate panic and wealth distribution themes. I think he thought he was apolitical, while severely influenced by current socialist dogma.
Was 3 AM CT when the Dayton massacre was breaking across the WWW and initial reports were his weapon was taken from him and whoever took it turned it on him and took him out with his own weapon per one of the first breaking sources. That was my follow up above.
#16
Possibilities re earmuffs:
1) Makes it easier to hear the voices;
2) Suppresses icky, distracting screaming and stuff;
3) Preserves hearing for the siege, negotiation, gettin'-on-TV, courtroom speechifying, and rescued-to-lead-the-revolution parts of the programme. Just in case. These guys are big planners, right?
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) ‐ Two Iraqi civilians were maimed Saturday in a landmine explosion in western Anbar, a security source said.
Speaking to the privately-owned Almaalomah news website, the source said that a landmine planted on the side of a road in al-Qa’im district, west of Anbar, went off Saturday morning, leaving two civilians maimed.
"The maimed civilians were moved to a nearby hospital for treatment," added the source.
This new push to clear ISIS from the desert region between Iraq and Syria does not seem to be bearing much fruit thus far.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) ‐ Iraqi military intelligence forces announced on Saturday the capture of an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terrorist during a military operation in Anbar province.
In a blurb carried by Iraqi website Mawazin News, the Iraqi Military Intelligence Directorate said that its troops arrested an Islamic State terrorist in Anah district in Anbar.
The arrest of the IS bully boy was based on intelligence information, added the directorate.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
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[8 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[KhaamaPress] The A-29 light attack planes of the Afghan Air Force pounded Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... hideouts in northern Faryab province killing at least 13 bad boys.
The 209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said the Afghan Air Force carried out the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in Bulcheragh district on Thursday night.
The statement further added that the airstrikes killed 13 Talibs and destroyed a Taliban compound and some weapons together with munitions.
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, a triangular dorsal fin appeared in the water. Then another... the Special Operations Corps in a statement said the airstrikes targeted two hideouts of Taliban group in Bulcheragh district killing 13 bad boys.
[ARABNEWS] Indian special forces killed seven suspected Maoist rebels in a raid on a jungle camp Saturday that triggered a shootout lasting several hours, police said.
The far-left rebels in the central state of Chhattisgarh are part of a long-standing conflict that has left tens of thousands dead since the 1960s. They were in a camp in dense forest in Rajnandgaon district, some 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the state capital Raipur.
"So far seven bodies have been recovered from the encounter spot," a police brass hat in the district told AFP on condition of anonymity. He said arms and ammunition were recovered from the camp.
Chhattisgarh is mineral rich but among India's poorest states, and guerrillas are demanding greater rights over land and resources. A landmine blast on Wednesday was blamed on the rebels, and killed one paramilitary.
Maoist-inspired forces of Evil in the so-called Naxalite movement are present in at least 20 Indian states but are most active in Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh. The government has deployed tens of thousands of police and special commandos in a bid to eradicate the groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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[17 views]
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[BREITBART] A witness in the A$AP Rocky assault case revised her story from initial police reports, testifying in a Swedish court Friday that she didn’t actually see the American rapper hitting a man with a bottle.
The young woman and her friend, testifying anonymously, were questioned via video link at Stockholm District Court.
Witness testimonies were the highlight of the third day of the trial where the 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, and two other suspects are accused by prosecutors of beating 19-year-old Mustafa Jafari on June 30. The rapper’s bodyguard, identified as Timothy Leon Williams, also testified Friday.
Whether or not Jafari, who got into an argument with Mayers’ entourage in Stockholm, was hit with parts or a whole bottle has become one of the key issues at the trial.
Both women who testified Friday maintained their previous statements to police that they saw Mayers and his partners beating and kicking Jafari.
But one of the women recanted what she witnessed with the bottle. She said she heard the bottle being crushed, though she couldn’t say whether Mayers’ entourage threw the bottle to the ground or hit Jafari with it.
She said she didn’t see Mayers holding a bottle during the scuffle. Her friend testified that she didn’t see anyone hitting Jafari with a bottle.
"Everything happened very quickly. We were scared for our lives," the first woman told the court in Swedish. "He (Jafari) was bleeding. He showed his injuries on his hand. He also said he had a sore back."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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#1
So. A rapper allegedly hit a man with a bottle? A rapper / hit man had a bottle? Ima confused...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 9:45
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#2
Outlaw bottles and stainless steel thermoses.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/04/2019 10:36
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#3
And those damnable metal straws.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/04/2019 10:56
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#4
What was the young woman's name? Possibly a relative of Jafari?
Those surveillance cams are a bitch, no?
Posted by: Regular joe ||
08/04/2019 15:22
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[DAILYCALLER] Federal authorities have charged 90 people, nabbed 51 guns and seized $1 million as well as huge amounts of illegal drugs as a result of drug raids in Baltimore.
Baltimore’s U.S. District Attorney announced the news of the July operations early Saturday morning. The raids were the result of law enforcement cooperation between federal, state and municipal authorities, Fox News reported.
Along with the guns and cash, police found large supplies of illegal drugs like fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
"Reducing violent crime in Baltimore is job one. It’s what we in law enforcement think about morning, noon, and night," U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur said in a statement, according to Fox News. "We will continue to do everything we can to prosecute the violent criminals who wreak havoc in and terrorize Baltimore’s neighborhoods"
The publicity comes at an especially bad time for the city of Baltimore after a feud between President Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... and Democratic Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings ...Representative-for-life from Maryland, representing half of Baltimore City, which makes his district ultra-safe, and most of Howard County, which is out-populated by the city. His shiny pate is the reason we pronounce the city name Baldymore. Cummings' politix are so liberal they're tedious, nor is he any more honest than the next seedy professional pol... became national news when the president accurately
called Cummings’ congressional district a "rat and rodent infested mess."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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[5 views]
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[DAWN] Unidentified button men killed a former holy warrior commander in Akkakhel area of Bara tehsil late on Friday.
