[Zero Hedge] - The similarities with the housing bubble boom-bust are growing by the day. Not only are stocks at all time highs, to which we can now add record low yields and an all time high gold price as the 10Y real yield has dropped to an unprecedented minus 1% all time low sparking rampant risk-on euphoria among the retail investing community,
Whew! Try doing all that on one breath — betcha can’t, which is one definition of a run-on sentence...
but over the past year there has also been a veritable explosion of "blank check" companies which are shell companies that have no operations but plan to go public with the intention of acquiring or merging with a company with the proceeds of the SPAC's initial public offering.
As we discussed three weeks ago, investment in SPACs usually surges near market peaks, when there is broad consensus among the professional investing community that equities are overvalued as there is now - as a reminder the August Fund Manager Survey from BofA found that a record 78% of Wall Street professionals believe that not only stocks but every other assets is the overvalued on record.
...
Well, to this "blank check" frenzy we can now add the consummate smooth-talking politician and former vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, who according to Dow Jones is also "jumping into the rush on Wall Street toward blank-check acquisition companies."
According to the report, the former Republican House speaker will serve as chairman of a SPAC known as Executive Network Partnering which will seek to raise roughly $300 million in an initial public offering. Here's hoping he does a serious face plant on the IPO. Dude's been in politics all his life; Wall Street's gonna tear him a new asshole.
#1
As they say, there's always a "greater fool." It's not difficult to imagine the sorts of people who would buy this over, say, a solid company that actually *cough* makes something people want to buy.
No thanks, Eddie.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:42
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#2
Wikipedia:
Special-purpose acquisition company
A special purpose acquisition company, sometimes called blank-check company, is a shell company that has no operations but plans to go public with the intention of acquiring or merging with a company with the proceeds of the SPAC's initial public offering. SPACs allow retail investors to invest in private equity type transactions, particularly leveraged buyouts.
#3
Remember how well special financial vehicles worked out in 2008? I'm a pretty hard core capitalist. I think everyone should have wide latitude in investing their wealth. I also believe it should be equally possible to get killed as it is to make a killing (investing, that is) Anything else is a market distortion and a problem.
We live with the real, not the ideal. But we should innately want better instead of whatever.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 16:17
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#6
And while the SPAC bubble burst in 2008 along with the rest of the housing/credit bubble, it has now completely recovered, and as Goldman's David Kostin showed in a recent Weekly Kickstart, SPAC capital raising has soared YTD.
So, if Biden/Harris win, you’d better not be long anything except cash. It’ll be a bloodbath.
Though she makes herself big, arms akimbo,
She's clearly a lightweight, a bimbo,
A slave to convention
Sans tats and extensions,
And not worth a... damn... at the limbo.
#5
Speaking of looks-ism... just clicked over and saw Desjardins glance sideways against a dark background. Jeepers, talk about a face made for HD... and 3D. Mantegna smiled.
[Babylon Bee] WILMINGTON, DE—In a recent live stream, Joe Biden proudly declared that his physician had cleared him of Alzheimer's, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
"My doc says I don't have Alzheimer's, dementia, or Alzheimer's," he said confidently. "Oh, and he also cleared me of Alzheimer's."
Aides could be heard scrambling around to try to cut the video feed.
"Yep -- completely clear of Alzheimer's, dementia, and Alzheimer's," he said. "Wait - who are you people? What are all these cameras doing here? Who am I? WHO AM I!?!?!"
At the end of the video, after aides finally calmed him down but before they were able to cut the feed, Biden added, "My doc says I don't have Alzheimer's, dementia, or Alzheimer's."
The Press quickly praised the speech as one of Biden's most coherent.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:17
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#5
Believe it or not but my recon unit carried the Mark 1 Trench knife
Reading this article is the first time I’ve seen or read anything about them since
#2
Not going to happen. Major spontaneous separations occurring at this time. Women will have no part of that. They want their freedom and independence. They might date but the guy has to have money. Child, then major child support for years. So men know this and they are not dating. Even at work they avoid being alone with women coworkers. Con virus has made things so much worse for any interaction.
#5
Thanks for the cue, Zebu. I am inspired less tired! Gawd knows I hold no brief for Karens [Eastwoodian glare], but, "then they came for the Karens," and all that...
#6
Who's back from Wakanda? Black Karen!
She's badder than bad... subsaharan!
Don't wear the right mask?
Karen takes you to task!
"She so saucy!" "Dat swagga!"
"One boss lady nagger!"
Biatch wokes 'em right up... just ax Baron!
#3
Ever wonder if one reason Antifa has support among the locals is that many business owners can't move for some reason or another and they are hoping the arson brigade solves their problem for them.
#4
I'm betting insurance companies' legal departments are looking closely at where their contract verbiage may not cover acts the authorities essentially are sanctioning.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 12:39
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#5
"Capitalists owe us!", says the Marxist/Socialists.
#4
There's an old story I've heard from more than one source, but is probably apocryphal. When Guinness used to be shipped by boat to Africa, it went a bit gamy on the way. When Guinness opened a brewery in South Africa, they had to adjust the recipe to suit what consumers there had become accustomed to.
Probably BS six ways to Sunday but amusing.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 14:33
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#5
Similar story regarding IPA. The stuff tasted off by the time it arrived in India so they figured it out and made it slightly differently so that the off came close to the desired flavor at the end.
[Yahoo Finance] Steve Bannon, a former top strategist for President Trump, was arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with fraud for his role in the "We Build the Wall" crowdfunding effort.
According to federal prosecutors, Bannon and three other men involved in the fundraising project ‐ claiming to collect money to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border ‐ defrauded "hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as ‘We Build the Wall' that raised more than $25 million."
Bannon specifically received over $1 million from We Build the Wall, at least some of which he used to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses, according to the indictment against him.
Bannon was dismissed from his role as chief strategist at the White House in August 2018, part of a house cleaning under new chief of staff John Kelly. Bannon, a former producer and documentary filmmaker, was executive chairman at Breitbart News Network before Trump tapped him to serve as his campaign CEO in August of 2016.
Bannon and the three other defendants were arrested Thursday morning, prosecutors said.
Steve Bannon, once Donald Trump's most trusted aide, is arrested and due in court accused of being part of massive fraud scheme
He is alleged to have ripped off the We Build The Wall scheme which planned to build a crowd-sourced border wall
They raised money claiming the idea was 'Trump approved' and took in $20 million on GoFundMe before being kicked off the platform, then $5m more
'Non-profit' told hundreds of thousands of donors the people behind it were volunteers but secretly were being paid, feds say
Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York say he helped run scheme which funneled donations to its co-founders
Some of the cash has built sections of wall but millions have not
Bannon received $1 million and kept hundreds of thousands for his personal expenses
Massive amounts of cash went to Brian Kolfage, the triple amputee co-founder who prosecutors say spent it on his lavish lifestyle
Kolfage used the money he received on home renovations, boat payments, an SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, cosmetic surgery, tax and credit card debt
His wife Ashley received cash too and posted on instagram about their lifestyle
Steve Bannon, 'We Build the Wall' organizers arrested, charged with defrauding donors
[FoxNews] Prosecutors say Bannon and the others used the nonprofit and a shell company to hide the payments to Kolfage “by using fake invoices and sham ‘vendor’ arrangements,” as well as other means of keeping the payments quiet. The indictment stated that in order to raise funds, Kolfage and Bannon “repeatedly and falsely” told the public that Kolfage would “not take a penny” in compensation.
#2
The Dems are going after triple-amputee Brian Kolfage? That is pathetic. But then this is not about Bannon, Kolfage, Badolato, or Shea. Its all about Trump. The tip off was "the U.S. Southern District of New York."
#3
Southern District of New York, isn't that the same bunch who want Trump's taxes?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:36
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#4
Tried a DuckDuckGo search on "Southern District of New York Trump taxes" and I keep coming up with articles about Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. But the DA is not a US Attorney, I don't think. The articles never make it clear. Are they just all in bed together?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:40
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#5
Abu__ if you'd seen a pic of Letitia, you wouldn't spoil our breakfast like that.
#6
More bull. Did the DA investigate the Clinton foundation? Nope. Did they investigate the less than 10% of the total funds for Hathi going to Hathi? Did they look into Hillary's kid getting $750,000 with no deliverables? Ya, this is a witch hunt for certain.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/20/2020 12:46
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#10
I think doing business out of New York when there are other choices says a lot about the business doers common sense. Whatever cachet a New York business address ever had it's vanishing quickly now.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 13:33
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#11
Doesn't make much sense for Bannon to steal money from the Border Wall account. He's already very rich from his Hollywood ventures. He knows he is top 3 on the Democrat's target list.
#13
I read the first seven pages of the indictment; it's hyperbolic to say the least.
If Bannon, et. al. paid themselves regular salaries (W-2), there's nothing wrong with that - it's par for the course to pay employees, isn't it? The worst they appear to have done now is break public pledges, which may or may not be criminally actionable.
Was a guy in the news down here with net worth around $2 million who was a serial shoplifter. Just because someone has already made some serious bank doesn't mean they have their head on straight.
We won't know the deal here until all the facts are heard, and the way the courts are running lately, maybe not even then.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:50
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#19
I read a few more pages into it - they're asserting fraud was committed by Bannon & Co. (at a general level) of misleading 'investors' by way of changing their mission statement as well as not adhering to written by-laws stating Bannon & Co. said A,B and C were going to happen and allege that D,E and F happened instead.
I know that's not a complete review and I'm just not into the turgidness of finishing the rest of it now, but I think those are the main points so far.
#10
If immunity only lasts 3 months, then this will be a regular cycle. And masks could make it worse. By slowing down infection rates to a longer period than the 3 months to lose immunity you make this a perpetual cycle. Fun. Of course, that won't happen, because masks in practice do nothing.
#11
People still have SARS coronavirus immunity today, and also immunity to similar cold corona viruses, so there is some question in my mind whether SARS-2/COVID-19 conveys similar long-term immunity. We’ll see, but I notice the tendency to run with worst case scenarios.
Kurt at TownHall
If you believe the mainstream media, Donald Trump is involved in a nefarious scheme to somehow make the USPS into something inefficient and incompetent, which comes close on the heels of his plot to make the sun start setting in the West. If that’s his plan, he already pulled it off decades before he first hit the cover of the New York Post. We conservatives think the president has done a lot of great stuff since humiliating Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit in 2016, but not even the most hardcore Trump Train engineer would go as far as Trump’s frothy pie-holed critics and credit the president with the mastery of time and space.
The correspondence conspiracy is pretty much liberal Q, except the eccentric Q folks at least like America.
And here’s a special shout-out to the Democrats pushing this intellectual fentanyl for deciding it is a good idea to choose the competence of the post office as their hill for the crusty crustacean’s campaign to die on. Please, continue pointing to the USPS as an example of what you’ll make the entire government into if we’re dumb enough to elect Gropey J. Good thinking, because if there’s anything that real people outside the MSNBCNN bubble love, it’s the post office. It’s the federal DMV, except with stamps.
...Apparently, his plan is to somehow make it so the post office will be unable to deliver vote by mail ballots in order to prevent Democrats from winning the election that their senile old weirdo nominee is in the process of blowing. It might be interesting to examine the details of this conspiracy theory if there was even a coherent conspiracy theory to examine, but there’s not. It’s mostly "Trump bad!," then low and undecipherable mumbling, then "And that’s how he will steal the election!"
...Of course, the whole idea behind vote by mail — the untargeted mass mailing of ballots out into the world that can be harvested by political operatives who all the best and smartest people tell us would never, ever cheat — is to make cheating easier. It’s to steal the election, and that’s why they are accusing Trump of cheating by trying to stop them from cheating. It’s an exercise in remarkable cynicism, but hey, they are, after all, our moral betters. We know because they never cease to tell us.
