One evening in January last year, Joel Eriksson, a 34-year-old computer analyst from Uppsala in Sweden, was trawling the web, looking for distraction, when he came across a message on an internet forum. The message was in stark white type, against a black background.
"Hello," it said. "We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck."
The message was signed: "3301".
A self-confessed IT security "freak" and a skilled cryptographer, Eriksson's interest was immediately piqued. This was -- he knew -- an example of digital steganography: the concealment of secret information within a digital file. Most often seen in conjunction with image files, a recipient who can work out the code -- for example, to alter the colour of every 100th pixel -- can retrieve an entirely different image from the randomised background "noise".
It's a technique more commonly associated with nefarious ends, such as concealing child pornography. In 2002 it was suggested that al-Qaeda operatives had planned the September 11 attacks via the auction site eBay, by encrypting messages inside digital photographs. But alas 3301 appears to be not so simple. The code seems to be a riddle wrapped in an enigma surrounded by a conundrum...
Enough personal 'helping the poor stories' to warm the heart of any liberal. But to save you the time, many have been on the gubbamint dole for a long, long time and some used to work in the coal mines. No one observed that more could be working in the coal mines, were it not for the war on coal. Most in the article on going on Medicaid; I missed any strong, young folks signing on in case they were to be struck by lighting.
"Yeah, we live on this side of the hill," said Woodrow Wilson Noble, whose family farm had gone under, who lived on food stamps and what his mother could spare, and who was about to hear whether he would have health insurance for the first time in his 60-year-old life.
This is how things are going in Kentucky: Where the computer system works, it seems
As conservatives argued that the new health-care law will wreck the economy, as liberals argued it will save billions, as many Americans raged at losing old health plans and some analysts warned that a disproportionate influx of the sick and the poor could wreck the new health-care model, Lively was telling Noble something he did not expect to hear.
"All right," she said. "We've got you eligible for Medicaid." I am SO glad SOMEBODY is coming out ahead on this deal!
Places such as Breathitt County, in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky, are driving the state's relatively high enrollment figures, which are helping to drive national enrollment figures as the federal health exchange has floundered. So most of the enrolment that Champ's supporters are taking credit for are signing up in the functioning state exchanges.
In a state where 15 percent of the population, about 640,000 people, are uninsured, 56,422 have signed up for new health-care coverage, with 45,622 of them enrolled in Medicaid and the rest in private health plans, according to figures released by the governor's office Friday. You don't need a calculator to do that math.
If the health-care law is having a troubled rollout across the country, Kentucky -- and Breathitt County in particular -- shows what can happen in a place where things are working as the law's supporters envisioned. How's that? Bankrupting the middle class? Or my grandchildren?
One reason is that the state set up its own health-insurance exchange, sidestepping the troubled federal one. Also, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is the only Southern governor to sign on to expanded eligibility parameters for Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for the poor. Somebody remind me who's paying for this. Kentuckians? Or all US taxpayers?
"Okay, Woodrow, now you get to shop a little bit," she said, explaining options he'd never had before.
"If you go to the doctor, all you're going to pay is $1," she began. "If you're in the hospital for an extended period, you should only be billed $5. . . . If you get medicine, generics are $1 and brand is $4. . . . You can go to the dentist once a month -- exams, X-rays and cleanings are covered. . . . Now for your teeth, the plan does take care of having them pulled and does take care of fillings, but not bridges, because that's considered cosmetic."
"I got some warts on me I got to take off, some moles," said Woodrow. "I might have that colonoscopy done. My mom had colon cancer twice. I never had money to do it." He said he was told it could cost at least $2,000.
"I got this pain in my left shoulder," he said, lifting his arm and rotating it. "Might be arthritis, I guess. I don't know."
The per-capita income in Breathitt is about $15,000, and the rates of diabetes, hypertension and other health problems earned this part of Kentucky the nickname "Coronary Valley." I thought The War On Poverty was supposed to help those folks.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/25/2013
07:53 ||
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#2
Warms the cockles of my heart (sarc on). At last a Democide feel good story...However, it's WaPo. I'm watching Sarah Kliff from WaPo on CSPAN now. If you like this story and believe it, you will most likely like and believe what she is saying on CPSAN. If you are dubious about anything said or that comes from this administration because they have a history of lying about the sun coming up, it will sound like just another load of fictitious, made-up crap.
#3
Sorry about the Glish Tholump4651. It's really JohnQC. I cleaned out my browser and cookies as I was getting too many people trying to sell me stuff.
#9
I don't think I want the kind of award you've been giving a certain Canadian lately. I'm not a Democrat either. So I'll consider myself warned.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/25/2013 17:32
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Well, frankly, (can I say that?) these are the people Medicaid was designed for. Altho I suspect Woodrow Wilson Noble (9.75) will be an expensive addition to the risk pool. That ache, them teefs. If it's cheap to consume it will be consumed. But in this case, well I'm gonna cut Woodrow Wilson Noble (brother of Montgomery Ward Noble?) some slack.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2013 21:28
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Some of the cheapest land in the region is around these places.
The only plot I found that made me groan over the price was: a) an historical farm, b) the site of the only diamond deposit in Kentucky, c) home to multiple oil wells.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
11/25/2013 21:31
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A number of news outlets have reported that Angola has "banned" Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism.
This needs to be much better sourced before I buy a word of it.
Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on Friday sourcing "several" Angolan officials, including the Southwest African nation's minister of culture, Rosa Cruz, who reportedly offered the following remarks, which have been translated from French: "The process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, their mosques would be closed until further notice."
The media reports have not described why exactly Islam apparently faces a need to be legalized despite its presence in the country for many years.
OnIslam.net reports that the African economic news agency Agence Ecofin wrote that Cruz made the statement at an appearance last week before the 6th Commission of the National Assembly. The website goes on to note that, "According to several Angolan newspapers, Angola has become the first country in the world to ban Islam and Muslims, taking first measures by destroying mosques in the country."
Even Angola President José Eduardo dos Santos has weighed in on the controversy, as he was quoted in Nigeria's Osun Defender newspaper on Sunday as saying, "This is the final end of Islamic influence in our country," according to the OnIslam.net report.
The reported comments by Cruz and Santos echo the stance of the governor of the country's Luanda province, Bento Francisco Bento, who reportedly maintains "that radical Muslims were not welcome in Angola and that the government was not ready to legalize the presence of mosques in the country," according to a La Nouvelle Tribune summary of Bento's take on the issue.
In a physical extension of the officials' sentiments about Islam's place in Angola, La Nouvelle Tribune said that a minaret of an Angolan mosque was dismantled last October, and that the city of Zango "has gone further by destroying the only mosque in the city."
The emerging reports about Angola "banning" Islam and dismantling mosques point to the anti-Islam sentiments held by many in the nation's citizens, but they could not immediately be independently verified by International Business Times.
Salt, 48 hour rule, etc.
Angola is a majority-Christian nation of about 16 million people, an estimated 55 percent of whom are Catholic, 25 percent of whom belong to African Christian denominations, 10 percent of whom follow major Protestant traditions, 5 percent of whom belong to Brazilian Evangelical churches and where only between 80,000 and 90,000 people are Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2013
07:39 ||
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Twelve years after the Taliban was ousted from power Afghanistan is planning to reintroduce public stoning as punishment for adultery, according to a new draft penal code.
The move has shocked human rights campaigners and will dismay donors who have poured billions of pounds into the country for reconstruction. It will be viewed as another backwards step at the end of a year that has seen women's rights undermined, with a slew of legislation and murders of prominent women.
Human Rights Watch called for international donors to withhold funding if the government went ahead with the plan. Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said: "It is absolutely shocking that 12 years after the fall of the Taliban government, the (President Hamid) Karzai administration might bring back stoning as a punishment.
"President Karzai needs to demonstrate at least a basic commitment to human rights and reject this proposal out of hand."
The draft -- devised by a working group led by the Justice Ministry and parts of which have been obtained by The Telegraph -- states that unmarried adulterers should be subject to 100 lashes. If they are married, the punishment is stoning in a public place.
Stoning was used as punishment for adultery during Taliban rule, a brutal period which included bans on radio, television and music.
#2
European companies won't sell propofol or sodium thiopental to the US if it is used as part of a lethal injection protocol. But they will still send money to Afghanistan. And the systerhood remains shamefully silent also...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/25/2013 14:23
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Nice to see the US-Allies has successfully modernized Muslim Afghanistan - NOT???
#5
given that there are more than a half dozen haditha authorizing stoning and given that Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Mali, and Pakistan have had stoning for adultery lately, nobody should be surprised about this
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/25/2013 20:34
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The left-wing euphoria over the signing of a historic nuclear agreement with Iran gave way to sober reality Sunday as the parties clashed over a key element of the deal and congressional skeptics threatened to thwart it. I'm having a hard time finding the "clash" in the WaPo article. Except the right vs. left, of course.
In Tehran, officials welcomed the deal as the beginning of a new era for the Islamic republic, with President Rouhani asserting that language in the agreement affirmed Iran's right to enrich uranium, which Iranian officials had demanded as an element of any agreement. They'll sign up for anything, as long as they can keep doing whatever they want.
"Let anyone make his own reading, but this right is clearly stated in the text of the agreement that Iran can continue its enrichment, and I announce to our people that our enrichment activities will continue as before," Rouhani said in a statement broadcast live on television in Iran on Sunday morning. In the mean time, most of the rest of the world keeps scheming to make them stop enrichment. Top men in their field Specialists are working on the framework for the comprehensive nuclear deal to be negotiated with Iran by late spring. The stakes this time will be substantially higher, as Western governments will seek concessions that Iran has fervently opposed, including dismantling several of its key nuclear facilities. Iran, for its part, is expected to demand a suspension of sanctions on its oil and banking industries, relief that would require approval from Congress.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/25/2013
07:22 ||
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#3
The culture does seem to have a "Lord of the "Flies" or "A Clockwork Orange" air about it these days. The children are in charge with no guidance from adults.
#4
I remember learning that the Romans had four really bad emporers in a row and then Marcus Aerelious came along and almost saved things, but one great Emporer wasn't enough to reverse the decline.
I feel like that now. Reagan gave us an extra decade or two but we need another with such clarity of vision.
#1
As I read this, I wondered why State released the photos since this administration had been stone-walling all along. The only reason I can think of is that Davies released most of the photos already.
A Watergate-style investigation would be appropriate--ANYTIME NOW.
#2
If this had been Reagan, Bush, Bush, or Ford, the press would already have their head on a platter and there would have been a special prosecutor six months ago.
Everyone tired of the media carrying water for a coverup instead of investigating it? Tired of eyewitnesses being more closely scrutinized than those whose orders created this debacle?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/25/2013 10:25
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[Pak Daily Times] Terming the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... 's (PTI) move to stop NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... supplies as a wrong one, Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid has said that Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... is "fixed in his purpose of ruining" Pakistain's relations with NATO countries and neighbouring Afghanistan.