Police officials said that two button men riding a cycle of violence opened fire on Noor Rehman, who was a member of a proscribed group, killing him on the spot.
They said that the assailants managed to escape from the scene after the incident leaving behind their cycle of violence which was later seized by the local police.
Officials said that Noor Rehman had surrendered to security forces sometimes ago and had also undergone special treatment in a de-radicalisation centre and was only recently released.
Nobody took responsibility for the killing of the former holy warrior commander.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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[16 views]
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[DAILYCALLER] The University of Florida (UF) agreed yesterday to pay their Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) student chapter $66,000, and amend their school policy to allow conservative groups to have access to more financial resources.
In December of last year, the UF student YAF chapter filed a lawsuit against the school for allegedly violating students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The lawsuit stemmed from the University designating the chapter as a "non-budgeted" organization, meaning they would be forced to petition the school for funding for each event they seek to host. In addition, the policy disqualified them from being able to use student activity fees to go towards a speaker’s attendance fee.
Take the money from HR administrators and Diversity Official's salaries.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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#1
State universities are a semi-monopoly. No motivation by real competition to keep it efficient and honest because the tax payer is on the line for any Oberlin type court loses.
#2
As in any other organization, there are people at these institutions waiting for a chance to trip up others in the food chain. So some administrators still have an incentive to protect their own phoney baloney jobs if nothing else.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/04/2019 8:47
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[BBC] Entertainer Joe Longthorne, whose career spanned five decades, has died aged 64.
Best known as a singer and impressionist, he regularly appeared on TV shows and toured overseas.
Les Dennis tweeted he was "a supreme talent and a nice man". Cold Feet actor John Thomson said he was a "great entertainer".
A statement on the Hull-born performer's website said he died in the arms of his husband Jamie.
It said: "Joe died in his bedroom, laying in the arms of his devoted husband of 21 years Jamie, with his rosary beads clutched tight to his chest. He leaves behind sister Ann and brother John."
[DAILYCALLER] Creepy porn lawyer Embattled celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti is revisiting a potential 2020 presidential bid and told CNBC he is "one of the few effective fighters" in the Democratic Party.
"Never say never," he told CNBC Friday when asked if he might still run in 2020. "The Dems need a non-traditional fighter. They have a lot of talent but not a lot of fighters."
Avenatti said he puts the odds of running at 50-50, and he will make a final decision in the next few months, CNBC reported Saturday. "after speaking with him over the phone, through the plexiglass partition..."
"I don’t think I need to make a final decision for a number of months. I have the name ID and everyone knows I’m one of the few effective fighters that the Dems have," said Avenatti, who adopted the catch phrase "basta," or "enough," during his frequent attacks on President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... Avenatti announced on Dec. 4, 2018 he would not run for president. He was considering joining the Democratic field and had received words of encouragement from journalists like Brian Stelter, but said at the time that his family opposed a presidential bid.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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[ARABNEWS] It is 10 years since 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... transformed from radical Islamist sect to terrorist insurgency group, coinciding with the rise of its current leader, Abubakar Shekau ...the lunatic leader of Boko Haram who has been reported dead at least eleven times, pledged his body and soul to ISIS, told his fighters to hang it up once or twice, and been fired by the Caliph and refused to step down... . He succeeded Mohammed Yusuf (Abu Yusuf al-Barnawi), a preacher fiercely critical of Nigeria’s wealth inequality and corruption despite the country’s return to democracy in 1999, which many believed would quickly remedy these ills.
In the first decade, the group set about fulfilling its name ‐ decrying Western education and its influences while propagating radical Islamist messages. Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language spoken in parts of northern Nigeria. The group fed on societal frustrations, poverty, illiteracy and widening inequality. Within a few years, Boko Haram became popular and increasingly antagonistic to non-Moslems and the Nigerian state. It became apparent that its escalating confrontations with state security forces were a threat to a young federal republic.
The group was banned in 2009, leading to widespread rioting and festivities with security forces that left more than 300 people dead. Its leader and dozens of its members also perished at the hands of Nigeria law enforcement, the same sort of blood and violence that has become a part of Boko Haram’s creed. Over 10 years, it has killed more than 35,000 people, injured thousands and displaced at least 2 million in an asymmetric "holy war" against the Nigerian state.
Just last week, a Boko Haram attack on a funeral procession in northeastern Nigeria claimed more than 60 lives. A few days earlier, a group of men on cycle of violences opened fire on mourners returning from a burial, killing nearly two dozen, in an attack also linked to the group. A Boko Haram timeline features increasingly frequent massacres, shootouts, suicide kabooms, kidnappings and even prison breaks.
Before the notorious Chibok kidnappings that attracted worldwide attention, Boko Haram attacks were few and far between, but since 2015 they have been a weekly, if not a daily, occurrence. Some victims may be part of the state security apparatus, the regional joint task force or local militias and vigilante groups, but the bulk of deaths and injuries affect innocent civilians. The Chibok tragedy has left a pervasive sense of despair across Nigeria because citizens are finding it difficult to trust that the federal government can protect the citizenry and eradicate Boko Haram.
Years of counter-insurgency operations by the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) between Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... , with support from 300 US advisers, have neither eradicated Boko Haram nor slowed its operations. There is no shortage of manpower given the involvement of local militias and a private military company, but the group remains active and appears to show no signs of waning.
At the heart of these failures are reports of low morale among poorly equipped task force troops as well as porous Sahel-West Africa borders and rampant corruption, which allow Boko Haram to stock up on weaponry sourced from ISIS strongholds in Libya. Other factors, such as poor coordination, the lack of coherent strategies and failure to attain agreed objectives, have made success elusive for anti-Boko Haram operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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#1
somalia has no answer to al shabaab
afghanistan/pakistan no answer to the Taliban
etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/04/2019 3:01
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[DAWN] Arifwala police have arrested a lawyer on charges of sharing through social media `blasphemous and hate content.’