Also, underlying this bizarre and stupid conspiracy theory is more Democrat rent seeking for a beloved constituency. The postal workers’ union is a loyal Democrat adjunct and has naturally endorsed Grandpa Badfinger. Yeah, we’re supposed to trust the election to a bunch of partisan players for some reason — and the USPS is collapsing. It needs yet another bailout. Technology has changed how you correspond. You do it by email now. When was the last time you wrote a letter? You get paid electronically. Who gets a mailed Social Security check in 2020? The postal system, however, remains in many critical ways, essentially unchanged from a century ago. And that’s the way its participants and its Democrat patrons want it. Thank G*d for Kurt. One of the few conservative pundits who do not feel the the need to moonlight as epidemiology/virology/immunology (subjects wherein they know considerably less than nothing) experts
#1
If you ask me some of the Q stuff was leaking the truth (around a lot of looney froth) to discredit the fact that 0bama spied on Trump to help the dem candidate.
#2
Stupid, absolutely but not without it's purposes. Since it's pretty obvious not to mention already proven that mail in voting is unreliable at best, why would anybody be so adamant in demanding it?
Simple. Delegitimize the election results, regardless of what they are. Considering many schools are opting out of in person classes and lower end unemployment remains high there should be a lot of available hands as it were for all kind s of mischief. They can't destroy us from without, but they will never stop trying from within.
#3
2020/08/19 I went to a mailbox to mail two letters.
As I was trying to stuff the letters though the small security slot they didn't seem to want to fall through.
When I got on my knees to see what was going on I noticed other letters through the small opening of the slot.
The box appeared to be full!
As I drove away I thought and suspected that the mail carriers are skipping picking up at mail boxes.
All of a sudden my thoughts were filled with conspiracy theories as to why carriers would skip picking up at mail boxes because of the all the recent news stories about mail deliveries being delayed because of cost cutting.
Who is going to be blamed for these delays during this crazy political season?
This is one of the few mail boxes still around in Los Angeles.
It is near the AARP nice office building of course because AARP has a lot of political clout with one political party.
The AARP lobbied for and was rewarded for Obama Care.
But it's just a coincidence that the American Postal Workers Union endorsed Joe Bite Me.
#4
I dislike the Post Office. It is deeply inefficient. It is a financial disaster. I don't really even think it is "necessary" any longer, although I admit it is one of the few governmental bodies specifically authorized by the Constitution, so it has that going for it at least. But I wouldn't trust it for anything important. I will be voting in person.
#7
It is deeply inefficient. It is a financial disaster.
Article I, Section 8, US Constitution
The Congress shall have Power...
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Doesn't say anything about efficient or profitable. If you are a textualist, you need to go to Article V to change that. If you believe in a living, breathing Constitution that is whatever the courts feel its should be, you'll be in fine company.
It was done because it is a means of unifying a country. It is particularly important for the rural areas. It costs just as much to send a letter across town as to Barrow AK. It was never meant to be efficient.
The problem was created by making it sort of kind of separate business it was never intended to be. That gave the unions the leverage to get into the game. It should revert back to its original state as much of patronage as anything else. Then you could hold your local representative or senator personally responsible for performance. That's accountability.
#8
USPS used to be a place where WWII and Korea Vets were given an opportunity to serve. Most proudly wore a nicely pressed uniform. The the USPS became an Affirmative Action venue in the 70's. No surprises wen it all went to hell.
#9
My experience is the larger the post office the more unhappy the employees seem to be. Any time I wind up in a small post office in the sticks everyone seems to be in a good mood.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 10:07
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#10
major redirect from 0bamagate... Another burning of the Reichstag
#11
Every American post office I’ve ever been in is staffed by more efficient and more helpful people than any post office I have been in elsewhere in the world.
That said, here is a comment I saw on another website in response to complaints about horribly slow delivery in the time of the Rona, with lashings of Trump blame:
Please don’t drag the USPS into your partisan dislikes. I am a former letter carrier and many of the changes requested are desperately needed. He’s trying to get Congress to stop the insanity of pre-funding retiree health care 40+ years into the future. That was a nasty little money grab by Congress at a time when the USPS was actually making money and the Congress (bi-partisan) was trying to find money to shore up their budgets. As a result, they’re far behind on capitol improvements and are operating under systems that should have been updated 20 years ago. Many of the changes are much needed such as not continually sending out carriers when they’ve finished their routes because more mail has come from the distribution center. That’s something that was implemented in the last 10 years and it cost a ton of overtime and put no pressure on distribution to get the mail to the individual offices in a timely manner. He’s advocating going back to the old system of having a cut off time when the letter carriers hit the street with the available mail and anything that comes in late goes the next day. That was SOP for decades and was safer because carriers weren’t working 12-14 hours a day and delivering at night with headlamps. Don’t believe the talking points, they’re political in nature.
#12
^ Damned interesting. I use the USPS for some very expensive stuff and have never had a problem. FedEx is becoming absurdly expensive. I notice my incoming is pretty evenly split among USPS, FedEx, UPS and Amazon's fleet. When you think about the volume being moved it's a bit surprising it all works as well as it does.
An aside. In history class I was taught two of the things that make a real country are specie (coins) and an official postal service.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 12:47
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#13
With the advent of email, USPS became irrelevant. Now all we ever get in the mail are bills and junk. We could get the bills with email and we don't want the junk. And when it comes to packages, gimme FedEx.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 13:35
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#14
Every month I print my three credit card statements by logging onto my accounts. Then I mail a check. Only people going into my bank account besides me is my insurance carrier. Utility bills still come in the mail.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 14:22
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#15
Chase pesters me non-stop to go paperless for my CC statements. No way, José.
#16
AT&T "enrolled" me in paperless billing without my sayso. Not a big deal but it says what everyone who's ever dealt with them knows about their "customer service"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:05
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#17
/\ My natural gas company did the same. I had no choice.
#18
What always makes me laugh is people who have a banking app on their phones. Convenient until something goes wrong.
I'll pass.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:55
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#19
If you can access it online, so can hackers, as they regularly demonstrate. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to persuade Mr. Wife to give up online efficiency for better security.
Going back to the article, it was mentioned to me the other dqy that while the postal workers union plumped for Mr. Biden, it’s likely many to most of the membership will vote for President Trump.
#20
Very true, TW, if it's online it's inherently insecure. I rely on two factor authentication for logins, sign up for any unusual activity alerts and look at accounts once a week at least rather than wait for the billing cycle.
I still worry before I fall asleep every night none of that is enough.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 16:24
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#21
I still worry before I fall asleep every night none of that is enough.
It isn't. Hackers have defeated 2FA (2 Factor Authentication).
The best play for normal people is to make it as much of a pain in the butt (lots of work to do, like defeating 2FA) for not much reward.
They won't go after the little fish much. But have a nice, juicy account that has some 20k plus in it on run by a 3rd party vendor that has weak perimiter/interior security (Looking at you Target), then it is a very worth while time to take.
#22
M. Murcek AT&T enrolled me in paperless billing without my permission too. They then billed me for 3 months at one time and refused to reimburse me, told me I would be credited each month. Guess what? The very next month I was charged again. Got rid of AT&T.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/20/2020 16:36
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#23
I've been with AT&T wireless since 1983. Remember Motorola DynaTAC phones? Well, I've been on this unlocked Samsung Galaxy S8+ for a little over two years and they are sending mixed signals about whether it will still work on their network after February 2022. I'll be lucky if the phone lasts that long. AT&T would like me to get a new phone branded to them, "open a new line" and sign a new contract for "unlimited data." Oh and they'd like me to buy their "get a new phone every year" plan. And get DirecTV. And get their internet service which would require me to dump my self owned infrastructure in house and pay rental in perpetuity for their boxes.
Yeah, I'm going to be shopping around.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 16:54
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#24
I used to have an AT&T dial up internet account. The only way to get rid of it was to cancel the credit card they were billing. I talked to lots of "customer service reps" who didn't even understand what dial up was.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 17:03
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#25
@ #18 - Banking apps on mobile devices: That is another "no way, José".
#26
#21, DV you are correct. The hackers are looking at balances. Credit cards don't worry me but bank accounts and investment accounts certainly do.
Mason jars under the porch?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 17:20
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#27
Banking on the phone is the most unsafe way to bank. On the computer you have much more control over what might be lurking on your computer and watching what you do. It's still not great, but much better than mobile.
As far as the Post Office, they have really made people distrustful because of how inefficient they act compared to private delivery services. Tracking a package is difficult to impossible. I know they've been hit hard by decreased mail and by Congressional "reforms", but most people don't really care when it comes to choosing what to use.
Also, AT&T sucks. They're an awful company, and they're scrounging for cash because they keep overpaying for acquisitions (over-payed for Dish Network, then for Warner Bros). Run by idiots for idiots.
#28
Verizon isn't any better. Haven't even looked at any of the others because of coverage issues.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 17:37
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#29
Been happy with Metro PCS in my area, mostly because its mostly reliable and cheap, but yeah, they have a very limited coverage area (if you're not in a denser suburb or a city, you'll have a bad time).
#31
I have a bank account but bo money in it unless a situation calls for it.
I have a prepaid Cricket phone service.
I have a prepaid card that most of the time has 1 dollar in it.
Where do I keep my money? In a few socks. Which are under Colt 45.
I went "off grid" on everything after experiencing everything mentioned above, 10 years ago. Takes a little getting used to but I never worry about what is happening to my money.
[Jpost] US Attorney General William Barr has informed British authorities the US will not seek the death penalty if two British 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.... execution squad members, nicknamed the "Beatles," are extradited to the United States.
The four so-called ISIS Beatles came from England and were in charge of at least 27 hostages during their tenure, to whom they were notoriously unkind while badgering their families for ransoms.
The emir of the group, Jihadi John (Mohammed Emwazi) kissed a missile in 2015, betrayed by spies in Raqqa
Aine Davis (Paul) was jailed in Turkey in 2017
Alexanda Kotey (the half-Ghanaian, half-Greek Cypriot who is also in our archives as Alexanda Amon Kotey; Ringo), 35, captured by the SDF in January 2018
Sudan-born El Shafee Elsheikh (George), 30, captured by the SDF in January 2018
The British government has stripped both Ringo and George of their citizenship.
In a letter to Priti Patel, Britannia's interior minister, dated Tuesday, Barr said if Britannia grants a US extradition request for Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, the US will not seek the death penalty and would not carry out executions if they were to be imposed.
Statesmanship, like politics, is the art of the possible.
#2
Give them to Kurdistan Seems like a good idea BP as long as the Kurds promise justice will be delivered.
Why would the U.S. even consider extradition? Some perverse liking for the Beatles or some Islamic vestige remaining in our government left over from the Obiden admin.?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 10:10
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#4
The Brits probably won't punish them so we may as well bring them over here and deal with them. We can bring them over here and make them wish they were dead.
[Jpost] Israel Police arrested Zeenat Abu Sobeih, the head of the female guards at al-Aqsa, and Imran al-Ashhab, a maintenance employee at the mosque, on Wednesday, according to Paleostinian reports. It is unclear what the reasons for their arrests were.
Probably members of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement — the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel— which goes in for riots and harassing Jews on the Temple Mount via their Israeli Arab Mourabitoun cadres, funding Hamas, and social services in Arab villages in the Galilee. The Southern Branch claims to be Zionist and goes in for Israeli politics.
Video reportedly from the scene showed Israel Police escorting the two off of the Temple Mount.
[SpaceNews] A disregard for terrestrial international norms has also been witnessed with regard to space.
Whether the issue is trade, pandemic response, or outer space, the United States expects China to accept Western norms of behavior.
In the South China Sea, Beijing has tried to literally change the facts on the ground in order to reinforce its claims. This has led to the most massive land reclamation effort in the Spratlys, as well as various confrontations with Vietnam, the Philippines and other claimants. As important, China has sought to limit American naval activity in the South China Sea.