Talking to news hounds at the 4th International Literary and Cultural Conference at Alhamra, the minister said, "Anyone who wants to disturb our relations with neighbours is not serving the country," Rashid said. "Because of Imran Khan we could be isolated in the world."
He said that demands regarding closure of NATO supplies by PTI Chairman Imran Khan were unrealistic and did not serve the cause of Pakistain.
"The NATO containers transport food items for the Afghan brethren and not arms, while Paks have close ties with the people of Afghanistan," he added.
He said any step by the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) to stop food supplies to the Afghans could be detrimental to the regional ties.
He said that all Central Asian countries, besides Afghanistan, had cordial relations with NATO countries, and even Iran had improved its ties with the United States.
"Stalled diplomatic relations with Afghanistan could only benefit Pakistain's foes," the minister added.
Commenting on Imran Khan's statement of a thousand-year war, he said the masses always had to bear the consequences of wars.
"Pakistain wants to spread love not hatred," he added.
Pervaiz said that no NATO supplies were run on Saturdays and Sundays, and it was beyond comprehension which NATO supply Imran Khan's PTI wanted to stop on November 23 and 24, the weekend.
"It seems that the PTI leader has always preferred to hold protest rallies on the weekends," he added.
The information minister said that Imran Khan spoke for the Taliban, while his sword was for the US. To a query, he said that no representative from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... was allowed to address the protest rally in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , which raised questions whom the PTI was representing and serving.
He also said that Imran Khan had a dubious stance on drone strikes.
"In the first information report (FIR) lodged against the drone attacks, he (Imran) had not mentioned anyone's name. Didn't Imran know the perpetrators of the drone strikes?" he asked.
"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... had established himself as a great leader at a time when Imran Khan was frolicking on the cricket fields," he recalled.
He said the PML-N government supported peace and rejected the politics of hatred, intolerance and isolation.
He said that Pakistain could not afford the politics of isolation, as it needed friends, not foes, in today's world.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Dawn] Thousands of demonstrators staged a protest against US drone strikes blocking a main road in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. on Saturday and threatened to continue their demonstration until the attacks ended, whereas the provincial secretary information of the PTI announced the party would block NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... supply routes.
The protest was led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... and his party, the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) along with their allies in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... provincial government.
The Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... (JI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad (AJIP) also confirmed their participation.
''We will put pressure on America, and our protest will continue if drone attacks are not stopped,'' Khan told the protesters.
Provincial secretary information of PTI Ishtiaq Ormar announced that NATO supply containers to and from Afghanistan via Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa would be stopped at the border points.
In a statement issued here Saturday, he said, "We by this step wanted to tell the world that we could do what we said and we could do anything for our people."
Ormar said that PTI's teams would stop NATO supply from entering into the borders of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at any point including Khairabad, Charsadda, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan ... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ... and Hangu, while this blockade of NATO supply would continue till US stopped drone attacks and formally sought apology on human killings in Pakistain.
He said that American drone attacks were brutally extended to the settled areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and if this was not noticed and properly reacted then such attacks could also be made at any other part of the country as well.
Earlier during the day, Khan called for a complete blockade of NATO convoys to Afghanistan to put pressure on the US to abandon its drone programme. "We will not allow NATO supplies to pass from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and in any case will stop drone strikes," Khan told the gathering.
"We are here to give a clear message that now Paks cannot remain silent over drone attacks," Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi, a senior member of the PTI, said in a speech to the protesters.
Party workers of the PTI and JI had arrived at Ring Road in the lovely provincial capital from across the country. According to some estimates, around 10,000 people participated in Saturday's protest. The protesters shouted anti-US slogans, such as "Down with America" and "Stop drone attacks."
Strict security arrangements were put in place by the provincial government, including deployment of over 500 polce personnel to ensure safety and order. Transporters were directed to use alternative routes.
"I am participating in today's sit-in to convey a message to America that we hate them since they are killing our people in drone attacks," said Hussain Shah, a 21-year-old university student. "America must stop drone attacks for peace in our country."
The US Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the protest.
The protest comes only two days after a rare US drone strike outside of Pakistain's remote tribal region killed six people, including senior commanders of the Haqqani network, at a seminary in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district. ... Hangu is famous for its greenery, hills, beauty and water. Most of the people of this area are Bangash & Orakzai Pashtuns. Part of the Bangash are Shia. The Orakzai and the Sunni Bangash are determined to kill them...
The attack outraged Pak officials, as did one on Nov 1 that killed the former leader of the Pak Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, a day before the Pak government said it was going to invite him to hold peace talks.
Khan earlier set a November 20 deadline for the halting of drone strikes and threatened to block NATO convoys in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
But on Saturday he said he will take the issue to the country's top court and, if necessary, to the international court of justice.
NATO supplies were suspended Saturday because of the rally, which was held on same route used by NATO trucks.
Ring Road leads to Torkham, one of two border crossings used to ship supplies from Pakistain to Afghanistan, and is a key transit route to transport supplies to NATO troops in the war-torn country.
Tahir Khan, a government official at Torkham, says there is normally little NATO supply traffic on the route on Saturdays. Most trucks arrive at the border by Friday evening to clear customs.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
Maybe we can run some B-52s full of dumb iron over Jalalabad and 'miss' next time they're having one of these protests.
[ARABNEWS] A Yemeni wedding ended in disaster after a guest firing celebratory shots in the air with his AK-47 accidentally killed two men while they were dancing to pop hit "Gangnam Style," according to a police source and a video posted online.
The police source said the guest at the wedding in the southern city of Taiz lost control of his rifle, leading to the deaths. Two other people were being treated in hospital.
A video circulating on the Web purportedly shows the incident, which happened late last week. Its authenticity could not be immediately verified.
The footage shows a man shooting a gun in the air and then starting to dance with several other guests to the hit song.
The rattle of gunfire is then heard and when the camera pans down, bodies are seen lying in pools of blood. The music stops as the guests rush to help the victims.
Celebratory gunfire is common at Yemeni weddings.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Dawn] A seminary student was killed and his two fellows were maimed in an armed attack on their cycle of violence near the Malir Halt bus stop, police said.
They said three students -- Muhammad Adnan, Hamid Zaman and Shahidullah --of Madrassah Ahsan-ul-Uloom in Gulshan-e-Iqbal were returning home on a motorbike when they came under attack."Two men chasing them on a motorbike fired shots at them when they reached a place between the Malir Halt and Kala Board bus stops," said Inspector Aftab Rind, the SHO of the Saudabad cop shoppe. "All three students sustained bullet wounds and were first shifted to a nearby private hospital, but later were moved to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where Hamid Zaman died."
He said the victims were residents of the Quaidabad area and had been associated with the Madrassah Ahsan-ul-Uloom for the past more than five years. The attackers used a 9mm pistol, he added.
"The investigations are at a very early stage, but the attack appeared to be linked with the recent wave of killings being carried out sectarian grounds," said Inspector Rind.
A front man for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat condemned the attack on the seminary students.
"The victims were Dora-e-Hadees students and the attack shows that even students are not being spared. We strongly condemn the incident and demand that the government expedite the process to investigate the Rawalpindi violence."
ASI rubbed out
A police officer was bumped off near Baloch Colony on Saturday, officials said.
They said gunnies on a motorbike fired at the 50-year-old ASI, Jamaldin, when he was going for prayers near an overhead bridge.
"He was crossing the road when fired upon," said an official at the Tipu Sultan cop shoppe. "He sustained two bullet wounds each in the neck and the head and was struck down in his prime. The body was later moved to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities."
He said the victim was associated with the Tipu Sultan cop shoppe and lived in Federal B Area. The victim's colleagues and family were not aware of his enmity with any group or individual.
"The Sherlocks are not sure yet about the exact motive for the killing but suspected the incident as part of the ongoing trend in which coppers are being targeted across the city," he said.
Tortured body found
The body of a young man with multiple torture wounds was found in the Docks cop shoppe area. An official said the victim, who remained unidentified, was found dead along Mauripur Road.
"There was no bullet wound but the wounds of severe torture were visible," he said. "The victim, wearing shalwar kameez, seemed to be in his late 20s or early 30s. The body was shifted to the Edhi morgue for want of identification after medico-legal formalities at the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi." ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[PHILLY] Dennis Rodman is at the top of a list no one wants to be on. He's been named GQ's No. 1 least influential celebrity of 2013.
The 52-year-old former basketball player who has visited Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... in North Korea was selected as the top pick in the magazine's third annual list of the least influential celebrities, which also includes twerking pop star Miley Cyrus, President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... , and celebrity chef Paula Deen. GQ called Rodman a "Q-list celebrity willing to commit borderline treason just to hang out with a dictator who himself aspires to be a Q-list celebrity."
Rodman said this week he's preparing to return to North Korea late next month for an exhibition basketball tour.
Deen, whose cooking empire imploded this year after she admitted to having used the N-word to describe black employees, came in at No. 2 on the list behind Rodman, while former sexting U.S. Rep. Anthony Carlos Danger Weiner ...aka Hot Dog Tony, the remarkably offensive sex maniac six-term New York congressman who resigned in 2011, then decided everybody had forgotten by 2013, when he decided to run for mayor of New York City... took the No. 3 spot.
"He's the saddest lecher in American politics, and that's saying something, because they're all lechers," the magazine said.
Cyrus, who garnered attention at this year's MTV Video Music Awards for her provocative performance with a foam finger, won the No. 6 position for "basically trying every inane strategy she could think of to rile up America's few remaining pearl clutchers." The magazine noted "what's sad is that it totally worked."
Obama came in at No. 17 because "nothing gets done."
Other celebrities deemed non-influential include Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
Obama came in at No. 17 because "nothing gets done."
Not so bad. Consider what things might be like if he did get things done. We would look like a full-blown executive branch dictatorship or a socialistic nightmare.
#2
JohnQC - Good point. I was discussing Obama vs. Bill Clinton, and she reminded me that I didn't think Bill was so bad because he did very little that he said he was going to do when he campaigned.
#3
I don't know, I think he has managed to get a lot done. None of it good for the country or working/middle class though.
Obamacare, the banking bill, NDAA, several other bills that I can't remember and has managed to distribute countless billions of dollars into the pockets of his cronies.
Miserable commie bastard.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
11/25/2013 14:00
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[An Nahar] The Paleostinian leadership and the family of jacket wallah Adnan Mohammed, who targeted the Iranian embassy in Beirut earlier this week, disavowed him on Sunday after a similar move by the relatives of the other bomber.
The leadership reiterated its condemnation of the attack and stood by Leb and its leaders in "confronting criminal groups that have no religious or patriotic belongings."
"The cowardly act is a private action ... and serves only the enemies of our cause," it said in a statement.
Mohammed's family also "condemned with the strongest terms this criminal act," which it said served Israel.
The family extended condolences to the relatives of those killed in "the cowardly act."
It also condoled the Islamic Theocratic Republic over the death of Ibrahim Ansari, a 54-year-old Iranian diplomat, in the bombing.
"This personal act has nothing to do with the family and its patriotic history in addition to its deaders in resisting the Zionist enemy," said the statement.