Usman Farid Chishti faces proceedings under the PPC 295/C and other relevant laws for sharing a post having blasphemous content and hate material against security establishment and superior judiciary.
The FIR was registered on the complaint of Ijaz Ahmed, also a lawyer.
Arifwala Circle DSP Ghulam Muhammad confirmed the arrest of Chishti on the recommendations of a committee headed by Pakpattan DPO Ibadat Nisar.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Rudaw] Construction of the first church to be built in modern The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... began today.
At a groundbreaking ceremony for the Syriac Orthodox Mor Efrem Church in Istanbul, Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... heralded Turkey’s religious diversity, according to a post on the official Ottoman Turkish presidency’s website.
"Throughout this long history, our region has always been the heart of religious, ethnic and cultural diversity," he said.
Yesterday, Middle East Eye reported that Erdogan was set to lay the first brick today for the first church built in modern Turkey. The church will serve the Syriac Christian community in Istanbul, who have been trying to build a new house of worship for ten years as their current one cannot hold the 15,000 Syriacs in the city, the London-based outlet reported.
The church is the first to be built anywhere in the Republic of Turkey era, according to Ottoman Turkish news site Yeni Asir. The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I.
Erdogan touted what he described as Turkey’s welcoming policy to outsiders in the speech.
"Our hearts and doors have always been open to all the oppressed and the wronged who have come to these lands from everywhere, from Spain and Eastern Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... to the Caucasus and the North Africa," he said.
Turkey is currently hosting millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq who fled the scourge of war in their home countries.
Erdogan also asserted that whoever living in Turkey and has loyalty to the country is an equal citizen.
"To us, anyone who has affection for, show loyalty to and contributes to Turkey is a first-class citizen," he said.
He said "terrorists" do not meet this criteria, however.
"Our only exception is terrorist organizations, Death Eaters and those who betray their country and people," he said. "Other than that, there has never been discrimination in our minds or hearts, and there will never be."
Turkey is currently embroiled in a decades-long conflict with the Kurdish bad boy group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which wants greater autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds. Ottoman TurkishArclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s regularly target apparent PKK targets in the Kurdistan Region. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist organization.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/04/2019
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Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
I think they should rebuild the hagia sophia right where it used to be when Istanbul was Constantinople.
[IsraelTimes] It’s not European. And it doesn’t divide into right and left, religious and secular. Matti Friedman, author of a new book about Mizrahi spies, on why Israel baffles and infuriates.
Russian and Ethiopians are also marrying Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
So ethnically it is a melting pot.
Religiously, there are some very tight groups of different flavors of Haradi or Hasidiim but those are a minority.
Ride a bus from Bnai Brak to Jerusalem some time. All kinds of people. And in Jerusalem, the people pushing their way onto the light rail may be Hasidiim or IDF in uniform, or secular or Arabs.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/04/2019 1:01
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#2
Pioneers probably didn't predict decade after decade of Palestinian irrational hate. That sort of thing will change a nation.
Continuing the adventures first related to us a few days ago by Dron66046 here.
[AlAhram] Thousands of Indians have started leaving the disputed region of Kashmire after the local government issued a security alert related to possible turban attacks in the area, a senior government official said on Saturday.
Indian security officials on Friday said they had found evidence of attacks planned by Pak military-backed bandidosDeath Eaters on a major Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmire.
The security officials said a mine with Pakistain ordinance markings was among caches of ammunition retrieved following intelligence reports of likely attacks on routes used by devout Hindus who trek to the region's holy Amarnath cave every year.
A local government order effectively called off the pilgrimage, asking the pilgrims and tourists to return home.
On Saturday, a senior local government official in Kashmire said the advisory had caused panic and led to the departure of "thousands" of tourists, pilgrims and labourers.
The official did not give a specific number, but he said most of the 20,000 Hindu pilgrims and Indian tourists and the more than 200,000 labourers were leaving the region.
Around 60 international tourists arrived in Kashmire on Saturday, however, the official said. The Indian advisory had cautioned tourists in general, but did not give any specific advice to foreign nationals.
Tensions have run high in the mountainous region since a vehicle laden with explosives rammed into an Indian police convoy on Feb. 14, killing 40 paramilitary coppers, and leading to aerial festivities between the two nations.
India accuses Pakistain of funding armed turbans, as well as separatist groups in India's portion of the region that are considered non-violent by international observers.
Islamabad denies the Indian accusation, saying it provides only diplomatic and moral support to the separatist movement.
The advisory has left the fleeing tourists and pilgrims disappointed. Kashmire touts itself as a "Paradise on Earth", with Dal Lake - a favourite destination centuries ago for Mughal emperors escaping the summer heat of India's plains - and its famous houseboats, mountains and glaciers a major attraction.
Prabakar Iyer, 45, had travelled to Srinagar from the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Thursday with his family for a 10-day holiday, but they returned on Friday night.
"I was staying in a houseboat on Dal Lake when the advisory was issued. I fail to understand why we are being asked to leave. Everything is normal here," he said.
Labourer Manjit Singh, a carpenter from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh who has been working in Kashmire for the last nine years, also left.
"I am not afraid but the government advisory has created panic and my family wants me back ... I will return if the situation improves," he said.
A government order in Indian-administered Kashmir on Friday asked tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting a Himalayan cave shrine “to curtail their stay” in the disputed territory, citing security concerns and intensifying tensions following India’s announcement it was sending more troops to the region.
Kashmir’s home secretary, Shaleen Kabra, said in the order that the pilgrims and tourists should “curtail their stay in the [Kashmir] valley immediately and take necessary measures to return as soon as possible.”