Continued on Page 49
#5
How bout this: He can hand out his handouts wherever he wants. Otherwise he can cast his one lone vote like everyone else. Oh, wait, he's not eligible to vote here...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 9:48
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#6
And they wonder why church attendance is down. Just another attempt at buying indulgences...this time with our money.
#5
How mean! De Blasio can't help it if he's always mistaken for a rat. It's not HIS fault that he's bottom dwelling, plague spreading, vermin. What do you expect him to do, start acting like he cares about other people?
#9
Global Warming means it is getting hotter. Most things expand as they get warmer. Does this mean we will soon see Rodents of Unusual Size swarming about NYC?
#11
Politicians always cut the most important things first: police, fire, paramedics, sanitation. That way, people will complain to their Congresscritters that the feds HAVE to give NYC money or people will DIE!!!
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/20/2020 14:17
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#12
The've been doing that for decades. The first budget items are always the pet-projects. The critical Police, Medical, Infrastructure always come last. That way they can claim they don't have enough for them and need to raise taxes.
#1
A person has to be really driven to achieve this level in the workplace. But some of that drive should probably go towards respecting the other people in the workplace.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 1:18
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#2
Dunlop made employees cry, gave them sleepless nights and humiliated them
#4
Take your retirement. You're qualified to run for a progressive Senate seat already held by some other driven old battle axe who's due to drop dead in office.
#5
Putting her funky a$$ in the SAPCO office doesn't seem to be a real feather in one's cap career wise in route to a fourth star. This broad just needs to put in her retirement paperwork and GTFO.
#6
Dunlop made employees cry, gave them sleepless nights and humiliated them
In today's Air Force wouldn't that make her a good Drill Instructor? Or too harsh for that too?
#8
My first Boss was a Screamer and a Micromanager combined. He also had a fine touch at handling his job -- a skill that gradually declined as age inevitably eroded his focus and vitality. Sounds like she has reached the point where she can't micromanage effectively any more and is having temper tantrums because the Staff (that she browbeat into being mindless drones) ...Just doesn't show any initiative!
#9
No mention of warnings frm the chain of command. Her removal could have beem done quietly, with respect. But that would not have provided a WOKEE event
#10
Thanks for the [DM] warning. Dunno if there are people who can actually read that site but trying to find the content among all the blinking ads and videos is too annoying for me.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:23
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#11
Assigned to turn around an organization that did not want to be turned around? One goes in knowing one will be hated long before the job is done, and accepts the necessary sacrifice of one’s career thereafter out of love for the company, because all the bridges will be burnt in the process and senior management will not have one’s back.
Or possibly she was a management problem before that, and the Air Force tried shoving her in a corner of the organization where her lacks didn’t matter — her previous reputation would shed light on this. We can’t look to the Daily Mail, as they are incapable of formulating such questions, never mind seeking out the answers.
Dunlop was removed as director of the Special Access Programs Control Office, or SAPCO, and now serves as the Air Force's director of capability requirements.
Witnesses also described Dunlop is an extraordinarily talented and accomplished officer who meant well and wanted the Air Force to succeed.
She believed that SAPCO was a broken organization that she was meant to come in and fix.
In a statement provided to Air Force Times, Dunlop's lawyer, Gary Myers, suggested that Dunlop's efforts to reform SAPCO led to the IG complaint against her.
Myers said that Dunlop is grateful that the Air Force considered her response alongside the IG report when deciding to allow her to continue serving.
Several witnesses said they tried to talk to Dunlop about the way she was acting in meetings and the climate in the SAPCO office, but found her unreceptive to the feedback.
#14
UwU There's the ticket. Hollyweird is all in for remakes and wokeness, make it into the Caine Mutiny with a female lead!
"General Dawn removes the steel balls from her pocket and she spins them in her palm insistently as she speaks. ... I tried to run the office properly by the book but they fought me at every turn. If the staff wanted to walk around with their shirttails ..."
Russian opposition leader Navalny was hospitalized with acute poisoning to hospital in Omsk. Flight Tomsk-Moscow made an emergency landing there. According to his press-secretary Navalny is unconscious, suspects poisoned tea https://t.co/CD9Okxnwmz via @mediazzzona
#1
Do we have any way to deploy bouys with nets hanging between them so as to give away a sub following behind one of ours? Such a net might give away presence (bouys would suddenly move as the net is hit) but could also be used to attach things to the following subs hull forcing htem to slow and remove. Or is that sort of thing just fantasy...
#2
It's a really good idea. Maybe lose the nets and just make the buoys very passive detect sensitive and able to maneuver. Once such a buoy attached or even detected a sub nearby, it could phone home or even call bigger friends that are in the vicinity.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 16:41
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[Zero] Remember when the New York Times published an anonymous Op-Ed claiming that White House cabinet members were 'whispering' about removing President Trump by invoking the 25th amendment to claim that he's mentally unfit to hold office? Trump immediately hit back, slamming the 'failing' Times and their 'gutless' anonymous source.
#4
I just don't get it. Do the Dems have a plan? Or are they just thrashing?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/20/2020 10:36
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#5
Not just thrashing, a calculated plan to get power. IMO that is the plan. Joe will bow out based on "health reasons" and Kamala will step up...if they win.
#7
#1, I think the titanic struggle will involve a lot more people that just Jill and Kamala. Each one of them thinks that they will really run things if Joe's elected...but I think an awful lot of other people also think they'll run things if he's elected.
Posted by: Tom ||
08/20/2020 14:09
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#8
I think he said Jo - ill. Its all so very cringy.
Tonight is the night Biden gives his endorsement of Trump, correct?
*I'd play it like, get as much absolute bullshit done before Biden loses it or we come up towards then end of the second year, then retire him.
All that bullshit done, yeah sure question uncle Joey all you like, he can't even get his teeth in correct anymore by himself.
Kamela gets promoted to president with the potential of 10 years as head master.
As far as palace intrigues I'd be surprised. Both of these women, if and when they end up playing head bitch, for lack of a better term, are where they are because they are absolute Machine Role Players. They know that if they just stay in their respective corners, Jill will be lavished upon until they wheel ol Joe down the ramp in a procession which will make the McCain funeral seem like a Natty Light trash college party, and Kamela will get the laurels of all those golden apples the leftists have been grabbing at for decades, starting with first woman president.
That's when the palace intrigues will begin, say Palosi is still speaker, that is two West Coast Machine Cogs in very powerful positions. If and when the other Cogs, New England and Great Lakes for example, start getting trust and jealousy issues things might get chippy.
Lets say at first everyone gets along because the buffet is fat. As the prime and then chuck bits get gobbled up, Southern Cogs may not be as welcoming as all the New England agents who have moved to Georgia and Florida, or West Coast to Texas Region. Picture that, the Harris/Palosi administration conducting federal action in Houston and Austin, Texas in general, to establish West Coast Agents (displacing the local Texas Region Agents) in positions of power locally - DA, College, Sheriff, Mayor, etc.
But Kansas, you warbling tit, you are pulling string corn out your arse.
California has had a people and business leaving problem for a few years now. To them, the people are replaceable and may even be a feature. The businesses however are the problem. Ex-pats have a tendency to clump into neighborhoods, Little Italy, Little China, you know the drill. Austin area becomes Little California. Locally with permits, zoning, health official decrees, special taxes, whatever they can make CA businesses moving there go through an arduous process.
Sound odd, consider similarities between a drug cartel and a political cartel, and the old saying, "If you aren't growing, you're shrinking." Chances of the other Cogs sitting there and watching the CA Cog become as powerful as all the others combined?
Short order, not that politics isn't contentious, it is no longer a tickling competition as levers being pulled cannot be put back in this attempt to Shoot the Moon.
Overnight on 18–19 Aug, hundreds of antifa swarmed the Multnomah Building in Portland. They smashed out the windows & set the ground floor on fire using an accelerant. They blocked the roads by setting large dumpsters on fire. Police declared a riot. https://t.co/zZkys6X7y7pic.twitter.com/oLKY7GR6g7
Breaking: @Facebook has taken down the page of @pnwylf. The Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front is the #antifa group responsible for organizing the ongoing riots in Portland. They've called for solidarity riots in other cities as well, which did happen in July. pic.twitter.com/VjcVkAOuDc
Caught but not yet released, because it’s the feds rather than local police:
Breaking: Dakotah Ray Horton, 24, has been arrested for the assault of a federal officer in relation to an antifa riot on 27 July in Portland. He was filmed allegedly beating an officer from behind w/a bat. During the arrest, a loaded gun was found on him. https://t.co/ue92PhrVLkpic.twitter.com/FI8BBcuboi
[AIER] Reading the late Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, Factfulness, during the summer of 2020 creates a sensation of surrealness that would have been absent had I read this volume in 2018 or 2019. On nearly every page of Factfulness Rosling busts the popular myth that we denizens of modernity face imminent calamities that will destroy us and the earth. Widespread fears — such as of overpopulation, of terrorism, and of the rich getting richer while the poor stagnate — are methodically revealed to be either completely unjustified or exorbitantly exaggerated.
But today, in the midst of the ongoing lockdowns and with no end in sight to the hysteria over COVID, I’ve lost all of the natural optimism that has long resided within me and that would have otherwise been fortified by Rosling’s splendid work.
[JP] Netanyahu is trying to show the public that he did his due diligence, making the Israeli view on the matter well known in Washington.
Or perhaps it isn’t that he is trying to show, but rather that he is actually doing his due diligence. Bibi-hate is as boring as Trump-hate.
The controversy over the possibility that the United Arab Emirates could purchase F-35 jets has continued despite a very firm denial by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And that’s because, well, Netanyahu doesn’t really have the final say here.
Following reports that such arms purchases will be part of the peace deal between the UAE and Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office released an unusually detailed statement, including a timeline of the multiple times that Netanyahu and Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer raised their objections to the F-35 being sold to any other country in the Middle East, even if it has a peace treaty with Israel.
#1
...Although the -35 is slooooowwwwwwllllly developing into a honest-to-God amazing machine, I'm not too worried at this point:
1: I have no doubt that the IAF has been - in their spare time, of course - doing their best to see what a top of the line, Fifth Gen fighter can do against their radars, SAMs, and other aircraft. They know perfectly well that someday the other side is going to show up with the same toys, and they've been getting ready.
2: There are a lot of differences between the IAF Lightnings and not only ours, but those of the rest of the world as well. The IAF Lightnings have an avionics suite that is mostly Israeli, and VERY different from everybody eles's. They're doing fine.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/20/2020 6:11
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[Jpost] A Paleostinian was killed while attempting to use an improvised bomb hidden in a burning tire, the Jerusalem Post's sister publication Maariv reported early Thursday morning.
According to a later report by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, the suspect was carrying incendiary substances, intending to light up Molotov cocktails.
According to early reports, a cell was attempting to detonate an IED concealed in a burning tire. The incident took place on road 465 near Deir Abu Mashaal
...near Ramallah ...
in the West Bank.
One member of the cell was reportedly shot by the soldiers following a pursuit. He was critically injured and treated by an IDF medic, who ultimately pronounced him dead He's dead, Jim! Two other cell members reportedly expeditiously departed at a goodly pace and are currently being searched for by the forces. Several similar incidents have reportedly taken place in the area.
"IDF combatants prevented an attempted terrorist attack a short time ago," the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said early Thursday morning.
"During IDF activity near the village of Deir Abu Mashaal in the area of the Ephraim Brigade, the soldiers identified a terrorist cell carrying substances used for Molotov cocktails and placing tires, intending to light them up to harm civilian vehicles driving on a nearby road."
According to the IDF, "such incidents have taken place in the past. During the incident, the Lions of Islam were shot and a hit was identified."
[NYPOST] German researchers will test whether universal basic income could work by handing out around $1,400 per month to a group of people for three years.The German Institute for Economic Research experiment will involve 1,500 people randomly selected throughout the country, though only 120 will receive the cash payments, the Times of London reported.
Funded by about 140,000 private donors, the pilot program will give out the equivalent of $1,430 a month, putting the participants just above the poverty line.