Mohammed's relatives also thanked the security and social leaderships of the town of Baysariyeh and mainly the municipal chief for "expressing their understanding to this private act which is far away from our values."
"Our choice was and will always be the resistance," they said.
On Friday, the family of Moein Abu Dahr, the Lebanese bomber, "strongly" condemned in a released statement the deadly kabooms.
"We are deeply saddened that one of our relatives is accused of being behind the Bir Hassan kabooms," the statement posted on several Sidon-based websites said.
"We condemn this awful crime and we do not have enough words to describe it, offering our condolences to the families of the victims," the statement added.
Lebanese Sherlocks have identified the two suspects in the bombings of the Iranian Embassy ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!... in Beirut's southern suburbs through DNA testing.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Tolo News] Security officials in Kabul on Saturday reported that five separate plots for suicide kabooms targeting the Loya Jirga had been discovered and thwarted, with conspirators now in jug.
On Sunday, the last day of the four-day Loya Jirga convened in Kabul to discuss the Kabul-Washington Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), the head of the Jirga's Security Commission confirmed that terrorist groups had attempted to disrupt proceedings.
"Over five groups, with all their equipment, boom jackets, bombs thousands of explosives were placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! ," head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) Rahmatullah Nabeel said. "We have also seized 10 rocket launchers and 22 BM1 rockets."
The Jirga grounds were targeted by a Taliban-claimed suicide kaboom last week, which left 42 casualties, including women and kiddies.
The Taliban, as well as Hezb-e-Islami, have condemned the BSA, and the Jirga for even considering prolonging the presence of foreign troops beyond 2014.
While praising the Afghan cops for their efforts to thwart further attacks this week, officials expressed confidence in the capabilities of the Afghan forces.
"I want to tell the people that the security forces of Afghanistan are capable of maintaining broader security as well, and our security forces are capable of maintaining elections security," Nabeel said.
It has been estimated that close to 25,000 soldiers and police were designated for the Jirga, which gathered some 2,500 leaders from around the country. Streets around the capital were shut down as part of security precautions organized for the event.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Bangla Daily Star] The role and participation of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... in national politics require close scrutiny by authorities as the organization has created deep concerns about protecting the rights of women, minorities and others, according to a pre-election observation report.
The BNP, in particular, must also reflect on the possible role that Jamaat may be playing in its party and work to distance itself from this bad boy organization, said the report prepared by two Canadian politicians.
"Concern was expressed that women's and minority rights may be impaired, and other Islamist ideals such as Sharia law may gain traction should a Jamaat-influenced BNP take power after the election," it said.
This Islamist party has recently been de-listed by Bangladesh's Election Commission and is unable to run candidates in the next polls.
"Even so, there was widespread agreement that Jamaat is still a major factor in Bangladeshi politics, as the organization is well-financed and may be gaining influence within the main opposition party, BNP," the report said.
The SADF (South Asia Democratic Forum) Pre-election Observer Mission, comprised of Canadian MPs Russ Hiebert and Joe Daniel, spent three days from November 12 in Dhaka, examining the national political situation.
The politicians were accompanied by two support staff -- Antonio Vieira da Cruz, SADF executive director for Canada, and Peter Stock, chief of staff to Hiebert.
The members of the mission met leaders from a large cross-section of people, including religious leaders, journalists, lawyers, academics, former government and military officials, and representatives of various civil society organizations.
The mission is convinced that lasting political stability can be achieved if both the government and opposition parties commit to fundamental reforms that will move Bangladesh towards democratic maturity.
It observed that the International War Crimes Tribunal has served an important role in addressing a tragedy from the country's recent history and allowing the nation to move forward.
The Anti-Corruption Commission legislation must be changed to ensure that the commission is arm's length and does not need the government's permission to commence investigations.
While the calling of peaceful general strike by the opposition BNP to pressure the government on critical matters may be acceptable, what is clearly unacceptable is the widespread violence.
Finally, the mission found that political stability is essential for Bangladesh to move forward socially and economically and to hold free, fair and credible polls.
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11/25/2013
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[Tolo News] At least two non-combatants were killed and an National Police officer was injured on Sunday by a kaboom in Jalalabad city, local officials said.
The incident took place in the fourth District of Jalalabad city, the capital of the eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
A bomb was placed inside a trash bin near an Afghan National Army (ANA) security checkpoint, according to Provincial Governor Spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.
Local police said the victims were taken to a nearby hospital for emergency care and that preliminary investigations were underway.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
OOOOOOO - so close but yet so far. No McDonald's McRib meal promo for Alan today.
IMO the real litmus test will be China - clearly the Iran deal is meant, among other, to help the Dems in 2014 Midterms [2016?]. HOW OBAMA HANDLES HIS "RED LINES" VEE CHINA IN ECS + SCS MAY INSPIRE [or Not?] SOON-TO-BE-NUKULAAR RADICAL ISLAM + JIHADIS.
Given the post-2015 or 2017 "sea change(s)" that could occur in Amerika due to ...
* Immigration reform affecting up to alleged 25.0-45.0Milyuhn illegals - you know, "11.0Milyuhn" as per the official Fed-Govt. figures. BY EXTENS ALSO PRO-VS-ANTI-ILLEGAL BORDER SECURITY.
* PROPOSED BUDGET-DEBT BUSTING, ANTI-SEQUESTER NEW QES FOR 2014. "Debt Ceiling(s)" as defined to become all but absolutely irrelevant or meaningless.
* CUBA = The Bammer has said he wants to achieve new rapprochement, better relations wid Uncles Fidel + Raul. PUERTO RICO HAS GONE THROUGH EIGHT YEARS OF BACK-TO-BACK RECESSIONS.
IRAN = ASSADIAN SYRIA = RELATIVELY SAFE THRU SUMMER 2014 IN MINIMA AS LONG AS NEW AGREEMENTS ARE BEING FOLLOWED, unless somebody does something really stupid ...
Whomever GOP,Dem is POTUS after Jan 2017 will inherit an Amerika in horrendous debt, + quite possibly in realistic GeoPol retreat/fallback all around the world.
#5
My morning news people were acting a bit surprised at having to defend this act. I'm not sure if that was part of the script, or if like most people a 3am "Sign the treaty to find out what is in it" surprised them in the pre-cast run-through.
I'm pretty sure Neville signed the danged thing because he knew the pulse of the landscape. The disarmament movement was in full flower, the leftists and liberals were saying "anything but war", and the communists were everywhere trying to undermine capitalism.
At least, I believe Chamberlain had a good idea that Hitler could not be trusted but the old French, the sissified Vichy French, not the NEW French leading us around on a leash dragging us into doing the right thing, pretty well handcuffed the Brits, what were they to do?
He had the common sense to crank up arms production and start calling up conscripts for a larger British Army.
The trouble is, I don't think Kerry, Obama, or Biden even comprehend that Rouhani and the boys, just bent them over the table and didn't even kiss them or pat them on the butt when it was over.
This treaty essentially brings war to the middle east.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/25/2013 10:52
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#7
Meanwhile somewhere in the Great Beyond James Buchanan is crossing his fingers and thinking please, please, OH PLEASE!
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/25/2013 18:36
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#10
DAILY STAR LEBANON > US-IRAN THAW STARTS TO RESHAPE MIDEAST POWER.
In favor of IRAN.
* MEMRI.ORG > [Iraq-based Al-Muktar Army founder] IRAQI SHIITE LEADER WATHEG AL-BATTAT: I WILL SUPPORT IRAN IN A WAR AGZ IRAQ; IRAN IS A SUPERPOWER THAT CAN OVERCOME 15 SUPERPOWERS, WITH CELLS THROUGHOUT THE REGION + INFLUENCE FROM CHINA TO THE US, WE CONTROL 23,000 MARTYRDOM SEEKERS.
* WAFF > [JPost] [Israeli DM Moshe Y. TO US SecDef Hagel] YA'ALON: NUCLEAR IRAN COULD PLANT "DIRTY BOMB" ANYWHERE IN WEST.
ARTIC > ISRAEL = IRAN desires to promote Terror [Nuke Terrorism, WMDS?] activities under the protection = cover of a Nuclear Umbrella.
* WORLD NEWS > [BBC] IRAN SANCTIONS COULD BE LIFTED IN DECEMBER - [French FM] FABIUS.
* WORLD NEWS > LEBANON TURNING INTO BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN ISLAMISTS, AL-QAEDA, + JIHADISTS.
[MACAULAY "SAY IT TAINT SO" CAULKIN CUTE SLAPPY FACE here].
* JAPAN TIMES > IMPERFECT NUCLEAR DEAL IS THE US' "LEAST BAD" OPTION.
The US is repor concerned about Al-Qaeda affiliates setting up in Lebanon - In sum, THE BAMMER WOULD HAVE HAD TO BREAK HIS PLEDGE TO BRING US TROOPS HOME FROM AFGHANIS OR AFPAK, AS OPPOS TO RE-DEPLOYING THESE SAME + ADDITIONAL MAJOR GROUND COMBAT FORCES + SUPPORT INSTEAD TO T-H-R-E-E DIFFERENT MIDDLE EAST COUNTRIES.
IMO this interim nuke deal is notsomuch about Iran's NucProgs, but more about what Shia Iran can do to help to contain or destroy Al-Qaeda + foreign Militant groups now establishing themselves in + around the [Eastern] Mediterranean region.
VERSUS
* DAILY STAR LEBANON > WEAK AT HOME, FRANCE SEEKS [Foreign Policy-led] GRANDEUR ABROAD.
The Bammer is seemingly doing the same thing, but beneath the surface may covertly going for a OWG Amerika weak both at home as well as overseas.
* SAME > GULF STATES CLOSER TO DEVELOPING THEIR OWN NUCLEAR PROGRAMS.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SAUDI ARABIA WILL NOT SIT IDLY BY IFF THE WEST FAILS WID IRAN.
To stop AL-Qaeda, etal = Future Jihad agz Europe, etal, IFF THE USA = BAMMERIKA CAN TOLERATE A NUCLEAR SHIA IRAN, TO INCLUDE AS POTENS OWG "CO-SUPERPOWER", CAN IT DO ALSO FOR NON-SHIA OR MAJOR NON-SHIA SUNNI MUSLIM NATIONS???
* RELATED? WORLD MILITARY FORUM > US, EUROPEAN MEDIAS: US MUST NOT BE DRAGGED INTO SINO-JAPANESE MILITARY CONFLICT OVER DIAOYU ISLANDS. US INTERVENTION OVER DISPUTED ISLANDS DOES NOT MATCH OR SATISFY US INTERESTS.
FYI MILBLOGGERS = Many believe the US = Bammerika will NOT intervene in ECS [andor SCS] agz China unless ally Japan per se is at threat of de facto Chinese PLA invasion + occupation???
* JAPAN TIMES > US PUSHING NEW TRADE DEALS [Trans-Pac, Trans-Atlantic] AT EXPENSE OF NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
Yeeeuuup - "Borderless", anti-sovereign Amerika starting in 2015 or ASAP after.