The order cited “prevailing security situation” and the “latest intelligence inputs of terror threats with specific targeting” of the annual Hindu pilgrimage as reasons for the advisory. The 45-day annual pilgrimage draws hundreds of thousands of people to the hallowed mountain cave, the Amarnath shrine.
The order comes after officials on Thursday suspended the pilgrimage for four days due to bad weather along the route. The pilgrimage began on July 1 and about 300,000 pilgrims have visited the icy cave so far this year, according to officials.
In the past, dozens of pilgrims have been killed in attacks blamed on rebels. However, hundreds of people have died due to exhaustion and exposure in harsh weather during arduous treks in the icy mountains.
Muslim rebels fighting for decades against Indian rule in Kashmir accuse India’s Hindu majority of using the pilgrimage as a political project to bolster its claim on the contested region.
I have been ignoring the twitter reports as they look more and more like blind men trying to describe an elephant that nobody wants to admit is in the room. The elephant is daily heavy fighting. First it moves about a lot. Sometimes it is army to army with heavy weapons laying on major barrages or maybe not. Both sides turned off Internet in the area and a lot of cellphones are bandwidth limited randomly. Truth of incidents is impossible to discern let alone trends. Scale is hard to figure too. That said, at some point last night India's artillery was shelling a major Pakistani dam! That's kind of eye opening.
#1
This secrecy with abrupt changes in policy is a hallmark of the Modi regime. It is precisely to keep the general populace uninformed, since the general populace includes muslims sympathetic to Pakistain. The artillery exchanges have gone on for years now. I'll try to elucidate our stand challenged as I am by a desperate need to keep my job as an inglorious lackey. The formal explanation is still that there's a major terror threat. Of course, there's always a terror threat.
The new Kashmir Agendas, both sides.
Pakistain finds itself at a crossroads where they are dreamily training and arming, to take up ravaging Afghanistan, letting the ISIS which has more reach than their lowly Jamaats but much meagre numbers temporarily win a tug-of-war in the Kashmir region, because India has grown too aggressive to fight by proxy lately. Further made impossible by having to show the IMF and America their clean hands every week or so. Many of these new IS elements are splinters of AQ or homegrown 'lone-wolves' I hate that term. We use 'wannabes' and small cells of 4-5 sasquatches. Trapped between a rock and a hard place, the wayward Kashmiris find themselves with no leaders, no funding or commanders to lead the sangbaaz (stone throwing specialist) groups, and no weapons or 'inshallahas' from Imran's govt. Pakistain seems to pull back, while hoping the Kashmiris can carry on without overt assist.
Which brings me to the Indian agenda. This has almost everything to do with 'selective dis-empowerment' and nothing to do with 'managing expectations' like before.
The army's 15 Corps is responsible for security in the Kashmir Valley. For long, our hands had been tied with stupid ROEs and political correctness, UN human rights sopranos, and traitors sitting in the J&K state govt legislatures. State police took lead in ops and investigations, and state police was compromised.
A new law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, now makes it possible to tag any anti-national invective spewer, petty symp, or facilitator as a terrorist and prosecute them as such.
With absolute President's rule and dissolution of an islamist govt now, it becomes possible to arrest separatists, legistraitors neat, eh ? and symps almost at whim now. Seizing assets, freezing accounts and detaining relatives is also possible.
The core agenda is to re-organize the way power is distributed in the stat...
ahhh, why am I newspeaking ? These are my Rantburghers.
The basic idea is to transform the state from a muslim-dominated one to a truly secular state. We're not de-populating it, we're just making sure everybody in the Indian political fauna can participate, not just kashmiri muslims.
'In all my travels the best muslims I encountered were dead ones, followed by those that were serfs.' - Old wiseguy
One new element on the agenda became real estate, in recent months. The tourism in J&K once earned 45% of its GDP which was considerable till 2011. But land could be owned and developed only by Kashmiri muslims, most of those who could afford that were funded from the 'Stain with $$$ re-routed from IMF and US aid in Obamule's time hence the newly rich, islamist kashmiri youth you may encounter on twitter and instagram. Kashmiri islamist leaders' properties seized recently are collectively worth $55m, with yet uncountable assets stashed abroad and in their children's trust funds.
So the tension is going to escalate until breathing gets harder for islamists, and India retakes control of Kashmir.
#2
The funny thing we’ve discovered about lone wolves is that almost always they turn out to be known wolves, either highly connected through family and friends or the internet to jihadi organizations, or with a long history of nasty petty criminality indicative of either the impulsivity resulting from high-ish functioning mental instability (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.) or a refusal to be bound by bourgeois Western expectations. Or both, often enough.
#4
Note that Shiite - Sunni violence demonstrates that its just not infidels who are the target of sudden jihad. The West sort of got over that in the 17th century till it made Marxism the new religion of popular choice. 100 million dead in the 20th century to various forms of its sects is a mighty high order to beat.
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators demand release of 36-year-old, sentenced last month to nine months in prison for contempt of court.
For perspective, Mr. Robinson is halfway through the two months and a bit he is actually expected to serve.
Demonstrators carrying England’s flag were gathering Saturday in central London to demand the release of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defense League.
Singing "We want Tommy out," demonstrators congregated at the city’s Oxford Circus thoroughfare. Strict conditions were imposed by police on the demonstration and a counter-demonstration planned by activist group Stand Up To Racism.
London’s Metropolitan Police warned that anyone breaching the conditions could be arrested and prosecuted.
Commander Kyle Gordon warned police would ensure "anyone who is intent on violence is dealt with swiftly and robustly."
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was given nine months in jail, minus the time he has already spent in prison, reducing his term to 19 weeks, of which he will serve half before being released. The 36-year-old was arrested and placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! for filming defendants in a criminal trial in Leeds, northern England, and broadcasting the footage on social media despite reporting restrictions.