The entire group will fill out regular surveys about their lives to gauge how their attitudes and behaviors change, the outlet reported.
"So far the debate has resembled a philosophical salon at best, and a religious war at worst," Jurgen Schupp, who will lead the study, told German outlet Der Spiegel, according to the Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2020
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#1
Didn't Finland try that and give it up even before the trial period ended?
[AlAhram] At least 45 migrants colonists and refugees perished off Libya this week in the deadliest shipwreck there so far this year, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... said on Wednesday.
The UN agencies for refugees and migration said in a statement that 37 survivors from Monday's shipwreck, who were rescued by fishermen, said at least 45 others, including five children, had died when the engine of the vessel they were aboard went kaboom! off the coast of Zwara.
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish aircraft struck a village in the vicinity of Akre town, Duhok province around noon on Wednesday, confirmed a local official. Casualties are not yet known.
"At 11am and 12pm, the Ottoman Turkish planes twice bombed the village of Kavilka," Shaaban Khalil, mayor of Dinarta, the sub-district the village is located in, told Rudaw. "Since the villages are remote and there are no telephone lines there, we do not know of any damages yet."
Dinarta has previously been hit by Ottoman TurkishArclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s targeting suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in the region.
[AnNahar] The Mighty Pak Army chief arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday, officials said, amid strained relations between the two countries over the disputed region of Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... General Qamer Javed Bajwa's visit was apparently aimed at easing a rift caused by the Pak foreign minister's demand for a firm Saudi response to what he called Indian atrocities in Kashmir.
Bajwa held talks in Riyadh with Major General Fayyad al-Ruwaili, the kingdom's chief of general staff, the Saudi defence ministry reported.
Continued on Page 49
[Sun Sentinel] Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony survived a fierce challenge Tuesday from his predecessor Scott Israel
... the clever gentleman who was previously fired for failure to act during the Nikolas Cruz massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, causing the sheriff’s office to lose its accreditation...
in a tough Democratic showdown that featured relentless back-and-forth attacks.
The Iraqi Shia militias as well as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) run secret prisons in the Yezidi majority populated region of Sinjar, an official revealed on Tuesday.
Speaking to BasNews, Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Coordinator for lnternational Advocacy, Dindar Zebari, noted that the armed groups have entered the region since October 2017.
The UN and other international organizations are not able to visit Sinjar, therefore there is no human rights groups to monitor the activities of the local militias, he added.
Zebari pointed out that there are 17 groups in Sinjar and that have run secret prisons in the town.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2020
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[DailyCaller] According to the criminal complaint, Kevin Clinesmith added the words "not a ‘source'" in reference to Page to a CIA liaison's email. Clinesmith shared the altered email with an FBI supervisory intelligence analyst working on the Page investigation.
Clinesmith, 38, said Wednesday that he knowingly altered the email, though he believed at the time the information he put in it was accurate. [which means he thought that the CIA said, 'yes he works for us' when they meant 'no he doesn't work for us']
"At the time I believed the information I was providing in the email was accurate, but I am agreeing that the information I inserted into the email was not already there," Clinesmith said at his plea hearing, which was held before Judge James Boasberg.
Clinesmith served both on the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team and the special counsel's investigation.
#3
One reliable thing about an American leftist, once you have them dead to rights with no viable escape they all regress into 6 year olds explaining to teacher.
#6
The sentence will tell the story. Going to bet it's a spit in the ocean compared to what they were planning to do to Flynn.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 11:23
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#7
/\ Exactly Mike. I'm sure Clinesmith is the designated 'goat' and legal action will drag on and on with the Deep State's hope no one will dig any deeper than Clinesmith and his actions.
Clinesmith is now under the bus, but the FBI and the entire intelligence community are seated comfortably ON the same bus.
Your mention of Mike Flynn is interesting. Perhaps Flynn had 'back channel' knowledge of the FBI's Carter Page project. Flynn was a lifelong Human Intelligence (HUMINT) officer. Might have been more to his removal from DIA and follow-on legal problems than meets the eye.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:59
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#11
"At the time I believed the information I was providing in the email was accurate, but I am agreeing that the information I inserted into the email was not already there"
"So, you see, I had this true document and all I did was make it more truthy by adding some true words to it..."
Right, and that's called "fraud on the court." At the very least he should lose his bar shingle. It wouldn't have mattered if he added true words, false words, or "For a good time call Hillary."
Posted by: Matt ||
08/20/2020 12:27
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#12
He has plea bargained promising cooperation. If he doesn't roll over on his comrades, throw the book at him
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/20/2020 12:42
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#13
Hope Kevin checked into the 'Clinton Body Count' before starting to talk.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/20/2020 13:43
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#14
I dunno but some have said he will get a wrist slap much like James Wolfe did (virtually no consequences).
1,004 migrants were brought ashore by Border Force between August 4 and 13 ...and unknown numbers more slipped ashore without being noticed...
On Thursday 89 migrants were brought to UK , the Home Office confirmed
Today, some 16 migrants were pictured arriving in Dover in Border Force vessels
Twenty-three people smugglers have been jailed this year and two more were charged in recent weeks <;li>
TWO SUSPECTED PEOPLE SMUGGLERS ARRESTED IN SLOUGH
Two men suspected of smuggling people into the UK have been arrested.
The men, who are Afghan nationals with UK residency and aged 23 and 21, were arrested on Saturday near a retail park in Slough, Berkshire, in the company of two Afghan illegal immigrants, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
All four were arrested as part of an NCA investigation into modern slavery and organised immigration crime.
They were taken into custody for questioning and two house searches are under way in Edgware, north London, the NCA said.
[IsraelTimes] The brother of a jacket wallah who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in 2017 refuses to attend his sentencing hearing for murder.
Golly. Such scorn for the kafirs who are not fit to lick his boots... but who will imprison him for his crimes as if they’re his equals in the sight of God anyway. And Allah won’t so much as twitch an eyebrow to save him.
A jury finds Hashem Abedi,
...on occasion spelt Hashim al-Obeidi, the baby bro of ol’ Salman Abedi was arrested for cause in Tripoli, where he was pretending to have nothing to do with that messy nonsense back home...
now 23, guilty of 22 counts of murder, attempted murder and conspiring to cause explosions at the gig in northwest England after a trial that ended in March.
The attack, carried out by Salman Abedi,
...one of the more notable members of the Manchester Libyan jihadi crowd. The parental generation ties back to the al-Qaeda-aligned Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the 1990s, while the kids pledged to the even more romantic ISIS. Not that it makes much difference in the end — the networks overlap personnel-wise, it’s just a matter of the name on the checking account paying their expenses...
22, inspired by the 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.... jihadist group, was one of the deadliest terror attacks ever carried out in Britannia, and left more than 200 people injured.
The defendant had sacked his legal team and refused to leave prison to attend the trial at the Central Criminal Court in London.
Judge Jeremy Baker says although he had been brought to court as required for the two-day sentencing hearing, he had refused to come to the courtroom and still had no legal representation.
"He has had every opportunity and has been encouraged to have legal representation. But he has made it clear and I am satisfied that he does not wish to be present at this hearing," he says.
Family members of some of the victims and survivors are in court for the sentencing, which will determine how long Manchester-born Abedi spends in prison.
Others are following proceedings via videolink in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow.
Judge Baker says he cannot be given a whole-life term — ensuring he would never be released — because he was under the age of 21 at the time of the offences.
Hashem Abedi was in Libya when the attack took place at the Manchester Arena on the evening of May 22, 2017, but his trial showed he had helped his brother plan it for several months.
He obtained chemicals for the homemade bomb, found an address to make and store it, and bought a car to transport the materials.
Detectives who investigated the blast said both brothers were equally responsible and called them "proper jihadis."
..formerly called Bangalore, the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka is now a city of 12 million — or perhaps 18 million — known as India’s Silicon Valley. Al Qaeda-linked Tablighi Jamaat has found a warm welcome in the city’s Moslem neighbourhoods, and ISIS-Khurasan is adding itself to the city’s colourful mix of inhabitants ..
police detained a suspect in connection with the recent violence that broke out in the city over a controversial Facebook post. The person was identified as Samiuddin and the police have accused him of being in touch with the accused in the RSS activist, Rudresh murder case. He has also been accused of being in contact with the members of the al-Hind group since the past five years.
The presence of the al-Hind has been spoken about several times in the past. Karnataka's Home Minister, Basavaraj Bommai had also spoken on the presence of the group in the state.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/20/2020
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#1
A motoring man of Benares,
A courtroom, a murderous chorus.
Da judge:"Mr. Rao,
Though you mounted that cow,
Case dismissed, for your car was a Taurus!"
[Jpost] Fellow Iraqis say that the country "lost a treasure today."
Iraqi protesters who have been fighting in the streets for almost a year against what they say is government neglect and corruption are used to being threatened. They’ve already seen hundreds of their friends attacked and some hunted down and shot by pro-government militias. On August 18, the protesters mourned once again, a young female activist, a doctor, who was shot in Basra.
Fellow Iraqis say that the country "lost a treasure today." People know the fear. Those who go to the squares to protest in Baghdad or southern Iraq report receiving threats. They get the threats from friends, from family, or phone calls or other means. It is made known to them: If you continue down this path you will be harmed. And they have been kidnapped, killed, assassinated, and hunted down.
This kind of mafia-like pressure campaign is directed by militias, many of which are pro-Iranian. The militias have names such as Soraya Khorasani, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah, the Badr Organization, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. Not all of them are implicated in the liquidations. Some specialize in different areas of exerting control and threats. Dr. Riham Yaqoub was an activist, a sports expert and a nutritionist. She was assassinated in Basra, the large southern Iraqi city near the border with Kuwait, on Wednesday, according to numerous reports. Irfaa Sawtak published a video of her doing sports training. Others say she was young, ambitious and "full of hope and life."
Her murder is one of many recent liquidations in southern Iraq. It comes as Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is in Washington for high level meetings. Rocket fire almost daily has targeted US forces at bases, in Baghdad and near the airport. The message is clear: There is impunity to attack whoever the militias want.
It is slightly over a month since assassins in Baghdad murdered Husham al-Hashimi, a well-known commentator on Iraqi affairs. He was killed at his house in July. Activists are now being murdered almost daily in Basra by a team of assassins. Of five targeted, two have died, notes journalist Lawk Ghafuri. It was only a week since another activist was killed named Tahseen al-Shahmani. Another woman named Ludia Remon also survived an attack.
Many female activists have been targeted by the assassins. The Prime Minister had apparently replaced the head of the Basra police the same day as the recent liquidation. Journalists are also being targeted for liquidation. In Basra Abdul Samad was shot in January along with another journalist named Safaa Ghali.
The impunity of liquidations illustrates how militias, many affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are working slowly and systematically to silence any dissent. This is especially true for targeting young people and women. The goal is to preserve the system that arose in Iraq in the last decade, a rule that is increasingly beholden to militias, holy mans, and the politics of the gun.
TFSA source says this is HTS bulldozing parts of a power plant in Zayzun. This is happening in every area HTS occupies. They destroy buildings and infrastructure, collect the scrap metal, and sell it off. pic.twitter.com/wwMSTf4ujC
[ToloNews] The Afghan government will not finalize the release of the remaining 320 Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... prisoners--out of the 400 controversial detainees--unless the Taliban ensures the release of 20 Afghan commandos, sources familiar with the grinding of the peace processor said on Wednesday.
In a separate but related issue, according to sources, the US is now in talks with the Australian and French governments who recently opposed the release of at least six of these high-value Taliban prisoners who are accused of being involved in the killing of these nations' citizens in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do... Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money... in an interview with tbe UK's The Times has warned that the release of Taliban prisoners will hit the UK with a new wave of drugs if a final batch of Taliban fighters are released from prison under the conditions of the US-Taliban peace deal that was signed in Doha on February 29.