[FOXNEWS] Bankrupt and hemorrhaging population, the city of bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang... is banking on greener pastures to lead its rebirth.
A private company is snapping up 150 acres on the Motor City's East End -- property where more than 1,000 homes once formed a gritty neighborhood -- and turning it into what is being billed as the world's largest urban farm. Hantz Woodlands plans to start by planting trees, but hopes to raise crops and even livestock in the future, right in the midst of the once-proud city.
"We are interested with moving into different types of agriculture," Mike Score, president of Hantz, told FoxNews.com.
Hantz needed approval from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to buy up the 1,500 parcels for approximately $450,000, or $300 per parcel. Many of the parcels held dilapidated and abandoned homes and buildings and were condemned by the city. Others were rubble-strewn or weed-choked lots. The company intends to spend $3 million to clean out the areas.
"Your eyes would have a hard time absorbing the blight," Score said. "A third of every neighborhood in Detroit has been devalued by blight on public property.
Score and local officials believe a well-run farm is the best way to stabilize the area's downward spiral, and help surrounding homes and businesses keep their property values from falling further.
Score says that once the sale is complete, his company will spend the winter clearing 15 acres to plant 15,000 trees during the first phase. They also intend to add orchards further down the line.
Not everyone is a fan of turning such a huge swath of Detroit into a farm. The proposal was met with criticism from local residents and even area agricultural groups. It squeaked by the City Council by a razor-thin margin of 5-4.
"I think there's concern in this transaction," said Nevin Cohen, a professor of Environmental Studies at New York's New School who has been monitoring the plan. "The city [Detroit] needs to figure out its blight problem without hurting the members of the community."
"Replicating a community farm is not as important as addressing issues of race and class concerns -- which underlie Detroit's problems," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
I agree with New School's Nevin Cohen. Farming is actually the root of the problem, not the solution. Had we learned to pick our own cotton in the first place, none of this would have happened.
#2
Then the next problem is how to protect the crop so the folks from the 'hood come down at harvest time and go through the farm like a blight of locusts.
Got to think these things through.
First thing to do is to raze all the abandoned buildings, then dig up the streets you don't need. You are going to have to look into hazardous waste sites, too. Get all the abandoned buildings out right up to the occupied ones.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/25/2013 1:21
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#5
Nevin Cohen says "Replicating a community farm is not as important as addressing issues of race and class concerns -- which underlie Detroit's problems,"
Yes. If only Detroit had a black mayor and blacks as heads of all the public utilities, safety departments and school positions. If only that had happened, Detroit would be paradise today.
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/25/2013 6:09
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#6
Farms tend to attract vermin. Pest control is a big problem. Thgat's why most farmers own .22s. Almost huntin season here. Soon they'll have white tail rats in the Detroit farms. Need .30s them. Soon Detroit will be civilized again. Going back to the farm. Makes me think of Garrison Keiler.
#8
Zoning will not permit crops and cultivation. Rats and mice will do the rest(no kill traps). Use only Monsanto approved genetically enhanced seed also. No seed of your own variety. No unauthorized sprays or fertilizers. On and on. Tax on estimated product value. Only politically connected will be approved upon submission of proposed agricultural effort in approved format. The welfare people must be given a percentage of product produced.Only approved hauling of product but never out of city limits.Sites will be monitored for compliance and strictly enforced. No weeds over 2 inches.OH my, my, my all the new laws. Removal of any toxic soil contamination.
#9
During desperate times agriculture becomes an easy target. Kitchener and Roberts had studied General Sherman's handling of rebellion not 40 years previously. Insurgencies and armed resistance subside rather quickly on empty bellies.
#10
...so zero out the EBT cards (just don't do what Walmart did in Louisiana). Then fire'm back up in areas you want the herd to move out to. You'll be amazed how many will find the means to get to 'free stuff'. Cap the area's overall authorization to prevent too many squatters in one place. They'll figure it out soon enough.
#11
A fair amount of the population has moved out of Detroit. The abandoned houses are not fit to live in and not needed anyway. Raze them. Soon, deer, wild turkey, pheasants will return. Open up the area to hunting.
#12
If they start by planting trees they'll never be allowed to farm - I'm sure there would be fights over every tree they'd want to cut down to make way for crops (ignoring the fact that trees can be crops).
#13
Farms don't cause stability, farms are the result of stability. Was true with the first agrarians, true with Athens' olive groves, and true today. To have an actual farmland these lands will have to be patrolled and maintained or else there will be packs of ferel dogs and pigs, as well as bandit hideouts and weed farms, gypsy camps.
Honest question: what sort of orchards would be successful in north Michigan downwind of the lakes? Sounds like the chance for late frost and a short grow season would eliminate any fruiting orchards, so lumber orchards?
At the time of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza the Jewish greenhouses made up 10% of the Gaza economy. Several monied Jewish people including George Soros bought the Greenhouses from the settler families and donated them back to Gaza, but Hamas destroyed them.
#18
IIRC after the Roman Empire fell, the cities became much smaller and both the village and the farms could fit within the old city walls.
The walls kept out the harvest-time plunderers and the larger wild animals. Frequently the dark age inhabitants only occupied one corner of the old city.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/25/2013 11:49
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Before the withdrawal last summer, Gush Katif was a thriving bloc of communities most of whose residents worked in agriculture. In the wake of the expulsion, some wealthy American Jews (and Microsoft giant Bill Gates) bought several of the more successful greenhouses from the Jewish deportees for $14 million. The philanthropists then gave the 1.3 million Palestinian- Gazan victors the greenhouses plus 790 acres of sand dunes that the Jews had turned into fertile farmland. But instead of working the greenhouses to grow the produce which had made Jewish Gush Katif successful, the Arabs systematically dismantled many of them, looting whatever was not nailed down.
#23
Which with any cash crop requires constant supervision and willingness to protect that cash crop with force, especially around harvest time.
I actually am intrigued at the idea. Nothing grows conservatism like farming and ranching.
150 acres is nice size yet managable. But it requires stability, so the Midieval model of the walled farmland with todays cameras and QRFs to keep out squatters, with the idea of a quick harvest to pre-empt any flash mob raid of ready produce. Of course a-holes are going to do stuff like throw dogs and such over the walls, but the walls would keep ferel dog packs from invading the surrounding neighborhoods. But who will run it? Seems everyone is too good to farm, especially when food shows up in the mailbox every month, so why farm? So does it count as community service? The response from the black community being forced to farm as law punishment will be classic, grouped together with the soft handed suburbanites trading community service instead of jail time.
#24
Thank you Nimble, not familiar with the regional agriculture, which does make a difference.
So leave the walls down, as said the tilled soil attracts vermin, constant weeding, picking off tomato worms, small critters attract predators so then you have bobcats and dog packs roaming about. Predators + Livestock and you will see a first hand example of why the 4 round magazine is a joke. See how many people will just sit back and take losing 2 years put into an animal, or grove. Gonna put five years into a tree just to watch somebody cut it down for free firewood?
Speaking of which, and this is Detroit, what happens when somebody sets this place on fire? Anybody there know wildland fire techniques? I want to be there when one of those massive city pumpers gets off the pavement and on spongy ground. Can't sit there and take it, not with 150 acres, there will be embers all across downwind.
Build a 6 foot stone wall castle-style, with the skin being solid and the middle is the crunched debris from the area. This is to keep animals in, put up appropriate signage about the dangers of wild animals put up loud speakers to occasionally make scary will-o-whisp wailing noises. Four lanes width of dirt which is plowed daily after trackers have made the round. The six lanes width of Hedge trees. Everything left is Oak rows, every 100 yards is a six lane road grid. Every harvest is taken from a newly laid six lane road, offset from the last season's grid. Area set aside for harvested and cleaned trees to set for however long. Facility on site to plank the oak and distribute to woodshops located right beside - furniture, veneer, miniature USS Constitutions, whatever, saw dust into wood pellets.
Now, stock the place with boar. They will have acorns to eat, and designated feeder spots where food garbage can be dropped. Maybe some pig friendly wood grids here and there. Let people crossbow hunt, keep the mount and the meat.
The walls are tall enough to keep the pigs in, and most dogs out but not so tall as to be weird. The grid rows work for harvest, utility, and fire breaks. The pigs should keep those people who brave the hedge, out on their own accord. Supply a local industry with both lumber and free range restaurant food.
Besides, it seems only Nevin used the word Community Farm. He can go play in the hedge.
Do that and I am on the investment course, heck maybe good an Oak wood accented Ford down the line.
#27
*and by let crossbow hunt, I mean charge them and they have to hire at least one of your guides. Charge for mounting and cleaning, and charge again for food prep such as cuts into sausage. Charge for the mount prep and again for final taxidermy if they want you to do it as opposed to having their own favorite taxidermist.
#28
Of course all the work will be done by un-registered aliens.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/25/2013 15:30
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#29
Remember "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire"? They were called "the poor man's bread" and were planted all over cities in the 19th C, for the poor to gather. My grandmother ate chestnuts she and her sister gathered in winter from Brooklyn. Blight killed the chestnuts off decades ago. We are finally seeing blight-resistant chestnuts in the garden centers.
I hope this project succeeds. From at least the 1950s, when my mom taught in Chicago, up to now, school kids who come from inner city environments have no idea where food comes from. Mom's class drew cows and chickens the same size because they'd never seen them except in books, and I see that still in the classes I volunteer in. Kids need to see food production up close and personal.
Garden projects in inner cities have helped teach kids valuable work habits. I say, go for it!
#31
Of course all the work will be done by un-registered aliens.
I didn't take into account the incentives needed to get somebody to move from Mogadishu to Detroit ;)
Too many don't know how to use a tape measurer or table saw. Others got a pocket of electric gold, draw their pay with an X on the back of a check.
Couple acres for farm and livestock tours, acre for a vo-tec school, acre for arbor science, and technology. But I want to make money, because if I'm making money I am spending money, and if I'm spending money other people are making money. Its why I like the idea of lumber. Less maintenence than fruits or veggies, harvest is a snap with some of those machines out there. Centrally located processing means quick turnaround from cut to deliver; also cut down on noise pollution.
Hantz Group, had to look it up, is insurance, finances, banking, etc.
#32
Had we learned to pick our own cotton in the first place, none of this would have happened.
Dang! True, but not the proximate cause. Before the 1930s, blacks voted solidly Republican. Not for the party that supported slavery and the KKK, then bribed them with handouts and fairy tales.
Yes, race and class figure - white leftists own the mess too.
#33
#27 *and by let crossbow hunt, I mean charge them and they have to hire at least one of your guides.
And maybe, just maybe, some of us might live long enough to see an ancient Skip Gates in a PBS documentary, having crept right up on the beasts and backed away to safety, backslap his "native guide" and gush, "You're the baddest American I ever met!" (In an old PBS program documenting his family's trip to Africa, he called the paleface guide who got him close enough to some elephants to hear the flies, "the baddest African I ever met!")