The live-streamed footage was of men accused of the sexual exploitation of maiden of tender yearss, while the jury in the second of a series of linked grooming trials was considering its verdicts. Reporting restrictions postponed the publication of any details until the end of all the cases, in a bid to ensure all defendants received a fair trial.
Robinson denied any wrongdoing, saying he did not believe he was breaching any reporting restrictions and had only referred to information that was already in the public domain.
Robinson was placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! for 13 months in May 2018 after being found in contempt of court on the day of the broadcast.
He served 10 weeks in prison before being freed after the original finding of contempt was overturned by the Court of Appeal in August.
But the case was then referred back to Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, who announced in March that it was in the public interest to bring fresh proceedings against Robinson.
Robinson, a former soccer hooligan, set up the EDL to protest against Islamic demonstrations in his home town of Luton, but it soon attracted a far-right crowd as it became a nationwide movement. He has long campaigned against what he says are crimes committed by Moslemmigrants colonists.
His recent legal woes began after he was first convicted of filming inside a court building ‐ an offense ‐ during a gang rape trial in Canterbury, southeast England, in May 2017, a year before the incident in Leeds.
[DAWN] The Indian army earlier this week used cluster ammunition to target the civilian population in Azad Jammu and Kashmire (AJK) across the Line of Control (LoC) in violation of the Geneva Convention and international law, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Saturday.
According to the statement, the Indian military on the night of July 30/July 31 targeted innocent citizens including women and kiddies in Neelum Valley through artillery using cluster ammunition. The attack left two civilians, including a 4-year-old boy, dead and 11 others were critically injured.
"This is [a] violation of Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law," the military's media wing said, adding that the use of cluster ammunition is prohibited under the Convention on Cluster Ammunition because of its severe impact on non-combatants.
[Jpost] Pakistain accused India on Saturday of using illegal cluster bombs, killing two civilians and wounding 11, in the contested Kashmire region that both countries claim.
In the latest flare-up of tensions between the two countries, India denied it had used such weapons.
Pakistain's military released images of what it said were bombs used by India during shelling along the contested border in Kashmire on July 30 and 31, and photos of civilians, including a 4-year-old boy, who it said were killed and injured by the weapons.
"Use of cluster bombs by Indian Army violating international conventions is condemnable," Major General Asif Ghafoor, chief front man for Pakistain's armed forces, said in a tweet.
Two Indian army officials told Rooters that shelling across the border was proportionate and a response to firing by the Pakistain army.
"Such responses are only against military targets and infiltrating bully boyz who are aided by Pakistain army," a statement released by the Indian army said.
One of the officials said that at least one of the images released by Pakistain was of a mortar shell and not a cluster bomb.
Oh. Never mind!
Cluster bombs emit deadly exploding shrapnel and are prohibited under the Geneva Convention governing international warfare.
Pakistain's accusations come a day after India said Pakistain-backed forces of Evil had planned attacks on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmire, leading to an evacuation of thousands of tourists from the region on Saturday.
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#1
...Amazing how Muslim nations never seem to understand that it's a good idea to move the (REDACTED) civvies out of the gorram operational area.
Or is that a feature, not a bug?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/04/2019 10:53
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#2
Seven of their Border Action Team guys are lying in our Keran sector, since last night. Six bodies whole and one with a leg and some jaw missing.
They were infiltrating like Beagle boys in a cartoon, tip-toeing to cross a 5 ft. wall and feeling very proud until the first tracers hit them.
The video is funny to say the least. It'll soon be released. If not I'll UL it somewhere. A group of sitting ducks is seen clearly in night vision, making like ninjas in a Sho Kosugi film. And then they start dying.
Hat tip Alaska Paul. A week old, but still of general interest, I think.
[Gcaptain] Somewhere on its journey from the waters off Iran, around Africa’s southern tip and into the Mediterranean, the Grace 1 oil tanker lost the flag under which it sailed and ceased to be registered to Panama. Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... later claimed it as its own.
The ship carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian crude was seized by British Royal Marines off Gibraltar, raising tensions in the Gulf where Iran detained a UK-flagged ship in retaliation.
Continued on Page 49
#1
This administration is implementing sanctions with teeth unlike other sanctions in history. Iran understands the actions and others are doing things to comply. The MMs are feeling the heat.
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08/04/2019 10:07
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#2
Where's the 12th Imam when they really need him? Needs to quit hiding in that well and get to work.
[AlAhram] A munitions blast killed 31 regime and allied fighters at a military airport in central Syria on Saturday, a war monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britannia and relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was unclear what had caused the deadly explosion at the Shayrat airbase in Homs province.
They’ll have a better idea of casualties once all the dust clears, I s’pose.
[Jpost] About 20 Syrian soldiers, including officers, were killed in an explosion at Shirat airport in the eastern Homs suburbs. However, the Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Organization reported seven deaths at the site, including a militia affiliated with the Assad regime.
The Syrian News Agency claims the blast was caused by a technical malfunction. Syrian regime media also reported that "the blast was the result of an error in transferring an expired IED at the Shirat airport." It also claimed that the number of fatalities will likely increase.
Shirat Airport is considered one of the largest military airports in Syria. In April 2017, the site was attacked by the U.S. Air Force, which dispatched 59 tomahawk missiles towards the airport in an attempt to destroy aircraft allegedly used by the Syrian Army for chemical weapons in the Khan Sheikhun area.
A rubber boat carrying migrants from Bangladesh, Morocco, Somalia, Algeria and Sudan was stopped Friday some 110 kilometers west of Tripoli https://t.co/aRppyPkTH6
[Jpost] Roughly 1,200 ISIS fighters are now in Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... , warns Nathan A. Sales, the US State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism ‐ and that more terrorists, inspired by what he called the ISIS "brand," are trying to cross borders, according to an official US State Department report released on Thursday.