"If drugs go through the roof in the United Kingdom and Europe, all your leaders have been part of this," Ghani said, quoted by The Times as saying.
"If amphetamines reach the shores of the United States we should know that these are the consequences, and if these people commit crimes, there’s shared international responsibility." He said.
"The ceasefire will be the first item of the agenda when direct discussions---negotiations between the delegation of the Islamic republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban begin, now we will see what the Taliban truly believe, unfortunately, peace is not been socialized among their commanders and among their fighters, so its an important juncture and I hope they will make the right choice," stated Ghani.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) is also in talks with the Australian and French authorities about the release of the Taliban prisoners.
"The expectation is that an acceptable solution will be found for the issue," said Geran Hewad, a front man for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Sources close to the Taliban have accused the US of failing to deliver on its commitments under the Doha deal.
"We call on the Americans to deliver on their promises and convince their allies so that the prisoners are released and the talks are started," said Mawlavi Qalamuddin, the former head of the pinquisitors religious police department in the Taliban regime.
However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad on Twitter said that the Afghan grinding of the peace processor has entered into a hopeful stage, urging the Afghan leaders not to repeat past mistakes.
"Afghan leaders from all sides will have to rise to the occasion, put their country first, learn from past mistakes and reach a political agreement. That is the road to ending the war and a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire," tweeted Khalilzad.
[Rudaw] Syrian regime forces opened fire first in a shootout with a US convoy in Hasaka province on Monday, a local told Rudaw a day later.
Clashes erupted between Syrian regime forces and US troops southeast of Qamishli earlier this week, after a regime checkpoint attempted to block the Americans patrolling the area alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The festivities resulted in the killing of two regime soldiers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
"The Syrian forces prevented them from passing, while the US convoy was trying to pass," a Kurdish resident of Tal Az-Zahab, a village near the checkpoint, who refused to be named for security reasons, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
"After the US convoy pushed to pass, the Syrian forces were the ones who opened fire first," the resident said. "In return the US convoy also opened fire against the Syrian forces."
The sheikh of an Arab tribe in the village claims the US presence in the area only brings trouble.
"What is the aim of the US when they say that the SDF were part of the convoy? Well their aim is to create sedition in the area," Bessan al-Assaf, sheikh of the Tay tribe, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
"The presence of the US troops in the area is an occupation, and will make the situation more complicated, and for sure it will increase tensions in the area," Assaf added.
SOHR reported on Monday following the clash that an aircraft affiliated to the International Coalition struck the checkpoint, leaving many casualties among regime soldiers stationed at the checkpoint.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... the US-led coalition in an official statement on Monday denied the occurrence of an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... "No coalition members were maimed or killed," the US-led coalition statement added.
This was the first direct military engagement between the United States and Syrian regime in recent months.
A unit from the Syrian army confronted a US military convoy in a village associated with the town of Tal Tamr in Hasaka province in July, but no fire was exchanged.
The US said it had "completely withdrawn" from northeastern Syria in late 2019, according to statements made by US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. However around 600 soldiers remain across parts of the country to protect oil fields from the 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.... (ISIS), according to Rooters.
The withdrawal of US troops in early October prompted international outcry as Ottoman Turkish-backed forces invaded the areas held by the SDF since the defeat of ISIS.
Operation Peace Spring, greenlit by the decision of Commander-in-chief President Trump, saw The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... launch its long-expected invasion of the region.
It aimed to cleanse the area of the SDF, which it sees as a terrorist group, before resettling Arab refugees from elsewhere in Syria that have fled to Turkey since 2011.
[NYPOST] The Portland man who allegedly beat a driver unconscious is a dad with a lengthy rap sheet who was recently fired from his security job, according to social media and reports.
More details about Marquise Love, 25, emerged Wednesday as police continue to seek him in the alleged Sunday night attack on driver Adam Haner.
Love has been arrested several times since 2012, including on charges of domestic assault and theft, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. He’s also been prosecuted for driving offenses and was named in a paternity case, with a court order establishing his paternity of the child in 2014, records show.
Video allegedly shows Love, wearing a vest that said "Security," kicking Haner in the face — and knocking him out — as the victim sat on the pavement. The beatdown occurred after Haner crashed his 4×4 truck and he was yanked out of the vehicle by the mob of Black Lives Matter protesters.
Love purportedly posted on Snapchat about the alleged assault.
"Might go to jail for murder tonight for a racist when all I did was fight him," he wrote. "Look it up on twitter put money on my books and come see me."
Police said Haner was treated at the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and released. He has since posted photos of himself sporting two black eyes.
Love worked as a security guard for Star Protection Agency between January and March, the company’s COO Bryan Kettler told Fox News. All equipment to Love has been accounted for, Kettler said.
Photos on his since-deleted Facebook page show him posing with his young son in a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and DJing. He described himself as a "ramp agent" at Portland International Airport, though the airport said he hasn’t worked there for several years.
"This person does not work at PDX and has not for a number of years," the airport said in a tweet.
He worked for Menzies Aviation at the airport until July 2016, a Port of Portland spokeswoman told the Washington Post.
Love’s Facebook page says he lives in Portland but is originally from Miami, Florida.
That explains it — he’s Florida Man!
Police have been unable to locate Love and are urging him to turn himself in. They said they’re also trying to reach the transgender woman whom witnesses said Haner was trying to help when he was attacked.
#6
I'm not a Dog the Bounty Hunter fan but I bet he could find the skell in 10 minutes.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 10:14
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#7
The article says he's a father and was also named in a paternity suit. What female in her right mind would let this character get that close to her? Oh, that's right. She's nuts too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:02
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[AlAhram] Soldiers who staged a military coup in Mali leading to the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and his government said on Wednesday they plan to form a civilian transitional government that will organise fresh elections.
Keita resigned and dissolved parliament late on Tuesday hours after mutinying soldiers detained him at gunpoint, plunging a country already facing a jihadist insurgency and mass protests deeper into crisis.
In a statement broadcast on state-owned television early on Wednesday, a front man for the mutineers calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People said they had decided to act to prevent Mali from falling further into chaos.
... but mostly they just want to be paid.
Flanked by soldiers, committee front man Colonel Ismael Wague invited Mali's civil society and political movements to join them to create conditions for a political transition that would lead to elections.
"Our country is sinking into chaos, anarchy and insecurity mostly due to the fault of the people who are in charge of its destiny," he said.
The military coup has been condemned by Mali's regional and international partners who fear Keita's fall could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa's entire Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
[AlAhram] The African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... (AU) on Wednesday suspended Mali a day after its leaders were detained by mutineering soldiers and the president forced out.
The AU's 15-member security council "suspends Mali from the African Union until restoration of constitutional order and demands release of President Boubacar Keita, the Prime Minister and other government officials forcibly detained by the army," the AU Peace and Security Council said on Twitter.
Keita said Wednesday he had stepped down to avoid "bloodshed" after he was detained in a coup, whose leaders pledged new elections after taking the president and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse into custody.
The 55-member AU had already condemned the "unconstitutional change of government" in the West African nation.
It joined a growing international chorus, including the US and European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , that demanded the immediate release of the detained leaders.
[Townhall] The ratings from the Democratic National Convention’s first night are in and the numbers were not as strong as they were in 2016.
During the 10 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. timeframe, the convention brought in approximately 25 percent fewer viewers than the last convention, Deadline reports citing Nielsen Media Research.
The convention drew 18.7 million viewers in the 10 PM ET to 11:15 PM ET timeframe, when the most networks were carrying the convention proceedings, highlighted by a speech by former First Lady Michelle Obama. That compares to about 25 million who watched ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN ...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for... in the same time period four years ago. The ratings information is from Nielsen Media and was released by Fox News and CNN.
The figures do not include viewers on other networks or on streaming and social media platforms, as the Democratic National Committee made a push to draw viewers to other feeds. According to TJ Ducklo, front man for Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden ...You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... ’s campaign, 10.2 million watched via digital streams, surpassing the level of four years ago and bringing the total TV and online audience to 28.9 million. (Deadline)
There is a major difference between this year's convention and 2016, of course--the fact that it was a virtual event due to the Wuhan coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic. But despite having plenty of time to prepare and create a visually appealing package, it was poorly executed and painful to watch what amounted to a series of Zoom calls.
"I get that we're in a pandemic and it can't be like a normal convention but this made a PBS telethon look like New Year's Eve in Times Square," The Hill's media news hound Joe Concha told "Fox & Friends First" on Tuesday. "It was just beyond boring, for lack of a better term, and it just felt too homogenized. There didn't seem to be any authenticity to it.
Concha noted that even anti-Trump voices in the media characterized the convention as: "cringey, sad, slow, phoney, amateur, robotic, boring and painful."
No wonder liberal networks are so worried about the Republican National Convention.
#5
I think the entire first night of the 'Pub convention should be one massive indictment of the Democrat Party. Show them the streets of the major cities, name the Dem politicians involved in each city & state (mayor, DA, Gov, etc.). Show the U-Hauls and Penske moving vans leaving San Francisco and businesses like tesla pulling up roots and going elsewhere. Point out how Cuomo and others murdered thousands in nursing homes. Keep going and just pile on these motherfuckers until they're buried.
#6
The Anitfa/BLM folks are mostly staying away from where the mostly empty convention is being held in Milwaukee.
They did try to get one going in Wauwatosa (fairly conservative city next to Milwaukee) and it didn't go as planned. The local police actually did their jobs.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/20/2020 10:32
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[Rudaw] A Kurdistan Region official is warning of a potential water crisis should 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 the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... not restore the flow of water to two of the Region’s main water reservoirs, five days after Tehran initiated a set of major irrigation and drainage projects in its western provinces.
"Iran has one hundred percent cut the flow of the Dukan water source," Akram Ahmed, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Dam Directorate,
Awright — you can stop giggling now, dear Reader.
told Rudaw on Tuesday of the Little Zab river.
"The Darbandikhan water source [Sirwan river] has, too, been largely cut off. They have released a very small amount of the water," Ahmed added.
The two rivers are an important resource for the Region’s drinking water, fisheries, and irrigation for agricultural land.
"If this continues, it will create problems for the people of Kurdistan," the official claims, adding that they have reached out to the Iranian Consulate General in Erbil, the KRG Department of Foreign Relations, and the relevant Iraqi government authorities in hopes of resolving the issue.
There are 17 dams in the Kurdistan Region, with the largest being the Dukan and Darbandikhan.
The Dukan dam contains four billion cubic meters, while the Darbandikhan dam 1.5 billion cubic meters, according to the Dam head.
"If Iran does not release the water, we will see a water shortage crisis," he warned. "Because 90,000 people in Raparin take advantage of the [Little Zab] water."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ...Iran's moderate president, which he is, relative to his predecessor, which doesn't mean he's anything but a puppet of the nearest holy man... inaugurated a number of important water projects in the country’s western provinces of Ilam and Kermanshah, according to the Tehran Times.
This is not the first time that Iran has cut the flow of the waters into the Region. Iran has over the years established multiple dams on the waterways flowing into the Region, decreasing the flow of the water across the border.
KRG officials have said the Region has ample water resources itself— with lakes, rivers, and groundwater — but admit they have a management problem, saying water is not adequately stored, conserved, or protected from pollution.
[DW] Islamists from a 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... splinter group have taken large numbers of people captive in a northeastern Nigerian town. Many of the victims had just returned to the town after fleeing a bloody attack there two years ago
Members of the 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.... West Africa Province (ISWAP) jihadi group overran the northeastern Nigerian of Kukawa late on Tuesday, taking hundreds of hostages, locals and militia sources said on Wednesday.
Local militia head Babakura Kolo said many of those seized had just been resettled in the town by the government after spending nearly two years in displacement camps after fleeing an attack on the town in November 2018.
"The bandidosfaceless myrmidons attacked the town in 22 trucks around four pm (1600 GMT) yesterday and engaged soldiers guarding the town in a fierce battle," he said.