[An Nahar] Egypt's interim president Adly Mansour approved a controversial law Sunday that regulates demonstrations and gives authorities the power to ban protests deemed a "threat" to national security, officials said.
The law also says protesters can be tossed in the calaboose ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... for up to five years if found guilty of offenses ranging from covering their faces to carrying weapons while participating in demonstrations, presidency front man Ehab Badawi told news hounds.
Egypt's military justified its July 3 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... by saying it was responding to massive protests against his turbulent year-long rule.
But Egyptian rights groups said during the drafting of the bill that it would "criminalize all forms of peaceful assembly" and give authorities a "free hand" to forcibly disperse demonstrators.
Interim prime minister Hazem Beblawi, of the military-installed government, defended the measure in an interview with Agence La Belle France Presse, saying: "It is not a law that limits the right to demonstrate, but it aims at protecting the right of protesters."
Presidency front man Badawi said protesters must give "three day written notice" to a cop shoppe near to where the demonstration is to be held.
He said it also bans demonstrations "at places of worship" or starting from such places.
The advance notice would need to include details about the organizers of the demonstration, its purpose and what slogans will be chanted, he added.
Badawi said the authorities have the right to prohibit a demonstration "if it is felt to be a threat to national security."
But he said security forces must first verbally warn protesters at prohibited demonstrations to disperse before using water cannon or tear gas, and should only gradually escalate to the firing of birdshot if other means fail.
Rights groups had strongly criticized earlier drafts of the law.
"The draft law seeks to criminalize all forms of peaceful assembly, including demonstrations and public meetings, and gives the state (a) free hand to disperse peaceful gatherings by use of force," a group of 19 Egyptian rights groups said in a joint statement on Sunday before the law was given the green light.
Egypt's new military-installed authorities are engaged in a sweeping crackdown on Islamist supporters of Morsi, who regularly stage protests demanding the reinstatement of the country's first freely elected leader.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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North Korea may be pushing a highly potent form of methamphetamine into the United States, a development that came to light in an indictment unsealed today in New York.
Yet another reason why, in a just world, we'd figure out where Pudgy sleeps at night and bomb him...
Five foreign nationals arrested in Thailand were charged with being part of an Asia-based syndicate that plotted to smuggle meth produced in North Korea to New York. Court records indicate that the suppliers agreed to sell 100 kilograms of North Korean meth -- at $60,000 a kilogram -- to a drug trafficker who was actually working with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to Stanton, the suspects have been extradited to the U.S. They aren't going to be too happy so they'll likely sing in return for a reduced sentence.
One of the defendants bragged that his organization was the only one that could procure meth from North Korea after a government crackdown. "The North Korean government already burned all the labs," court records quoted the defendant as saying. "Only our labs are not closed. To show Americans that they are not selling it anymore, they burned it. Then they transfer to another base."
He said his group had a stockpile of more than a ton of meth, the purity of which was at "Breaking Bad" levels of 99 percent.
A federal official briefed on the case told ABC News that evidence over the years had suggested that North Korean meth -- considered to be extremely pure -- typically found its way to China, where it was then sold. The Chinese government, while not open about the issue, has cracked down on the pipeline.
The indictment released today stemmed from a larger investigation, which led to the arrest in September of former Army sniper Joseph Hunter and four others. Hunter, nicknamed "Rambo," was accused of recruiting the four former soldiers from the U.S. and Europe to murder a DEA agent and the agent's informant.
Prosecutors in New York said the planned double murder was part of what the defendants believed was a larger scheme to import large volumes of cocaine into the U.S.
The investigation is ongoing and is expected to yield additional arrests in the coming weeks.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2013
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#1
I know Ron Reagan would have already sent Pudge a love note attached to a cruise missile to punctuate his displeasure at this development.
Why in the FUCK haven't we done something about this regime...who is protecting them? HELL even the freaking Chinese are fed up with NORK. Everyone would be thrilled if someone would just blow up him and his entire command staff, like send a couple of harpoon missiles to the grand stand at one of his periodic, look at all my soldiers sucking at the tit of a regime starving its people.
Geez, please someone have the balls to rid this planet of this festering boil of a country.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/25/2013 10:35
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[An Nahar] Police in Kenya launched operations Sunday against armed hard boyz who have laid siege to a village in the country's northwest amid a border dispute between communities.
A day earlier, hard boyz surrounding the village of Lorokon, home to the clashing rival Pokot and Turkana communities, seized three cop shoppes and put up "heavy resistance" against police sent to the area, authorities said.
"Two operations are being carried out... to re-establish order in Lorokon," the National Disaster Operations Center wrote on its Twitter feed Sunday without giving further details.
"The siege is still ongoing," the center said.
Earlier Sunday the NDOC had reported that festivities had ended but that hard boyz were still in the area.
Kenyan authorities, who imposed a curfew in the area Saturday, were not immediately available for comment on the siege.
According to a statement from the Kenyan Red Thingy, "an estimated 600 to 900 residents of the village are surrounded by Pokot gunnies who are said to be numbering over 150".
The organization said leaders from the two communities were due to meet on Sunday to try to resolve the dispute.
Two Red Thingy teams were in the meantime negotiating with the leaders to get humanitarian access to residents facing a crisis after days spent unable to leave the village.
"More than 900 people, mostly women and kiddies, cannot go out to look for water and food because they are surrounded by gunnies," regional governor Josphat Nanok warned, in comments quoted by the Kenyan press agency on Saturday.
According to the Red Thingy, trouble began on November 18 after the death of two Pokot, blamed on the Turkana tribe. Retaliating Pokot then surrounded the village.
The Turkana and Pokot tribes, experienced in fighting and farming, often clash, mostly over cattle rustling and territory.
The current crisis in Turkana South is "not new", said the Red Thingy.
"This is a resource-based conflict which includes land, pasture, water, cattle rustling and politics.... Even if the current stalemate is resolved, we are almost certain that this will recur."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Tolo News] On the last day of the Loya Jirga in Kabul, on Sunday, the gathering's Chairman, Sebghatullah Mujadadi, said that if President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... did not follow the Jirga's recommendation to sign the Kabul-Washington security pact, then he would flee Afghanistan.
Mujadadi's comments come at a time when many are anxious about the next few years in Afghanistan, with the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... coalition withdrawing in 2014 and the country's first potential democratic transition of Presidential power lying around the corner in April.
In recent weeks, Afghanistan has been consumed by debate over the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), which would ensure a close military partnership between the U.S. and Afghanistan post-2014.
The Loya Jirga on Sunday voted to approve the BSA, which will now be forwarded on to both houses of the National Assembly for formal ratification.
"We want to sign this agreement and it must be signed," Mujadadi said on Sunday. "This is something that we cannot give up. For now, the President should promise us that he will sign the agreement soon and as far as our experience, knowledge and Islamic law shows, Inshallah this agreement is in our favor."
On Thursday, during is opening speech at the Jirga, President Karzai said he would not sign the accord - even if it was approved by the Jirga and Parliament - until after the spring Presidential elections.
However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... U.S. officials have demanded the pact be finalized before the end of the year.
Mujadadi assured TOLOnews that if the BSA was not signed, then he would leave Afghanistan
"We request for this agreement to be signed soon and if President Karza does not sign, then I promise you that, though I have been a servant to this nation for the past thirty five years, I will resign," Mujadadi said. "I will resign from everything and will emigrate from this country and will say that I have fled the bad policies of our government."
Many have argued the BSA is essential to Afghanistan's future stability and progress.
And if the agreement is not lived-up to by the U.S., Mujadadi said the Jirga would be responsible.
"If our friends the Americans deny any article of the agreement, then we, the nation will be the ones to answer."
Many experts have argued the Jirga is more in Afghanistan's interest than the U.S., which is war-weary after 12 years of combat.
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11/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba's lawyer and a member of his party have been tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! on suspicion of tampering with witnesses in the ex-warlord's war crimes trial in The Hague, party officials said Sunday.
The chairman of Bemba's opposition party the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) said International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... warrants were carried out against politician Fidele Babala Wandu in Kinshasa and lawyer Aime Kilolo at Brussels airport.
The ICC confirmed a total of four arrests had been made, including Babala Wandu and Kilolo.
MLC front man Germain Kambinga told Agence La Belle France Presse Babala Wandu was arrested at his home overnight Saturday to Sunday by security forces holding the ICC warrants.
He was being held in the prosecutor's office in Kinshasa. "We did not know about this warrant. We were all surprised, we are in shock," Kambinga said.
Following news of the arrests, members of the MLC met with the president of the National Assembly, Aubin Minaku, to discuss the "regrettable incident," Kambinga said.
The 57-year-old Babala Wandu was Bemba's private secretary when he was DR Congo's vice-president from 2003 to 2006.
Bemba's rebel army is accused of atrocities in the Central African Republic and he has been jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! by the ICC since 2008, charged with three war crimes counts and two of crimes against humanity for murder, rape and pillaging.
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Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili has been elected chairman of Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party. The participants of the ruling party's congress, held on Nov. 24 in Tbilisi, unanimously supported Garibashvili's appointment to this post.
Georgian Energy and Natural Resources Minister, Kakha Kaladze was elected the party's Secretary General. 12 members of the governing body of Political Council were also elected.
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[Pak Daily Times] The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) on Sunday threatened Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid of dire consequences for following the tone of Awami National Party (ANP) leaders while issuing statements.
TTP front man Shahidullah Shahid warned the minister that if he continued to tread the ANP's path, he would be treated in the same manner as the Taliban had been treating the ANP. He said that the minister should keep up with the Pakistain Musselmen League-Nawaz and not come close to the ANP, otherwise his fate will be worse. A few days ago, the front man had said in a statement that the terrorist organization would teach a lesson to the Pakistain government for helping the US "kill our leader".
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[Dawn] Two soldiers were killed and five others injured Sunday when a roadside kaboomexploded near a security forces' convoy in North Wazoo's Mir Ali area, DawnNews reported.
According to sources, a remote-controlled bomb, planted along the road near Karamkot in Mirali Tehsil, exploded when the security forces' convoy was travelling from Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... to Mirali. Subsequently, two soldiers were killed on the spot whereas five others were maimed.
The injured persons were taken to Miranshah Hospital and later shifted to Bannu.
Following the attack, security forces' personnel cordoned off the area and a search operation went underway.
North Waziristan is one of the seven regions in Pakistain's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) governed by tribal laws. An bully boy insurgency led by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) plagues the region and the area is known to be infested with bad turbans, including those from Al Qaeda and other armed bully boy organizations.
The region also comes under attacks from US drones frequently which target bad turban hideouts in the area.
Explosions in Upper Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... kill three, injure one
At least three people, including two students, were killed and one other injured today in two separate kabooms that took place in Upper Kurram Agency, DawnNews reported.
According to the political administration of the area, a roadside kaboomexploded near a car in the Shablan area of Upper Kurram Agency. Subsequently, two people were killed whereas one person sustained injuries.
The second kaboom occurred in the Dal area of Upper Kurram Agency, killing one person.