To ensure this won’t happen, he said, the US must help front line states to carry out UN Security Council Resolution 2396, which calls on them to use screening tools like bio-metrics and watch lists to prevent dangerous individuals from crossing borders and importing terror.
"The Russians... deny many things that we believe are facts," Sales said regarding Syria and the various operations Russian forces are doing there.
"We’ve helped broker a handful of ceasefires there; they keep on falling apart and the bombing continues," added Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS James F. Jeffrey.
The anti-ISIS coalition includes 80 nations. iIn Syria, the US mainly works with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); in Iraq it works with the Iraqi security forces and Peshmerga forces, which are mostly Kurdish.
In northeast Syria, ISIS is suffering from diminutions of capabilities, Jeffrey said, but that’s "only where we are." The jihadist group is still active, however, in Idlib and south of the Euphrates.
Roughly 10,000 ISIS fighters are now held by the SDF in Syrian prisons. Some 8,000 of them are Syrian and 2,000 are Iraqi citizens; work is underway to ensure that the Syrians face trial and the Iraqis are brought to Iraq for the same purpose.
Roughly 70,000 people, both immediate and extended family members, are related to those captured ‐ and are now in the al-Hawl displaced persons camp in northern Syria, close the Iraqi border.
About 10,000 people in the camp are related to the 2,000 foreigners who came to serve ISIS.
Sales mentioned Kosovo and Kazakhstan as two countries that were able to bring back their own citizens who once fought for ISIS with their families, prosecuting the forces of Evil for crimes while rehabilitating and re-integrating their family members and children.
He added that former fighters in Syria are held in make-shift prisons, and it would be better if they are placed in proper prisons in their own countries, as they may try to escape.
In that, too, the US is leading by example, Sales said. Four American males and one female were flown to the states to stand trial for what they did in service of ISIS. So far, one of these five was convicted.
About a dozen Arab-Israelis are reported to have fought in the ranks of ISIS in Syria and are currently being held in captivity. It is unclear whether Israel has an official policy about them and their future.
WHILE ISIS had taken on much of the world’s focus, al-Qaeda had rebuilt itself and is as strong as ever, Sales warned.
He emphasized that ISIS is still active in Afghanistan as ISIS-Khorasan, in Egypt, the Islamic Maghreb and the Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... in Africa.
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[ToloNews] The Ministry of Defense says there is no "ghost soldier" among the Afghan National Army personnel.
The Ministry of Defense on Saturday rejected a report by a top US watchdog on the existence of "ghost soldiers" ‐ nonexistent personnel ‐ in the structure of the Afghan National Army, saying more than 99 members of the Army have been recognized by the biometric system.
In a report to the US Congress on July 30, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said the number of ANDSF troops fell by nearly 42,000 compared to the same period last year.
Defense Ministry front man Rohullah Ahmadzai said that at least 100 percent of Afghan National Army personnel have "physical presence" on their duties and that those who were involved in corruption are under investigation by the ministry.
"There is no ’ghost soldier’ in the ranks of the Afghan National Army," Ahmadzai told news hounds. "SIGAR has not contacted the Ministry of Defense when it made the report and it has not asked for information from the Ministry of Defense."
This comes as the Afghan forces are fighting the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... and other Death Eater groups in more than 20 provinces. Casualties among the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces have also increased in recent years.
"This is the main reason behind casualties [among Afghan forces]. The creation of the 40,000 [nonexistent] soldiers, the selling of their weapons ultimately resulted in the killing of 45,000 soldiers," military affairs analyst Atiqullah Amarkhail said.
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces stormed a key Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... compound in Baghlan province killing at least 4 bully boys.
The Special Operations Corps in a statement said the Special Forces stormed the Taliban compound in Qaisari Village in Baghlan-e-Markazi district.
The statement further added that the Special Forces destroyed the Taliban compound and confiscated some weapons, military kits, various types of munitions and propaganda leaflets.
The Taliban group has not commented regarding the raid so far.
[KhaamaPress] The security forces killed or maimed at least 150 Talibs in an overnight joint operation in Farah province.
The Farah Police Headquarters in a statement said the security forces jointly conducted the operation in the outskirts of Farah city on Friday night.
The statement further added that the Air Forces also provided close air support to the ground forces during the operation.
Furthermore, the Farah Police Headquarters said the security forces killed around 100 Death Eaters including many commanders of Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... during the operation.
The Farah Police also added that the security forces maimed 50 Death Eaters and destroyed around 14 vehicles.
The Taliban group has not commented regarding the operations so far.
This story filed 40 minutes after the above, so possibly there are more yet to be confirmed.
[KhaamaPress] The military sources confirmed that the security forces conducted an airstrike in Farah city killing at least 35 Taliban militants.
The sources further added that the security forces conductd the airstrike in Farah district, apparently pointing towards the overnight raid in Farah city.
To be fair, based on the photo at the link, the dress is lovely but the disguise only works from the back. Really, that blue simply does not work with his skin tone.
I'm thinking more along a pink salmon
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces arrested a Taliban ...Arabic for students... fighter disguised in women’s dress in south-eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) in a statement said the Special Unit of the Afghan National Police conducted an operation in Qarabagh district on Friday night.
The statement further added that the Special Forces arrested a Taliban Death Eater who had disguised himself in women’s dress in a bid to flee the area.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Interior said the Special Forces also discovered and confiscated three weapons from the detained Death Eater.
The Taliban group has not commented in this regard so far.
[DAWN] The Lahore High Court on Friday handed over a 14-year-old Christian girl to her parents after having her recovered from a Moslem family where she had been working as a domestic worker for four years.
Nasira Bibi of Sargodha had filed a habeas corpus petition pleading that the family of the respondent, Azhar Iqbal, had detained her daughter, Muskaan, and were not allowing the mother to see her daughter.
In compliance with the court order, the respondent and his wife presented the girl during Friday’s proceedings.