Security sources say ISWAP is trying to build up its influence in the Lake Chad region, where Kukawa is located. The group is a splinter group of Boko Haram, a jihadi organization that has killed tens of thousands during its 10-year campaign mainly in northeastern Nigeria to establish a state based on fundamentalist Islamic law.
MILLIONS DISPLACED
The jihadi conflict in Nigeria's northeast has forced some 2 million people to flee their homes, with many of them moving to displacement camps in the regional capital of Maiduguri.
Authorities have been trying for the last two years to get them to return to the towns they have left, even though international charities have insisted it is not safe to do so. Those who have returned are confined under military protection, but faceless myrmidons continue to carry out attacks.
The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... said last Friday that 10.6 million of the 13 million people in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe would need humanitarian assistance this year amid the ravages of the conflict and the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
[Jpost] The IDF struck the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip early Thursday morning, responding to explosive balloon attacks, Walla reported, citing the Paleostinian Shehab agency. Need to make the strikes HURT
The current effort not to push Hamas into all-out war does not seem to be driving them toward increased calm.
According to Walla, at least 28 fires broke out in the Gaza Border Communities on Wednesday. More than 200 fires broke out in the western Negev over the last two weeks.
"IDF tanks struck military posts of the terrorist organization Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, in the Gaza Strip," the IDF Spokesperson's Unit reported early Thursday morning.
"The strike was executed in response to the launch of explosive and incendiary balloons from the territory of the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory," the Spokesperson added,
This is the ninth night the IAF has struck the Gaza Strip amid growing tensions with Hamas, Walla reported. Rockets were fired over the last two days towards the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon.
A rocket warhead reportedly went kaboom! near a house in Sderot earlier this week. According to N12, another rocket was intercepted over the city of Ashkelon on Tuesday.
#1
Israel should announce that with each attack on its soil the boundary between Gaza and Israel will be reduced by 1/4 mile on the east. This would slowly compress Gaza into a still more unlivable pesthole. It would soon stop attacks. It is important to comprehend that no Arab state wants Palestinians. Kuwait and the UAE early learned that lesson, followed by Egypt. In sum, Gaza people have no place to go.
[DW] A man who fatally shoved an 8-year-old boy at Frankfurt's main rail station has apologized at his trial. Prosecutors want the the man, a Swiss resident, confined to a long-term to a psychiatric unit.
The 41-year-old on trial told a special psychiatric-assessment hearing at Frankfurt's regional court — via his lawyers — that he was "infinitely sorry, especially for the family of the eight-year-old boy killed by my actions."
The boy was killed instantly, according to prosecutors. The boy's mother, who was also shoved onto the track bed in front of the arriving Intercity Express (ICE) passenger train, had managed to roll aside and survive.
A witness, a 79-year-old bystander whom the man also attacked and injured, told the court she saw "how he violent mostly peacefully shoved the woman and boy onto the track bed."
"Sheer horror" was experienced by bystanders along Platform 7 of Frankfurt's main railway station, the woman testified as Wednesday's hearing opened under tight security.
The victims' family lawyer, Ulrich Warncke, rejected the apology, telling the court: "There is no excuse for what has been done."
Warncke said the family had two demands: Public discussion on how to deal with mentally ill people and to provide treatment before they commit serious crimes. In addition, train platforms across Germany must finally be better secured, he said.
Prior to the attack on July 29, 2019, Swiss police had been searching several days for the man, originally from Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , after he had locked up his wife and three children before he ended up in Frankfurt.
'WELL INTEGRATED' IN SWITZERLAND
His residency in Canton Zurich was unlimited and he had integrated well — after fleeing war in Eritrea in 2006 — but in early 2019 he began psychiatric treatment, authorities said after his arrest last year.
Frankfurt prosecutors pursuing two charges of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and violent mostly peaceful bodily abuse were told by the presiding judge Wednesday that murder and attempted murder could be assumed, if proven during proceedings.
Prosecutors sought the man's long-term confinement to a psychiatric clinic, warning there was a "high to very high probability" of further violent mostly peaceful acts, given diagnosed schizophrenic psychoses and paranoid fear of being pursued.
Since last August, the accused has been held at a forensic clinic in Riedstadt in Hesse state, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Frankfurt.
ENHANCED SAFETY CONTROLS SOUGHT
Last year's fatal incident prompted German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to call for enhanced controls on travelers arriving from Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... and better safety measures along platforms at Germany's 5,700 rail stations.
At the time, opposition politicians accused him of populism as Germany's far-right once more criticized what it regarded as flawed migration.
Among all German stations, visitor numbers are highest at Hamburg's main rail station, a so-called through-station.
Frankfurt's main station (Hauptbahnhof), a railhead terminus opened in 1888, handles the most international train connections, according to research firm Statistica. Last year, 2.9 billion persons passed through German stations.
Al Ahram has a good deal more about Mr. Habte Araya, Eritrean schizophrenic, who is very sorry despite remembering nothing of the terrible things they tell him he did.
And the Daily Mail had the usual photos at the time of the attack of the shy, hardworking poster-boy for integration.
My thanks for the heads up, Clem. The link is now fixed — truly Rantburg is a team project! :-)
Is this part of the islams too?
I’m not sure, newc. Somewhere between a third and half of Eritreans are Moslem, but I don’t know enough about their naming traditions to guess anything from his name, and I haven’t seen anything mentioned in the articles I’ve read about him.
[IsraelTimes] Hundreds of Paleostinians hold a protest in the West Bank against last week’s announcement that Israel was normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates.
Getting exercise in the fresh air and sunshine, a good thing in these troubled times as far as that goes. For the rest — sorry guys, absolutely no one cares except your noisy selves. Once again y’all took the opportunity to miss the opportunity, so at least you are consistent in a rapidly changing world.
Members of rival groups Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,, which controls the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip, and the Fatah faction of President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... ’s West Bank-based Paleostinian Authority, took part in the rally in a rare joint initiative, an AFP journalist reports.
"Today we tell the world that we are united against ’the deal of the century’, annexation and normalization," PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh tells the rally in the village of Turmus’ayya. Did you feel that? It's history, passing you by.
The bombshell announcement last week that Israel and the energy-rich UAE would normalize ties sparked fury among Paleostinians, with both Hamas and the PA leadership denouncing the US-brokered agreement.
Under the deal Israel said it would suspend its plans to annex Jewish settlements and other territory in the West Bank.
Around 2,000 Paleostinians take part in the rally at Turmus’ayya, a village in the north of the West Bank nestled between the cities of Ramallah and Nablus. They traveled there by bus from other areas of the West Bank
Clashes have been reported between protesters and Israeli forces on the outskirts of the village, with protesters throwing stones at Israeli forces, who have responded with tear gas.
[NYPost] A radical Islamic holy man was ordered held without bail in Manhattan on Friday — after encouraging a female undercover NYPD cop to carry out terror attacks, authorities said.
Sheikh Abdullah Faisal,
... Abdullah Ibrahim al-Faisal, whose mother named him Trevor William Forrest, is also in our archives as Abdullah el-Faisal. After converting to Islam and training in Saudi Arabia, he preached murder and mayhem across England to a laundry list of bad guys for eleven years, until the Brits jailed him for it in 2003. They deported him to Jamaica four years later. After he spent 2009 touring Africa, Kenya deported him back to Jamaica. In between and since, he was very active online guiding eager young minds toward the jihadi life...
56, pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to five counts — including conspiracy as a crime of terrorism, soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism and other raps.
At the prosecution’s request, Justice Maxwell Wiley ordered Faisal held in jug without bail.
Faisal was arrested in 2017 in Jamaica and finally brought to New York on Thursday after fighting extradition.
The krazed killerholy man — born Trevor William Forrest — allegedly communicated with a female undercover NYPD officer by e-mail, text and video chat to encourage her to join ISIS and carry out attacks abroad from 2015 to 2017.
"The indictment and arrest of Sheikh Faisal nearly three years ago put a stop to the prolific, radical Islamic propaganda and terror recruitment alleged in this case — delivering a major blow to ISIS’ overall recruitment capabilities," said District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. in a statement.
"The effects of his arrest have been felt across the counterterrorism community worldwide, which has gained actionable intelligence thanks to our seizure of numerous electronics from his home."
A popular online figure, Faisal has overtly supported ISIS and the establishment of an Islamic caliphate through violent mostly peaceful jihad.
In one of his online lectures, he declared, "The way forward is not the ballot. The way forward is the bullet," according to the indictment.
In recorded conversations with the undercover cop, Faisal encouraged her to take a Moslem groom and offered to arrange the marriage for her.
On Jan. 26, 2015, Faisal sent the undercover an e-mail stating, "a brother in the dawla wants to interview u for marriage. Pls whatsapp him," court papers allege.
"Abdullah El Faisal has spent two decades inspiring the murderous Moslems behind plots and attacks in London, New York, and onboard airplanes in flight," said NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea in a statement.
The NYPD and Manhattan DA began their pursuit of Faisal in 2014.
Faisal was previously convicted of similar charges in England for inciting murder and using inflammatory language "in furtherance of terrorist ideologies," according to prosecutors.
He’s due back in Manhattan Supreme Court on Oct. 7.
[NYPost] A Brooklyn man who uploaded instructional manuals online about how to conduct lone-wolf terror attacks in New York City pleaded guilty Monday to attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
Zachary Clark,
... also known as Umar Kabir, Umar Shishani, and Abu Talha ...
41, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court after he was arrested last fall for posting manuals such as "Knife Attacks" and "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom" in encrypted chat rooms designed to recruit new ISIS members.
That sounds almost innocent, but he was one of the administrators for the most popular and well-known source of ISIS media and recruitment propaganda online, according to the feds. He was especially vocal about lone wolf attacks and full of advice on how to accomplish them.
One of the handbooks included maps of the New York City subway system and writings on how to commit attacks in the Big Apple, according to court papers.
Clark pledged support to ISIS twice in 2019, including in July when he stated his allegiance to the former leader of the terror group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, prosecutors said.
...after Al-Baghdadi’s death, Mr. Clark repledged to his successor Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi, the nom de guerre of Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi...
He faces up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced in February, prosecutors said.
"Thanks to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Clark’s efforts to incite deadly violence on behalf of ISIS have been silenced, and he now awaits sentencing for his crimes," Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement after the guilty plea.
"Today’s plea by Mr. Clark is yet one more example of the resolve of the FBI’s JTTF in New York, and our many law enforcement partners, to protect this city and our citizens from the danger of lone wolf attacks," FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. added.
Listened to both videos. He's saying what many folks here have, he's just compiled the information into something most anyone with a brain would understand.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/20/2020 8:19
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#2
David H. Janda, M.D. practiced orthopedic surgery for 27 years, public policy expert and radio talk show host for Ann Arbor, MI.
At what point does your condemnation turn into action? By allowing unpermited street occupations to continue for years with no consequence, you’ve shown antifa that they can shut down any part of the city and claim it as theirs any time. I tried warning you two years ago. https://t.co/5FmPt3jvmy
Posted by: Fred ||
08/20/2020
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[13 views]
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#1
At what point, even with all the rituals of authentication, does government become illegitimate? When it no longer is willing to provide security in one's person, one's family, and one's property.
#3
/\At what point...? Read The Declaration of Independence again and ponder how many of the grievances of the Founding Fathers echo what the current corrupt ruling class is doing now.
#4
Lots of people whip out the cliche "wild west" with little or no knowledge of the history. The western US was pretty placid compared to the big cities back east.
Population density = more crime.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 15:25
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[FoxNews] Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign said it has nothing to do with former Women's March leader Linda Sarsour, after she was seen participating in the Democratic National Convention...
"Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel and a vehement opponent of anti-Semitism his entire life, and he obviously condemns her views and opposes BDS, as does the Democratic platform," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, referring to Sarsour. "She has no role in the Biden campaign whatsoever." [haven't seen any reaction from the anti Israel and anti Semitic branch of the Dem party yet but its early]
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/20/2020
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[12 views]
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#1
Wink, shrug, grin.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/20/2020 1:50
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#2
Yet, there she was.Golly, shazaaaam!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/20/2020 2:56
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#3
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign said Joe must still be hiding in the basement because only his campaign or his wife (Jill) are talking for him.
#7
Obama hated Netanyahu as much as Flynn.
Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright.
Why did Obama give Iran what ever they wanted?
Why did Obama threw Israel under the bus with UNSCR 2334 (at the same time he was plotting against the incoming President)?
AOC!
#8
Even Democrats must understand that the optics are not good...
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:45
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#9
I mean, the Wookie, Hildebeast, Kamaltoe, AOC...it just keeps getting worse and worse. This is the party of ugly women.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 11:47
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#10
these 'ugly women' could actually be quite attractive given the right clothes and make up (except perhaps Hillary)
in fact AOC has the figure of a supermodel
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/20/2020 12:09
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#11
Anti-Semite Linda Sarsour, who supports the Israel-hating BDS movement which boycotts Jewish-owned businesses, says the Democrat Party “is absolutely our party.”
#15
The women in the Democrat Party leadership didn't get where they are by being honest and kind. The biggest part of their ugliness is their dishonesty and viciousness.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/20/2020 15:53
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#16
Some women look better in masks; just sayin'...
#2
No food or water for the Democrat until the Postal Union allows its workers to collect mail at my mail box in Los Angeles.
As I mentioned in the Opinion section Wednesday the mail box appeared to be full.
I am sure it has not been collected recently.
The mail boxes in LA were removed years ago during Obama years.
Neither Trump nor Dejoy have any leverage over the postal service in California nor in the 9th circus, nor in Portland CHAZ.
[IsraelTimes] A suburban New York man threatened to shoot up an Orthodox Jewish day camp over its alleged violations of coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... restrictions.
The man, identified as Nicola Pelle, 58, of Long Island, called police to report the violations at the camp run by the Yeshiva Ketana of Long Island, saying approximately 500 campers there were not wearing masks. He called again as police were on their way to the scene, allegedly saying, according to local reports: "If I’ve got to go out there with a freaking machine gun and shoot all these people, I will."
Pelle, who runs a landscaping business, lives next to the yeshiva, located in the Inwood neighborhood.
Officers who arrived at the site of the camp found 30 children and their parents, WABC-TV reports.
Pelle was found to have 14 weapons in his home, including handguns, rifles and shotguns, and two assault weapons. All were legally owned except for one rifle. He also has a valid gun license, News12 Long Island reports.
He is charged with making a terrorist threat, four counts of criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of criminal possession of a firearm. He posted bail, according to the report.
"While law enforcement is still trying to learn the motivation, this concerning incident shows how threats of violence against the Jewish community continue to surface and warrants our utmost vigilance," says Evan Bernstein, CEO of Community Security Service, a New York-based organization that trains volunteers to protect their own synagogues.
#3
Polling shows Democrats are uninformed on the virus. Those are also the same group producing the nuts running around terrified and calling the cops on people.
[Jpost] “It is forbidden for a Moslem to arrive in a plane of the United Arab Emirates to Ben Gurion Airport, in order to come and pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Paleostinian Authority's Grand Mufti has issued a fatwa banning Moslems from praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque within the framework of the UAE-Israel peace deal.
Moslems from outside Israel and the Paleostinian territories are now able to visit the Mosque to pray, under the conditions of the recent deal normalizing relations between Israel and the UAE. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... the Paleostinian Authority considers the deal a betrayal of its cause, and religious leaders have declared that any Moslem visiting the site, considered the third holiest in Islam, are traitors.
"We absolutely won’t accept the [UAE’s] treason. One grain of sand from the soil of pure Paleostine and from the soil of the al-Aqsa Mosque is more precious than our blood and our lives," Supreme Sharia Judge Mahmoud al-Habbash said on official PA TV on Saturday, according to a translation by Paleostinian Media Watch.
He continued: "Whoever wants to come visit the al-Aqsa Mosque through the gate of Paleostine: Welcome, and we will rejoice over him. But whoever wants to come through the Israeli gate is unwanted, and he will find nothing but the shoes of the people of Jerusalem and the spit of the people of Jerusalem in his face."
Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti went further. Appearing on Paleostine This Morning, which is broadcast on official Paleostinian Authority TV, he told viewers: "It is forbidden for a Moslem to arrive in a plane of the United Arab Emirates or not of the United Arab Emirates to the Lod Airport [in Israel], which today they call Ben Gurion Airport, in order to come and pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque. This is false marketing in terms of religious law, legally false, religiously offensive."
The following day, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... 's Anadolu news agency reported: "Sheikh Muhammad Hussein issued a fatwa (i.e., religious ruling) determining that praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque in the framework of the normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE is ’forbidden. Hussein said that... ’Praying at the al-Aqsa Mosque is open to all those who arrive through the legal Paleostinian gate, and not to those who carry out normalization.’"
The leaders have made it clear that they consider Moslems praying at the mosque under the agreement to have betrayed not only the Paleostinian cause, but the Prophet Mohammed himself.
More blood curdling mustache cursing snipped, leaving us with the dénouement:
Paleostinian Media Watch highlighted in a statement that this may be understood as a call to violence against Israel and the UAE, given al-Habbash's previous teaching that the Koran commands that enemies must be killed. Anyone who "comes to attack me... my home... my land... I am commanded to fight him... I am allowed to kill him," he said.
The record of history shows that Muhammad died in 632 AD, that Muslim jihadists captured Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 638 AD, that Amir Abd-ul-Malik built the Dome of the Rock between 688 and 691 AD, and the Ummayads built Masjid al-Aqsa in 715 AD.
When Surah 17:001 was 'sent-down' ~621 AD, Palestine contained not a single mosque, was captured 17 years later in 638 AD, 6 years after Muhammad's death, the Dome of the Rock was built 56-59 years after Muhammad's death, 67-70 years after 17:001 was 'sent-down', and Masjid al- Aqsa was built 83 years after Muhammad's death, 94 years after 17:001 was 'sent-down.'
Islam's mythical and militant claim on Jerusalem is entirely without historical support or foundation. Islam comes way too late in history to lay claim to Jerusalem "The Holy City," it is on the wrong side of history, and I ask again Ali, In light of the above dates:-
What Temple did Muhammad visit, enter and pray at, before ascending to heaven?
Seeing that the Qur'an mentions a journey of Muhammad's to a mosque that did not exist during his lifetime, how can Surah 17:001 possibly have it, and Muhammad, In Jerusalem???
Sudden Jihad Syndrome attack by a nutter. Why they didn’t send him back is beyond me.
[DW] Six people were maimed, three of them severely, in the incident. Police have arrested a 30-year-old man in connection with the crashes while prosecutors have alleged the incident was an Islamist-motivated attack.
A 30-year-old man in Berlin is being investigated for attempted murder after a series of crashes led to a key stretch of the city's highway being closed off.
Six people were maimed, three of them seriously, in the incident on Tuesday night, the Berlin fire department confirmed on Twitter.
Continued on Page 49
[ToloNews] Commuters and other travelers are facing serious threats after Taliban ...Arabic for students... Death Eaters increased their presence on the 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... -Badghis highway, according to local officials and politicians.
They said that the routes connecting several districts to Qala-e-Naw city, the center of Badghis province, have been closed due to the presence of the Taliban in these areas.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, bullets whapped! around Butch as he tried to tie his scarf around his shoulder as a tourniquet...... a number of politicians in Afghanistan’s Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) have said that the Taliban have put Badghis province under siege by closing the routes.
"We hope that our local officials, our security officials and particularly our officials in the center and the security agencies focus on this issue to avoid increasing fragility in the situation," said Abdul Baseer Osmani, a member of parliament from Badghis.
"The situations are very bad, even our babus government employees, the businessmen or our residents, can't commute on the highway due to the presence of the Taliban," said Ziauddin Akazi, a member of parliament.
The deputy governor of Badghis meanwhile said that the government is trying to clear the highway of the turbans.
"There are threats on the highways, but the government is trying to remove the threats so that our countrymen can travel with confidence and peace," said Faiz Mohammad Mirza Zada, the deputy governor of Badghis province.
But, local security officials in Badghis have said that the presence of Taliban on the highway will not be for long term.
From August 11th. Another idiot who planned it all with his BFF, the FBI informant.
[Yahoo] A New York man, who had planned to join Pakistain-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LeT) and carry out acts of terrorism, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to the terror outfit.
Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, 30, who also went by the alias ’Jihadistsoldgier', ’Jihadinhear’, ’Jihadinheart’, ’Lionofthegood’, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to LeT, which is responsible for multiple high-profile attacks, including the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, the Department of Justice said.
In addition, Encarnacion was sentenced to a lifetime term of supervised release. Encarnacion had pleaded guilty in January this year before United States District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who also imposed the sentence.
"Unfortunately, individuals continue to attempt to travel to foreign countries to support terrorist organizations. Encarnacion’s sentence reflects the seriousness with which the justice system takes these efforts," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C Demers said.
Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York said Encarnacion plotted to travel abroad, to join and train with LeT and to carry out shootings, bombings, and beheadings on behalf of that terrorist organization." According to the criminal complaint and indictment, Encarnacion expressed his desire to join a terrorist group in an online group chat in November 2018.
At the chat, he met another individual, who introduced Encarnacion to a person who was an undercover FBI employee. Encarnacion repeatedly expressed, in the course of recorded communications through a social media service with the individual and through an encrypted messaging service with the undercover agent, his allegiance to and support for LeT.
The Pakistain-based terror organization LeT has been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by both the United States Secretary of State and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Over several months, Encarnacion discussed his desire and plans to join LeT overseas so that he could receive training and participate in violent mostly peaceful acts of terrorism.
The Justice Department said Encarnacion told the undercover agent that he was "ready to kill and die in the name of Allah" and sought the agent’s assistance to help Encarnacion travel abroad to serve as an "executioner" for LeT, stating, "I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot."
Arlo Guthrie’s ”Alice’s Restaurant” was clearly one of his favourite songs when he was young, though he doesn’t mention time spent on the FBI’s Group W bench...
Encarnacion further stated that he aspired to commit terrorist attacks - "a bombing and shooting" - in the United States, but lacked "guidance" and "guns" to do so.
By early 2019, Encarnacion and the undercover agent agreed on a plan that Encarnacion believed would allow him to join LeT in Pakistain.
Encarnacion told the agent that he had made arrangements to travel to a particular city in Europe, as the first step in traveling to Pakistain to join LeT.
Encarnacion purchased an airline ticket for a flight scheduled to depart in February last year from John F Kennedy International Airport to a European City. Encarnacion was arrested by the FBI after he attempted to board the flight from JFK Airport.
[ToloNews] Three were killed, and 16 were maimed--including six civilians--in Tuesday's rocket attacks in Kabul, the Ministry of Interior said on Wednesday.
Two of those killed were babus government employees, the MoI said, and there were children among the maimed.
At least 14 rockets were fired in Kabul city, including eight launched from PD16 and six from PD17, a security source said on Tuesday, adding that "all rockets were launched from two Toyota "Corolla" vehicles.
Eyewitnesses said that the rockets landed in Wazir Akbar Khan, Sherpur, first Macroryan and Shashdarak areas of Kabul.
At least seven people were maimed in rocket blasts in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace, a source said on Tuesday.
However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... officials at the Palace have not yet confirmed the incident.
No group has grabbed credit for the incidents.
The rocket attacks started after President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money... placed a wreath at the Minaret of Independence at the Ministry of Defense building to mark Afghanistan’s 101st Independence Day.
[ToloNews] At least two security force personnel affiliated with the National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS) were killed, and 11 people--including civilians--were maimed in a roadside mine blast in northern Baghlan province, a security source said.