Following the kabooms, the political administration cordoned off the area and a probe into the incident went underway.
Kurram Agency, which is close to the Pakistain-Afghanistan border, is one of the seven regions in FATA, governed by tribal laws.
Separately, a police official was killed when unknown motorcylists opened fire on him within the remit of the Bannu Township cop shoppe.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... a roadside-bomb was defused near Karam Kot on the Miranshah-Mirali road.
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11/25/2013
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#1
Sounds like they should be encouraging MORE drone attacks, not trying to stop them.
[USATODAY] Heavy festivities between Syrian troops and rebels trying to break a government siege in the suburbs of Damascus have killed at least 160 fighters over two days, activists said Sunday.
Forces loyal to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... have laid siege for months to rebel strongholds in the Ghouta area east of Damascus, preventing food, clean water, medicine and other supplies from entering in a bid to crush resistance.
The tactic, which activists say has led to famine, has helped government troops capture a string of rebel-held areas over the past month on Damascus' doorstep.
The government push around the capital has coincided with gains by Assad's forces around the northern city of Aleppo as well as a new offensive in the rugged Qalamoun region north of Damascus.
The recent victories have shifted the momentum of the conflict in Assad's favor and given the Syrian leader greater leverage in proposed peace talks that the U.S. and Russia are trying to convene to end the civil war.
The intense fighting in the eastern Ghouta area began on Friday when several rebel groups attacked government forces, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an activist based in Qalamoun. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.
There was no word on the battle from government media.
Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said the rebels were trying to open the road between Ghouta and the outside.
He said more than 160 fighters were killed Friday and Saturday, including nearly 100 rebels, most of them from al-Qaeda-linked groups, the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Among the more than 60 fighters killed on the government side were 20 gunnies from the Iraqi Shiite Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas brigade, he said.
Abdurrahman bases his information on a network of activists on the ground, as well as employees of military hospitals who fill him in on army casualties.
The corpse count is unusually high for such a short period, testifying to the ferocity of the fighting.
It also points to the increasingly sectarian nature of the conflict, with Sunni Moslemgunnies bolstering rebel ranks and Shiite gunnies from Iraq and Leb fighting on the government side.
Abdurrahman also said that at least two Syrian media activists were killed as they covered the festivities in eastern Ghouta.
One of those was Ammar Tabajo, who provided information to many Western-based media outlets over the past three years, using the alias Mohammed Saeed. Abdurrahman and the Local Coordination Committees activist group confirmed Tabajo had been killed.
Tabajo played an instrumental role, particularly in the early phases of the uprising, as a source of information for the media, and was a rare activist who appeared regularly on Arab TV stations. He was one of the first to report on the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack, going to makeshift clinics to observe the aftermath.
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11/25/2013
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A Bashir's dozen dozen ghostly fighters in a tree,
Discussin' things in Syria as they are said to be:
"Brothers, I've heard a rumor, inshallah it isn't true:
Those crazy humans fighting there are just like me and you!
I don't know any ghost like that. No ghost would even try
To fight and kill his fellow ghost. No ghost can ever die.
Another thing I wouldn't do, or I would be a dummy,
Is try to starve some other ghost. What ghost can fill his tummy?
A siege? By ghosts? Oh cut it out, you're gonna make me laugh.
We come and go just as we please, and anyone with half
An empty skull can tell we can't be held by any walls,
So I dismiss this guff about us ghosts involved in brawls."
With this, the ghost fell silent (well, they usually are!)
As on the road beneath the tree some fighters in a car
Passed by to fire upon their foes with clever makeshift arms
While wearing rags and bearing flags inscribed with lucky charms.
Those other Muslims over there were very different folks:
Their tanks bore bigger guns and they ate more and had more smokes.
The only thing they had in common with the other kooks,
Was that they all would get along when they came back as spooks.
Whoa. I didn't intend to go all "Quiet on the Western Front" there. Must have a little jerky in me. [strikes pose]
#5
Sherry, trailing wife, what can I do but blush -- for real -- and congratulate you on your excellent taste? And suggest you watch your six: it looks like Shipman may be going Louis d'Ascoigne on the burghers of Rant. Hope this scoots in under the deadline. Again, thanks!
[Dawn] Four teachers of a private school and three health workers were kidnapped in Bara on Thursday after a team administered anti-polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... drops to hundreds of children under the protection of security forces, sources said on Saturday.
A relative of a kidnapped teacher told Dawn that he was not sure about the identity of the kidnappers, but believed that the kidnapping was related to the vaccination campaign conducted in their school.
He said no clue about the teachers' whereabouts had been found nor had anyone grabbed credit for kidnapping them.
A health worker said he had heard that unidentified gunnies had kidnapped 10 teachers of a private school in Speen Qabar area after he and other vaccinators had administered anti-polio drops to children there.
He said he was not sure about the motive behind the kidnapping. "We were escorted to the area by security forces and the schoolteachers had nothing to do with the vaccination campaign," he said.
Political Agent Mutahir Zeb and Assistant Political Agent Mohammad Nasir did not respond to queries put by Dawn about the kidnapping but Political Tehsildar Shakil Khan dispelled the impression that the incident was related to the anti-polio campaign.
He said he had received information that the kidnapping had been caused by a dispute between the teachers and the kidnappers.
Announcements about vaccination were made on loudspeakers from local mosques, he said and added the vaccinators had not faced any resistance from any quarter. Shakil Khan said a jirga had been engaged to trace the missing teachers.
He said the polio campaign continued in parts of Bara on Saturday as health workers told him that they had administered anti-polio drops to at least 1,578 children in Meel Wat area and hundreds of other children in Alamgudar and Malikdin Khel areas.
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[Four terrorists responsible for the Westgate attack in Kenya] entered Kenya on foot from Uganda, detectives have established. Two of the terrorists have been identified as Mohammed Abdinur Said and Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow. Police confirmed that 28 year-old Dhuhulow was a Norwegian as previously reported.
CID detectives were sent to Kampala where they questioned a taxi driver who drove the terrorists from Entebbe airport to the Malaba border crossing. They then crossed over to Kenya on foot. Police are protecting the identity of the taxi driver as he might become a prosecution witness in the case against four Kenyans charged with aiding the terrorists.
Reliable sources said the four men flew from Somalia to Kenya with a local airline on June 22. The plane stopped at JKIA airport but the suspects did not alight and proceeded to Entebbe. The terrorists killed at least 67 people during the attack between September 21 and 24.
Norwegian police security service (Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste) on Tuesday wrote to the CID to confirm that one terrorist was a Norwegian of Somali descent. According to the Norwegian police, Abdi Dhuhulow lived in Norway for seven years after he was granted asylum in 2006 and had a cousin who also lived in Norway. They asked the CID for more time to get information about Dhuhulow after it emerged that a man who he claimed in his immigration documents was his father was actually his cousin.
After interrogating the cousin in Norway, the Norwegian police have established that Dhuhulows father still lives in Somalia. The second named terrorist, Mohammed Abdinur Said, was a Somali refugee who stayed at the Kakuma refugee camp until 2012. He then went back to Somalia before returning to Kenya in June, police said.
It has also now emerged that the drone strike that killed al Shabaab commander Abdi Fatah in October was linked to the Westgate attack. Investigations revealed that Abdi Fatah spoke to Dhuhulow the day before and even on the day of the attack. CCTV footage showed one terrorist making telephone calls inside the mall.
Abdi Fatah was killed in al Shabaabs Baraawe stronghold by drones aimed at Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, a senior Shabaab figure also known as Ikrima.
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#1
Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow AKA Ingmar
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2013 9:30
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A man who was blown up by his own bomb on Saturday was responsible for preparing a terrorist attack on a bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd in October. The dead suspect, Suleiman Magomedov, was a member of a terrorist group in the city of Makhachkala, the capital of the republic of Dagestan.
A statement by Russia's Anti-Terror Committee stated, "He played a central role in a series of terrorist crimes...including an attack on a traffic police post in Makhachkala in May this year...and the recent explosion by a female suicide bomber on a passenger bus in Volgograd."
The committee said Magomedov died in an explosion as he was placing his 11-pound TNT bomb for an attack on a police post on Saturday evening. An accomplice who was wounded in the blast is on the run.
[An Nahar] Some 300 gunnies stormed a mostly Christian village in central Nigeria on Sunday, killing five people and burning scores of homes, police said.
The early morning attack targeted the village of Kuka in Plateau state, which roughly falls on the dividing line between Nigeria's mainly Christian south and predominately Musselmen north.
"Five people were killed and many houses were burnt," said Plateau's police spokeswoman Felicia Anslem. "About 300 attackers invaded the community early on Sunday," she added.
The decade-long mostly sectarian conflict in Plateau has left thousands dead.
Herdsmen from the Fulani-Hausa ethnic group, which is mostly Musselmen, have been blamed for scores of attacks on the primarily Christian Berom community.
The Berom are considered the state's indigenous people, which legally gives them enhanced rights, including better access to land, education and public offices.
Fulani leaders have for years claimed that the violence can only be tempered if state leaders, who are almost entirely Berom, agree to major political reforms.
It was not clear who carried out the latest attack. While Kuka is a mostly Christian village, some of the victims were said to have been Fulanis.
Resident Abdullahi Ragmin said "200 houses" were burnt, and described the victims as ranging from age 35 to 60, in an account confirmed by other witnesses.
Salisu Mustapha, military front man in Plateau, confirmed the attack but said the gunnies had "been repelled and calm has returned to the community."
The ongoing grinding of the peace processor in Plateau has mostly failed to stop the violence, with deep mistrust persisting between the state's politicians and the security forces.
Berom leaders have accused the military of supporting and at times cooperating with the Fulani, but such allegations have not been definitely proved.
Plateau has also been targeted by the Islamist group 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... , which is waging a four-year insurgency in the north, but most of the unrest has stemmed from local sectarian divisions.
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[Dawn] KARACHI: "Don't ask me what happens now. What other choice do we have but to pick up the pieces from here and get back to work? I will rebuild my little business. We have to stay here and deal with whatever calamity comes our way.
We are not going away anywhere due to this," said Saeed Ahmad Siddiqui, the owner of Pakeeza Bakery and catering services that became the second unfortunate blast spot at Incholi Society at around 11.30pm on Friday.
At the Golden Paan Shop, the first spot, Mohammad Javed was staring at the ruined shop with glazed eyes. "I left for home at 8pm but our shop is open till 2am every day. This shop has been around here for 20 to 25 years. Most of the residents of this area are our customers. They know us well. In fact, I got a call from one of them informing me about the blast. My father, Mohammad Khalid, and my maternal uncle, Mohammad Yousuf, were at the shop then. Both are in hospital with severe injuries at the moment. Please pray for them," he requested.
"Blocks 17 and 20 in Federal B Area where the twin blasts occurred are an example of peaceful coexistence between Sunnis and Shias. This is where we gather to take out Rabi-ul-Awwal and Muharram processions," said Mohammad Imran, a resident of Block 17, who said that he grew up in the neighbourhood. "The blasts are a conspiracy to bring in differences and hatred between the two communities here," he added.