Representing the respondent, Advocate Rana Shaukat Ali told the court that the girl had embraced Islam of her own free will and she could not be handed over to her Christian parents.
He pointed out that a local judicial magistrate had granted the custody of the girl to the respondent when she refused to go with her parents.
He said the petitioner had been blackmailing the respondent and minting money from his wife for allowing the girl to continue work at their home.
The counsel said the girl did not want to live with her parents.
Assisting the court as amicus curie, Advocate Sheraz Zaka stated that a child below 15 years of age could not be employed as a domestic worker as enumerated in Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Domestic Workers Act 2019. He further stated that a child was presumed to have her/his father’s religion, as laid down in several judgements of superior courts. He said the employer could not keep the child in unlawful custody.
Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh also observed that a child below 15 years of age could not be employed in domestic household work under sections 3 and 31 of Punjab Domestic Workers Act 2019. The judge disposed of the petition and handed over the girl to her parents being lawful guardians.
The judge also observed that keeping a child away from her parents and not allowing her to meet her parents on the pretext that she embraced Islam was against fundamental rights.
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[ToloNews] The incident happened at around 11 am in Zenda Jan district 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... Province.
Shukrullah Shakir, the district governor of Zenda Jan district in the western province of Herat, was killed in a roadside kaboom blast on Saturday, sources confirmed.
The incident happened in Zenda Jan district when a vehicle carrying the district governor hit a roadside kaboom.
Two others were also killed in the incident, sources said.
The provincial governor’s front man Jailani Farhad confirmed the incident but did not give details about the casualties.
He said that telecom services are not working in Zenda Jan district, therefore, they could not get more information about the incident.
Zenda Jan district is located in the central parts of Herat and shares borders Gulran, Injil and Guzara districts.
Jilani Farhad, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office in Herat said a roadside bomb went off in Tarakhel area of Zindajan district, killing four people.
Farhad further added that the explosion killed Shukrullah Shakir, the district governor of Zindajan, his brother and two security guards.
Furthermore, Farhad said the explosion also wounded five security guards of Mr. Shakir.
The anti-government armed militants have not commented regarding the incident so far.
[ARABNEWS] Police detained dozens of demonstrators in Moscow on Saturday as Russian opposition supporters erupted into the streets in defiance of a formidable security presence, in fresh protests calling for fair elections in the capital next month.
The unauthorized march, which comes after stark warnings from Russian authorities and a crackdown on Kremlin critics, was billed as a "stroll" along Moscow’s leafy boulevards as anger grows over the refusal of officials to let popular opposition candidates run in next month’s city parliament elections.
Most of those candidates and opposition leaders are still in police detention following the last rally, as what began as a local issue has boiled over into one of the worst political conflicts of recent years.
At least 89 were detained by police about an hour into the rally, according to OVD-Info, a non-governmental organization that operates a hotline for detainees. AFP correspondents also observed several arrests.
Lyubov Sobol, an ally of key opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was detained as she set off for the rally. "Why are you detaining me?" she shouted as riot police in helmets dragged her out of a taxi.
Sobol is on the 21st day of a hunger strike that she began after authorities barred her from running in the polls and was visibly weak. Heavy police presence, metal barriers and empty buses used to transport detainees lined the boulevards, and mobile Internet was down in central Moscow.
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[KhaamaPress] The U.S. envoy for Afghan peace Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has said withdrawal from Afghanistan will be condition-based.
Ambassador Khalilzad said in a Twitter post that the presence of the United States in Afghanistan is condition-based.
Furthermore, Ambassador Khalilzad said the United States is pursuing a peace agreement not a withdrawal agreement.
He also added that he has arrived in Doha and that U.S. is ready for a good agreement with Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... According to Khalilzad, the Taliban are signaling they would like to conclude an agreement.
This comes as certain American media outlets had earlier reported that the United States is prepared to withdraw thousands of U.S. forces from Afghanistan if a peace deal is concluded with Taliban.
[BREITBART] Echosmith drummer, Graham Sierota, who is 20-years-old was called on the carpet this week for trying to contact Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker’s 13-year-old daughter on several social media platforms. Pix at the link. Story's too boring to steal them. Either Pappy Barker's really tall or Alabama looks like she's about the size of a nine-year-old.
Barker’s young daughter, Alabama, posted several screen shots to her social media accounts of Sierota’s attempts to invite her to parties and to get her to respond to messages.
Alabama told her social media followers, “Hey guys! So once again I am bringing this to your attention because I’m a 13-year-old girl and he is 21/20 super creepy.”
“When I found out a 20-year-old man was trying to get in touch with my 13-year-old daughter by filling her Instagram messages with party invites and compliments I was disgusted,” Travis told The Blast. “That’s predatory behavior and there is nothing cool, normal or OK about it at all.”
Some of the messages date back to 2016. One featured Sierota telling the young girl, “By the way I’m Graham from Echosmith and I think ur beautiful.”
Alabama also says she told Sierota she is underage.
After the drummer again invited her to a party, Alabama wrote back saying, “Ok but u understand I’m a child?” according to PageSix.
Ultimately, Sierota has apologized for harassing the girl. The drummer told the media he invited the girl to his “parents’ big family BBQ along with many other people,” but insisted that it “wasn’t until she responded that I realized her age at which point I apologized to her.”
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[ToloNews] The UN says that parties must ensure compliance with their obligations under international law.
The United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... in Afghanistan reminds all parties to the conflict of their responsibility to protect civilians and to comply with their obligations under international law, as the latest UN documentation shows that civilian casualty rates returned to record high levels in the month of July.
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[DAWN] The International Police (Interpol) apprehended the main accused in the murder case of three brothers in Umerzai area of Charsadda, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Friday.
The accused, Nadir Khan, would be handed over to the Pak interior ministry soon.
It is to be recalled that three brothers were bumped off on May 25 over a land dispute in the hujra of Nadir Khan, a local landlord, in Ali Jan Kalay area.