The incident happened around10:00am local time in Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan, close to the NDS office when a security vehicle struck a roadside mine, the source said.
Local health officials also confirmed that two people were killed and 11 others were maimed in the blast and "all victims have been brought to the hospital."
"Some of the maimed are at death's door," officials added.
Baghlan police only confirmed that four civilians were maimed in the blast.
[ToloNews] Mir Abdulbaqi Amin, head of the scientific council of the Ministry of Education, was killed in a blast in Kabul city on Wednesday morning, the ministry said in a statement.
The incident happened in PD5 of Kabul city after a magnetic mine placed on Mr Amin’s vehicle went kaboom!. His driver was also maimed, the statement said.
This was one of two separate magnetic mine blasts in Kabul city on Wednesday morning, said Ferdaws Faramarz, a front man for the Kabul police.
The first blast happened in PD12 of Kabul city from a magnetic mine placed on a police vehicle and one person was killed and another was maimed, Faramarz said.
No group including the Taliban ...Arabic for students... has grabbed credit for the blasts yet.
DALLAS COUNTY, Ala. (WSFA) - The Dallas County Courthouse was briefly evacuated and blocked off Tuesday afternoon due to a bomb scare.
The situation developed after a woman brought a grenade to the courthouse wanting to find a way to dispose of it. The explosive device was in her car, according to officials.
Following an examination of the device, experts determined it was a harmless training grenade that didn’t have any explosive powder in it.
No injuries were reported. The Lady is a friend of mine. I'll call her Jenny. She can be a bit ditzy at times. It all started with her late husband who was an avid scuba diver. Several years ago he was diving in the Alabama River near the Edmund Pettus Bridge and found some Civil War artifacts and several WWII practice grenades. They had already been used. For some reason Jenny has been carrying one of them around in her trunk in a small cooler. She went to the courthouse to file some paperwork and when she parked there were two Sheriff's Deputies near the entrance, so she asked if they could help her dispose of the grenade. Jenny showed them the grenade and they took her away from the car, evacuated the courthouse, and called the Bomb Squad in Montgomery which took about two hours for a response. After they determined it posed no danger everything returned to normal, Jenny went in and filed her paperwork. Jenny said she asked the clerk if she enjoyed her "vacation" and then told the clerk what happened.
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[JP] The Lebanese Armed Forces have denied the existence of tunnels.
Videos circulating online, as well as rumors and reports, indicate that “tunnels” have been found in the wake of the Beirut explosions. Some have asserted that this is evidence of Hezbollah “tunnels” storing weapons at the Port of Beirut, while others think they were used for human trafficking. Both SkyNews and Russia’s Sputnik News claimed there was a “labyrinth network of tunnels.”
The Lebanese Armed Forces have denied the existence of tunnels, just as Hezbollah has denied doing anything at Beirut Port. It’s unclear how the army could refute the claims without investigating the images and videos already circulating online. Nevertheless, the army denied the existence of tunnels.
Yet Sky News did show a ceiling of a subterranean chamber and noted that people had hope that loved ones might have survived the blast in the tunnels. The Sky News report, which was posted online on Sunday, said the people excavating the site and searching for survivors “know there is a labyrinth of subterranean chambers here; they have discovered the opening of one of them.”
This comment appears to indicate that the search-and-rescue teams and officials know about these chambers.
Are these “tunnels,” or is there another explanation for these underground rooms? There may be a more prosaic explanation for underground rooms or other aspects of the urban environment having underground infrastructure, such as tunnels for electrical, water and sewage facilities.
For now, the question of the “tunnels” appears to feed stories that Hezbollah was using the area for illicit trafficking of weapons or munitions. However, the investigators who found the opening to one alleged tunnel were not wearing any kind of suits or using devices as if the area was full of unexploded ordnance. That means there didn’t appear to be a concern that they would find missiles and dangerous items inside these areas.
Officials are seeing 'same faces' among migrants coming into Dover from Calais
UN report revealed that 70 per cent of Libyan migrants do not qualify for asylum
A leading UN chief has admitted return mechanism needs to be put in place
Of the 41,129 migrants who have come to Europe this year, 18.3 per cent are from Tunisia, while 10.3 per cent are from Algeria.
According to the UNHCR report, migrants who travelled from Libya to Italy and Malta made up 68 per cent of arrivals to Europe via the Central Mediterranean between January and May.
Around 8,600 people have departed from the North African country by sea, with Bangladeshis, Sudanese and Somalis the most common nationalities making the crossing.
The vast majority of those attempting to reach Britain from Calais have travelled over land through the EU, experts say.
The news comes amid an increase in migrant crossings in the UK, with a record number attempting to come over in small boats from Calais.
Former Border Force director general Tony Smith told the Telegraph: 'A lot of people who are in Calais have already been told that they cannot stay in the EU, some of them have been refused in a couple of different countries, but they don't want to go back.
'The French can't remove them so they are just their names and details and telling them to stop trying to break the law.'
Traffickers offer paid-for arrangements at a camp in Calais costing from £10,000 to £1,000 or less.
Meanwhile Kent County Council no longer have capacity for unaccompanied migrant children.
[GatestoneInstitute] The powerful reactions of many Arabs to the Palestinian campaign of incitement against the UAE -- after its agreement establish relations with Israel -- are yet another sign of the increased disillusionment in the Arab world with the Palestinians.
The message the Arabs are sending to the Palestinians is roughly, "We are fed up with you and your cause. You people are ungrateful, hypocritical and vindictive. Decade after decade, we pumped billions of dollars into your coffers -- and now you have the arrogance to burn our flags and pictures of our leaders and hurl insults at us."
As Emirati academic Dr. Waseem Yousef wrote on Twitter: "It is stupid to burn my country's flag and want me to salute you." In other posts, Yousef commented on the Israel-UAE deal: "When I see the flag of my country being burned by some Palestinians because of the peace treaty with Israel – I apologize to every Israeli man if I offended him in the past."
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[AlAhram] The United States called Wednesday for Iraq to dismantle non-government "gangs" that have "undermined national illusory sovereignty" ahead of a visit to Washington by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi.
"Armed groups not under the full control of the prime minister have impeded our progress," said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "Those groups need to be replaced by local police as soon as possible."
Pompeo was speaking at a presser in Washington together with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, one day before Kadhemi meets President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... at the White House.
Pompeo did not specify which groups he was referring to, but Kadhemi, who took office in May, faces challenges from factions of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a coalition of Iraqi Shiite paramilitary groups with close ties to Iran.
His visit to Washington comes amid weekly attacks attributed to the groups against US installations and assets in the country.
Pompeo said that he had assured Husesein that the US would help Iraq toward this end.
"We talked about how the United States and Iraq can work together to make Iraq more safe and stable," he said.
Pompeo said the US is committed to supporting the official Iraqi security forces "to curb the power of militias that have for far too long terrorized the Iraqi people, and undermined Iraq's national illusory sovereignty."
The two countries have been conducting a "strategic dialogue" since June as the Trump administration seeks to reduce the US military presence there.
Asked about the plan for cutting the 5,000 US troops now in Iraq, Pompeo said he had no numbers and urged people "not to focus on that."
But the continuing US presence, mostly focused on fighting remnants of the 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.... jihadist group, will be a key issue when Kadhemi meets Trump.
Hashed al-Shaabi, which maintains armed units viewed as threats by Washington, is integrated into the Iraqi state, and its political representatives have called for the expulsion of US troops.
[IsraelTimes] The US Treasury Department places two United Arab Emirates-based companies on its sanctions blacklist for their support of already-sanctioned Iran’s Mahan Air.
UAE-based Parthia Cargo and Delta Parts Supply FZC "have provided key parts and logistics services for Mahan Air," the Treasury says.
Mahan, one of Iran’s leading carriers, has been blacklisted under US counterterrorism regulations for its close relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, which Washington says carries out terror activities in the Middle East.
Mahan Air especially has been used by the revolutionary Guards to support the regimes of Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad and Venezuela ...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... n President Nicolás Maduro ...Commie el presidente para la vida of Venezuela, successor to Hugo Chavez. Nick is his country's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy, except that even though his country's sitting on an enormous puddle of oil, he can't manage to get it out of the ground. Unlike Qadaffy and Hugo Chavez, he's not dead yet... , according to the Treasury.
"The Iranian regime uses Mahan Air as a tool to spread its destabilizing agenda around the world, including to the corrupt regimes in Syria and Venezuela, as well as terrorist groups throughout the Middle East," says Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement.
"The United States will continue to take action against those supporting this airline."
In the same action, the Treasury also places sanctions on UAE-based Iranian national Amin Mahdavi, who the Treasury says either owns or controls Parthia Cargo.
[Ledger] LAKELAND — The missile awaits its final destination.
A live French S-530 air-to-air missile discovered at Lakeland Linder International Airport is now sitting safe and secured at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa awaiting its disposal. The unarmed missile was first discovered Friday.
"It was transported back to MacDill where we have munition storage facilities, kind of similar to what a bunker would look like with some thick walls," said Lt. Brandon Hanner, chief of media operations at MacDill. "It is secured and safe and they are just waiting on when and where they are going to dispose of the missile. Those details are yet to be solidified."
Hanner said in previous cases where an ordnance has been picked up, the typical method of disposal would be to take it out to the explosives range and detonate it. But this missile is "too large to do that at MacDill," so the disposal logistics are being planned out.
"Sometimes it is done in Avon Park, like an Air Force range out there, but the details of when and where that is going to happen are not drawn in stone yet," Hanner said. "The only thing out of the ordinary about this is it is not a U.S.-made missile, which is why we were dispatched out to it."
The air-to-air missile — which is made to launch from the air targeting other objects in the air — was found near Draken International, a defense contractor located at Lakeland Linder. Its discovery eventually led to a partial evacuation of the airport’s southeast side for a few hours.
#1
Draken provides OPFOR (Opposing Force) and allied nation aircraft, US pilots (possibly others), and foreign tactics for USAF training and exercises.
[Jpost] "Hezbollah in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... received large deliveries of ammonium nitrate, which are closely related to the material detonated in Beirut."
The Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah had purchased a large amount of ammonium nitrate that coincided with the storage of the ammonium nitrate that was lodged at the Beirut port and led to a massive explosion in early August, according to a Wednesday report in the German daily broadsheet Die Welt.
Continued on Page 49
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.
[Babylon Bee] WILMINGTON, DE—In a recent live stream, Joe Biden proudly declared that his physician had cleared him of Alzheimer's, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
[AIER] Reading the late Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, Factfulness, during the summer of 2020 creates a sensation of surrealness that would have been absent had I read this volume in 2018 or 2019. On nearly every page of Factfulness Rosling busts the popular myth that we denizens of modernity face imminent calamities that will destroy us and the earth. Widespread fears — such as of overpopulation, of terrorism, and of the rich getting richer while the poor stagnate — are methodically revealed to be either completely unjustified or exorbitantly exaggerated.
[Jpost] A Paleostinian was killed while attempting to use an improvised 
[AlAhram] At least 45 
...
[Sun Sentinel] Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony survived a fierce challenge Tuesday from his predecessor Scott Israel 
...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 
[OneIndia] The Bengaluru 
[Jpost] Fellow Iraqis say that the country "lost a treasure today."
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
[NYPOST] The Portland man who allegedly beat a driver unconscious is a dad with a lengthy rap sheet who was recently fired from his security job, according to social media and reports.
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
...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 
... 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...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Jpost] The IDF struck the 
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
[IsraelTimes] Hundreds of Paleostinians hold a protest in the West Bank against last week’s announcement that Israel was normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates.
[FoxNews] Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign said it has nothing to do with former Women's March leader Linda Sarsour, after she was seen participating in the Democratic National Convention...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Jpost] “It is forbidden for a 
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
[DW] Six people 
...Arabic for 
...the 
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money...
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] 
...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 
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south...
[Ledger] LAKELAND — The missile awaits its final destination.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