His uncle, Mohammad Farhan, was of the opinion that the damage could have been far worse. "There could have been more people out in the street at the time. But they were watching the second T20 between Pakistain and South Africa at the time.
"Knowing about the tension in the city on Friday, we had just breathed a sigh of relief as the day almost came to an end without any unfortunate incident. We were so wrong," he said shaking his head while brushing away tears. "I am only grateful that my family remained safe, but the little boy from up the street wasn't so lucky," he said.
The resident was referring to eight-year-old Saleh Rizwan, who lost his life in the attack. "People usually come here to buy things such as eggs, milk and bread for breakfast in the evening. The young boy was here for the same purpose and received fatal injuries as a result of the second blast," said Javed Akhtar, another elderly resident of the area.
"Another child, who lost her life, was a little girl passing by this area on a cycle of violence with her father," he said. "Then there was the poor rickshaw driver, fruit vendor and the other innocent people who had no problems with anyone," he added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk. Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how top drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles. No, he said. Do you?... Mohammad Mian, another resident, said that when he heard the first blast he thought that maybe it was an kaboom from a pole-mounted transformer. "But the second one a few seconds later made me realise what had really happened," he said. "This is such a peaceful place, our minds at first couldn't readily accept kabooms taking place here," he added.
"The flat right above Pakeeza Bakery is the Nida Beauty Parlour. The fruit vendor's son injured his leg in the second blast and tried to get away from the scene. He dragged himself upstairs to the beauty parlour and hid himself there behind some cabinets but was discovered there soon enough as the blood flowing from his wounds was noticed by the parlour workers during the chaos. Being Shia the poor man was afraid that he would be killed by the Sunnis, who he thought were behind the attack. But we are all Moslems. This thought only came to his mind because of the differences being created among us by the forces of Evil who want us to fight among ourselves," cried Kisa Ali, a housewife in Block 20.
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11/25/2013
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Saudi Arabia says one more person has died from the Mers virus, bringing to 55 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
The Health Ministry said on Sunday that the 37-year-old man had died in Riyadh. He was among the 130 people who have been infected with the virus in Saudi Arabia since September last year.
The new virus is related to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed some 800 people in a global outbreak in 2003. It belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold.
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#1
In which a young Saudi digs deep for rhymes for "pest house in Jaffa," but despairs and instead ponders where MERS comes from...
Can you catch MERS by smoking cigars?
Was it brought in by Lollywood stars?
What about hotel bars?
I've heard it's like SARS,
That it's spread by loose women in cars.
Did them fellas that took Jimmy Hoffa
Ask "Mind if we knocka you offa?"
Youse might think it trite,
But why not be polite?
Shuddup or I'll smack ya, ya scoffer!
#3
#2 I had a high school English teacher named Zenobia - tried to teach me to write poetry.
Nothing to it. You just roll your eyes back and start swaying...
Zenobia
zen obeah
sweet spiritual ritual
of the Motherland
[bongo]
not the usual
downcast almond eyes
[flute]
silent asians
pondering the skies
[conga]
see the sisters strut like crows
hopping like they stubbed their toes
bottoms broader than their nose
meditate on one of those!
laughing yelling dancing spelling
you can't sit on what your selling
forget that chasing lack of pain --
come on, have some yakkamein!
...then you wake up all sweaty, smelling like rum, with chicken feathers in your pocket. Last one out please lob a nuke into the portal. In all seriousness, I'd like to hear more about that teacher, consistent with opsec and mod/reg temperament. I can't even imagine any of my teachers showing such interest.
#5
Mrs. Zenobia Bellart. Taught English in a public high school in New York State in the 1950's (& before?) & 1960's into the 1970's. Also taught Latin. Not the best on the staff, but it was a good staff and she was pretty good. Unsuccessful in teaching me to write poetry though. Did manage to learn (and forget) the various kinds (sonnets etc.) We did a class reading of Julius Caesar that did teach me an appreciation of Shakey.
As I said yesterday, Erdogan wants Turkey to be the 'third way' of Islam, and he's playing off the Salafists on one side and the Mad Mullahs on the other...
Turkey has welcomed the historic nuclear deal struck by Iran today with the United States and five other world powers on the fifth day of negotiations, Hürriyet Daily News reported.
"The agreement reached by the sides today has become the first positive concrete development since the Tehran declaration in 2010," a statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry following the announcement said. "Naturally, the deal in question forms the beginning of the process and a part of measures to promote confidence."
"We call on the sides to keep up their constructive approaches to carry the process further," the statement said. "We hope both sides will take the necessary steps required by the agreement, so the problem can be solved in a diplomatic way that would satisfy everyone."
"Turkey is ready to support this process in all ways as it had made every effort to keep the diplomatic process alive to find a solution. Turkey will keep on defending the right to nuclear energy use for peaceful purposes, while expecting the obligations of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NTP) to be carried out."
Turkey also maintained its support to efforts of destroying weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, the statement said.
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... on Sunday hoped a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers will pave the ground for a "settlement" in war-torn Syria, after he arrived in Tehran for an official visit.
Speaking to news hounds at an airport in the Iranian capital, Berri thanked his Iranian counterpart Ali Larijani for inviting him to visit the Islamic republic, hoping his talks there will "strengthen relations between the two countries, especially that this visit comes amid a very delicate period."
"Who said that there are no births in politics? Right now, politics is being born in Iran, specifically in Tehran, after this (nuclear) agreement, or this international deal," Berri was quoted as saying by Leb's National News Agency.
The speaker reminded that he had noted that such an agreement would represent a "political nuclear bomb," adding that the deal is "in the interest of peace in the Arab region and the Islamic world."
Berri also hoped the agreement will "pave the ground for a settlement in brotherly Syria" and for "restoring confidence" between Arabs and Iran.
The speaker is accompanied by a parliamentary delegation comprising MPs Abdul Latif al-Zein, Hagop Pakradounian, Ghazi Zoaiter, Ali Fayyad and Qassem Hashem.
According to NNA, Berri is scheduled to hold talks Monday with Iran's diminutive President Hassan Rouhani and Speaker Larijani on "bilateral ties between the two countries, the developments in the region and parliamentary cooperation."
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11/25/2013
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#1
Pragmatically, iff Iran is now Bammerika's BFF in Syria + ME agz the Al-Qaeda, etal. foreign Hard Boyz, WHAT WILL IRAN BE DOING THAT AMERIKA WILL NOT BE???
#2
Iran helping Assad, been doing a effective job at that so far, now with some more cash will be better able to improve Assad's position. Better fed and equipped, pick up some free agents, retread hezballa, a strange new camp with silkworm missiles pops up unexpectedly in Mauritania?
#3
The deal also allows Iran to boost its influence in Lebanon (thus the reason for Knobby's visit to Tehran.) Hence the concern about a "Shiite Crescent."
A fierce two-day battle in the eastern suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus has killed more than 160 rebel and regime forces, activists said on Sunday, Aljazeera reported.
The latest fighting in the Eastern Ghouta region came against the backdrop of regime advances in the region that have cut rebel supply lines to the capital and its southern districts. Rebels have been struggling to break the blockade by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based rights group, said the fighting began on Friday when rebel forces launched attacks against checkpoints and military stations in five areas in the region.
"They are trying to break the siege imposed by the army," Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the group, told AFP news agency.
"It is a ferocious fight between the two sides because it's a struggle over our ultimate fate here," said Bara Abdelrahman, an activist who works with the rebels, according to Reuters news agency.
The Observatory said that the dead included 55 rebel fighters, including seven battalion leaders, and 41 fighters from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the al-Nusra Front.
At least 36 Syrian regime troops were also reportedly killed, along with 20 members of a Shia Iraqi group fighting alongside the army, and eight members of a Syrian pro-regime militia. The Observatory said the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah was fighting alongside regime forces, but gave no details of casualties in its ranks.
In recent weeks, the Syrian army has recaptured a string of areas south of Damascus, turning its attention to both Ghouta and the strategic Qalamoun region north of the capital.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... has expressed disappointment that one of the jacket wallahs that attacked the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Tuesday was from southern Leb.
In remarks to An Nahar daily published on Sunday, officials quoted Berri as saying that he had hoped the two bombers would not be Lebanese to avoid widening the differences between the rival parties.
The southern city of Sidon was the home of Moein Abu Dahr, the Lebanese bomber in the deadly attack in the Bir Hassan neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs.
Abu Dahr's father told authorities he believed his son was involved after the army released a photograph of one of the suicide kaboomers. A DNA test identified his son as the bomber.
The other is Adnan Mohammed, a Paleostinian from the Ein el-Hellhole refugee camp and a staunch supporter of Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir ...Leb Salafist holy man with the usual grouch against Shiites. Currently on the run, he seems intent on reigniting the Leb civil war...
Mohammed lived in Zahrani near Sidon.
When Berri found out the identity of Abu Dahr and that he was from Sidon, he said he was "shocked."
"The south has never produced such men in its history," the officials quoted him as saying.
An al-Qaeda-linked group, the Lebanese Abdullah Azzam Brigades, grabbed credit for the attack, one of the deadliest in a series of attacks targeting Hizbullah and its strongholds in recent months.
The group said it was avenging Hizbullah's military involvement in Syria.
The party has been openly backing troops loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... against the rebels seeking to topple him.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Bahraini authorities have incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! two Gulf citizens who were former Guantanamo detainees on suspicion of preparing a "terrorist act," state media reported on Sunday.
A police chief, quoted by official news agency BNA, said the two suspects, whose names and nationalities were not disclosed, had entered Bahrain with fake passports from Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
The two ex-detainees of the U.S. detention centre for terror suspects in Guantanamo were found in possession of a large amount of money after crossing from the King Fahd Bridge linking the two Gulf states, he said.
"They are suspected of wanting to carry out a terrorist act, posing a threat to the security of the kingdom of Bahrain," he said, adding the two would be referred to the courts.
BNA noted the arrests came days before a meeting in Manama of interior ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council which groups Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Security forces have been on alert in Bahrain, a Sunni-ruled kingdom destabilized since February 2011 by protests led by the country's Shiite majority to demand a constitutional monarchy.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
So much for rehabilitation. Kill them
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2013 9:32
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[An Nahar] A Bahraini court sentenced 12 Shiites on Sunday to 10-year jail terms after convicting them of trying to kill coppers in a village near the capital, a judicial source said.
Another defendant was handed down a three-year prison sentence and four more were acquitted.
The 17 had all been charged with attempted murder of coppers, taking part in an unauthorized demonstration and possessing petrol bombs.
They were tossed in the calaboose Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! after unrest on May 1, 2012 in a Shiite village where a policeman suffered burned hands when his patrol was attacked.
In a separate case in another Manama court on Sunday, a policeman was acquitted of attempting to murder a protester because of insufficient proof, the source said.
The officer, a Pak employed by the interior ministry, was charged after Saleh Abbas, a Shiite, was rubbed out during a demonstration in Shakura village on April 19 last year.