Mother of the slain bothers, Najmul Huda, had nominated Nadir Khan, Pir Mohammad and Nasir Jamal in the first information report. Two accused were arrested while Nadir Khan had fled the country.
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[Jpost] Monireh Arabshahi, Yasamin Aryani, and Mojgan Keshavarz, three women who have been held in Iranian custody since April of this year for "disrespecting compulsory hijab," have been sentenced by the Iranian Revolutionary Court to serve around ten years in prison each for disobeying the country's Islamic dress code.
The women were each given five years on charges of "assembly and collusion to act against national security," one year for circulating "propaganda against the regime," ten years for "encouraging and preparing the grounds for corruption and prostitution" and in addition Keshavarz received a supplemental seven and a half years for "insulting the sanctities" - a total of fifty-five years and six months.
In Iran, shorter sentences are normally assigned for extensive prison terms, a version of how parole works in the United States - where a prison term could be set for life with an eligibility for parole after a certain amount of time. These shorter sentences in Iran
Continued on Page 49
[AlAhram] Over 160 migrants colonists were seeking a safe port Friday after two charity vessels that had rescued them found themselves banned from entering Italian territorial waters.
The Open Arms, run by a Spanish-run NGO, and the German Alan Kurdi are caught in the latest stand-off with far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini, who does not want charity ships to bring migrants colonists to Italia.
Salvini may soon have to take his fight to two more rescue vessels.
Prosecutors in Sicily on Friday released the Mare Jonio -- run by the Italian left-wing collective Mediterranea -- which had been seized after a rescue in May.
The collective said it was preparing to set sail again as soon as possible.
It will be joined by the Ocean Viking, run jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which is due to set off shortly from Marseille for waters off Libya.
The Proactiva Open Arms group said its vessel had plucked 69 migrants colonists and asylum seekers -- including two children -- from a boat in trouble overnight Thursday.
They included people bearing "terrible signs of violence" and a nine-month pregnant woman having contractions, it said.
Open Arms on Thursday had already rescued 55 people from a sinking vessel, including two babies and some 15 women.
As they crowded together on deck under the shade of tarpaulins, the charity ship headed north but its destination was unclear.
Salvini has signed an order prohibiting the ship from entering Italian waters.
He has done the same for the Alan Kurdi, which is run by German NGO Sea-Eye and has 40 rescued migrants colonists on board.
After initially heading to waters off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, the ship said Friday it had changed course for Malta.
Those on the Alan Kurdi, rescued Wednesday off Libya, hail from West Africa and include a pregnant woman, three young children and a man with gunshot wounds, according to Sea-Eye.
All migrants colonists rescued by Open Arms have been disembarked in Spain since the middle of last year.
But the Spanish authorities have forbidden the ship to return to the waters off Libya, saying it would face a fine of between up to 900,000 euros, according to the charity.
During its last rotation off Libya in early July, the Alan Kurdi rescued 109 migrants colonists and disembarked them in Malta.
Salvini has insisted since taking up the interior ministry post in June 2018 that rescued migrants colonists can only land in Italia if an agreement is already in place with other Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an countries to look after them.
On Wednesday Salvini agreed to let 116 migrants colonists on the Gregoretti coastguard ship disembark after EU countries agreed to share responsibility for looking after them.
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[DAWN] A distraught father of an 11-year-old rape victim did away with himself in Gilgit-Baltistan after police failed to arrest the alleged abductors and rapists of his daughter, family and officials said on Saturday.
Najeebullah, 50, did away with himself in front of the Gilgit-Baltistan Constitutional Assembly by jumping into River Gilgilt, coppers said.
An investigation into the matter and the suicide has been launched, they added.
On July 26, the girl was kidnapped from Sakarkui area of Gilgit city and police registered a report of the kidnapping on July 29 after the girl reached home.
The girl told police Sherlocks that a woman and two men from her neighbourhood kidnapped her and allegedly raped her in a moving car. Later, she said, her alleged captors shifted her to an old building in a forest.
"They raped me there for three days," the girl told police.
A close relative of the girl while talking to DawnNewsTV said that initially police showed reluctance in filing a report and registered an FIR after the girl reached home.
"The father was regularly visiting the cop shoppe, begging for justice. He was extremely distraught and the society’s behaviour and the inaction on the part of police forced him to end his life," he added.
The family member alleged that instead of arresting the alleged rapists, the police were pressuring the father to withdraw the FIR.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/04/2019
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Pirate's Cove] Now, California is a place of massive tectonic activity. Many massive faults, lots of smaller ones. The Pacific plate is diving under California. This is what creates those hills and mountains. And, you get erosion of those hills and mountains. A place of alternative dry and wet, and, in this case, right near the ocean. You know this. It’s called science. Geology. Etc.
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[AnNahar] The Paleostinian refugee camp of 
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[BREITBART] Illinois State Senator Tom Cullerton, a powerful 
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[KhaamaPress] The A-29 light attack planes of the Afghan Air Force pounded 
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Only "ten years" of tribal turmoil was it? How about 60 to 80 thousand ? 
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[AlAhram] Thousands of Indians have started leaving the disputed region of 
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators demand release of 36-year-old, sentenced last month to nine months in prison for contempt of court.
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
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[KhaamaPress] The security forces killed or 
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[ToloNews] The incident happened at around 11 am in Zenda Jan district of 
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[BREITBART] Echosmith drummer, Graham Sierota, who is 20-years-old was called on the carpet this week for trying to contact Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker’s 13-year-old daughter on several social media platforms.
[ToloNews] The UN says that parties must ensure compliance with their obligations under international law.
[DAWN] The International Police (Interpol) apprehended the main accused in the murder case of three brothers in Umerzai area of Charsadda, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Friday.
[DAWN] A distraught father of an 11-year-old rape victim 