The source said lawyers cited medics as saying the dead man was hit in the heart, lung, stomach and spleen by buckshot.
Under cross-examination, the policeman admitted he was the only member of his patrol to have opened fire on the day of the killing, lawyers said in challenging the acquittal.
A Shiite-led uprising to demand democratic reforms in Sunni-ruled but Shiite-majority Bahrain was crushed in March 2011.
King Hamad ...King of Bahrain (since 14 February 2002), having previously been its emir (from 6 March 1999). He is a Sunni, while the rest of Bahrain is predominantly Shiite... in August this year ordered stiffer penalties for "terror acts."
These include a minimum 10-year jail term for an attempted bombing. If such attacks cause casualties, the sentence can be life imprisonment or the death penalty.
The authorities have also banned demonstrations in Manama.
Strategically located across the Gulf from Shiite Iran, Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet and is an offshore financial and services center for its oil-rich Arab neighbors.
At least 89 people have been killed since the protests began, according to the International Federation for Human Rights.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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This weekend's nuclear deal with Iran may have come together after two short rounds of negotiation in Geneva, but it's been long in the making.
For months leading up to negotiations between Iran and world powers in Geneva this month, Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, quietly held at least five meetings with Iranian officials, a senior Obama administration official told ABC News.
The meetings began in March, and they followed exploratory, back-channel talks about setting up higher-level meetings. Burns, Sullivan and a team of technological experts discussed Iran's nuclear program with senior Iranian officials at meetings in Oman and Geneva. They also met in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly, which convened in September and October.
In late September, as the U.N. General Assembly convened in New York, Secretary of State John Kerry met, one on one, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif -- even as experts warned that contact between Iran and the U.S. would prove politically difficult for both sides at home.
President Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke via telephone in late September, marking the first direct conversation between American and Iranian leaders since the 1979 Islamic revolution and ensuing hostage crisis that turned relations between the two countries toxic.
Back-channel communications had been going on for years between Washington and Tehran, but diplomacy gained momentum with the election in June of Rouhani, a self-declared moderate
...he's lying...
with a mandate from Iran's clerical leadership to seek a deal with world powers to ease financial and trade sanctions that have shrunk the nation's economy.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Feltman, the former top American diplomat in the Middle East and current U.N. under-secretary-general for political affairs, visited Tehran several times since leaving the State Department last year and met with Ayatollah Khamenei, the most powerful figure in Iran.
American and Iranian officials were aided by Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said, a longtime and well-known intermediary, who hosted the Americans and Iranians for talks. He also made a rare trip to Iran in late August to meet with Khamenei.
President Obama personally authorized the talks and sent Burns, Sullivan and five other officials to meet with Iranian counterparts in Muscat, Oman.
Public contact has posed political challenges on both sides. In Iran, anti-American sentiment and the influence of hardliners has made talking to U.S. officials politically risky for Iranians. In the U.S., President Obama was criticized in his first presidential campaign for pledging openness to communicate with Iran. His opponent, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., infamously joked about bombing Iran at a campaign event, and Republicans have accused Obama of naivete when it comes to dealing with the Islamic republic.
After those secret dealings, the Obama administration has its deal -- a "first step" agreement for Iran to halt and roll back key parts of is nuclear program for six months, with the intent of a broader deal being hammered out in the interim.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2013
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#1
"Red Line" or not, any notion that the Obama regime was prepared to do anything about Iran vaporized with the full U.S. pull-out of Iraq. Giving up those valuable forward airbases was a serious strategic misstep and sent a clear message to the mullahs.
[Yemen Post] A court in Yemen decided to postpone issuing a final verdict in the case of Huda Abdullah Ali, a young Saudi national who was caught by the authorities as she tried to enter Yemen illegally with her fiancé, Yemen national, Arafat Mohammed Taher al-Qadi.
The couple who were denied their marriage plan by Huda's family decided to escape to Yemen, where they planned to settle and marry, determined to not let tradition and family destroy their hope of happiness. In a society as traditional as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... where women are no more than commodities under the supreme authority of their male relatives, the idea that a young woman could so blatantly oppose her father's wishes, especially in a matter as gravely important as marriage has had both officials and the religious authorities clamouring for her return; as all want to see her pay for her crime.
While just as traditional as Saudi Arabia, women enjoy a very different status than their Saudi counterpart. So far it is Yemen's more benevolent attitude toward women which has motivated the Yemeni authorities to protect Huda so far, and prompted them to loot at her case with a greater degree of compassion.
Dubbed the Romeo and Juliet of Yemen, Huda and Arafat have captured Yemen's imagination, the contemporary heroes of post-revolution Yemen. Inspired by the couple's plight and maybe on some degree in reaction to Saudi Arabia increasingly prejudiced stance against Yemen, human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and political activists have chosen to fight in the couple's behalf.
Protesters have demonstrated before the court room, calling on the authorities to answer "the call of love" and show clemency, warning they would not leave until the two are properly married.
Under much public pressure and the scrutiny of rights groups such Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... and HOOD (Yemen's most prominent rights group), prosecutors chose to postpone their decision until it could be determined whether or not Huda could be given a political refugee status under the UN Charter.
Huda's fiancé, al-Qadi, who is himself facing criminal charges for enabling an unauthorized migrant from entering Yemen, told news hounds, "My only demand is to grant Huda humanitarian refugee status so that I can marry her,"
The Yemen Organization for Defending Human Rights, HOOD, said earlier that they have provided the court with all necessary documents for Ali to be registered as a refugee.
HOOD's lawyer Abdul-Raqeeb al-Qadi said the Interior Ministry was still refusing to let the UN refugee agency see Ali, who is in detention.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[An Nahar] A bomb was found Sunday evening in the Taamir Ein el-Hellhole area in Sidon and two Paleostinians were tossed in the calaboose You have the right to remain silent... after planting the bomb.
"The army intelligence captured the Paleostinian brothers Alaa and Ahmed al-Saleh as they were planting a bomb targeted against members of al-Dirani family who belong to the (Hizbullah-affiliated) Resistance Brigades in Sidon," state-run National News Agency reported.
"An army unit cordoned off the al-Taamir al-Tahtani area near al-Zaatari High School where the bomb was found and an army military expert examined the bomb and started dismantling it ahead of determining its weight and components," NNA said.
The agency added that the two suspects were taken to an army barracks in the city for interrogation.
Earlier on Sunday, LBCI and al-Jadeed TV networks had also reported that the two men were arrested while planting a bomb targeted against al-Dirani family.
The development comes days after a twin suicide kaboom on the Iranian embassy in Beirut killed 25 people, including Iran's cultural attache, and maimed dozens others.
Following investigations and DNA tests, the two jacket wallahs have been identified as Moein Abu Dahr, who hails from Sidon, and Paleostinian national Adnan Mohammed from the Ein el-Hellhole refugee camp.
Mohammed lived in Zahrani near Sidon and both men were staunch supporters of runaway Islamist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir ...Leb Salafist holy man with the usual grouch against Shiites. Currently on the run, he seems intent on reigniting the Leb civil war...
A Facebook page apparently belonging to Abu Dahr, which had been taken down by Saturday, expressed support for al-Qaeda and for Asir, whom he vowed to "avenge" after the army overran the holy man's headquarters in the Sidon suburb of Abra following a deadly battle.
Asir, also from Sidon, is a fierce critic of Hizbullah and had frequently expressed support for the Syrian uprising and encouraged Lebanese Sunnis to join it.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
Paleos - making friends everywhere
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2013 7:26
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A lawyer representing a self-styled Muslim sheikh accused of being an accessory to the stabbing death of a woman in Sydney says his client will vigorously defend the charges.
Man Haron Monis, alias Sheikh Haron, had previously sent offensive letters to the families of dead Australian soldiers. He is now charged with being an accessory to the murder of Noleen Hayson Pal, who was allegedly stabbed and set on fire in an apartment in April. Amira Duris has been charged with the woman's murder.
Lawyer Manny Conditsos says the pair intend to plead not guilty. He said, "They strongly protest their innocence. In my view, having some knowledge of the prosecution case, it certainly appears to be entirely circumstantial and a weak Crown case."
[BBC.CO.UK] The US secretary of state has said the deal reached on Sunday over Iran's nuclear programme will make Israel and the Middle East a safer place.
John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... was speaking after Iran agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities in return for about $7bn (£4.3bn) in sanctions relief.
However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... Israel has described the agreement as a "historic mistake".
Iran's president said its right to uranium enrichment had been recognised, but Mr Kerry denied this.
Tehran has, however, agreed to stop all enrichment above 5%.
World powers suspect Iran's nuclear programme is secretly aiming at developing a nuclear bomb - a charge Iran has consistently denied.
The deal reached overnight in Geneva will last for six months, while a permanent agreement is sought.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... said it "demonstrates how persistent diplomacy and tough sanctions can together help us to advance our national interest".
US President Barack Obama I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money... welcomed the deal, saying it would "help prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon".
'Larger breathing space'
The White House says President B.O. has spoken by telephone to Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu about the Iran deal.
President B.O. said Israel had "good reason to be sceptical about Iran's intentions", a White House front man said.
The two leaders reaffirmed their shared goal of preventing Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, the front man said.
Earlier, Mr Kerry told ABC's This Week programme that the US and Israel shared the same goal, and that the deal was a first step in making sure Iran could not have nuclear weapons.
"It leads us into the negotiation so that we guarantee that ... while we are negotiating for the tougher provisions, they will not grow the programme and their capacity to threaten Israel," he said.
"Israel will actually gain a larger breathing space in terms of the breakout capacity [to make a nuclear weapon] of Iran."
The US secretary of state added that he hoped Congress would recognise the benefits of the deal and refrain from passing new sanctions.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... leading Republican Senator Bob Corker said he had concerns about the deal and promised to hold the administration's "feet to the fire".
"This administration is long on announcements but very short on follow-through," he said in an interview for Fox News Sunday.
Senator Chuck Schumer Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower. , from President B.O.'s Democratic party, was also disappointed by the Geneva agreement, which he said favoured Iran.
"As for additional sanctions, this disproportionality of this agreement makes it more likely that Democrats and Republicans will join together and pass additional sanctions when we return in December," he said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
You bet it will be safer just like the magic our President worked in health care which is now cheaper, more effective . . .wait, what? Oh. Never mind.
[Tolo News] Afghan tribal elites concluded a four-day Loya Jirga on Sunday, endorsing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States, which allows a residual U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
A unanimous majority of the 2,500-member Jirga called on President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... to sign the document by the end of this year. But the Afghan president has laid out three pre-conditions to the U.S. before he will sig the security pact: transparent elections in April, no raids on Afghan homes and a breakthrough in talks with the Taliban.
Washington has said that it's "neither practical nor possible" to delay the signing. President Karzai in his speech on Thursday in the opening of the Jirga said that the BSA would be signed after the April elections.
"If there is one more raid on Afghan homes by U.S. forces, there is no BSA. The U.S. can't go into our homes from this moment onward," President Karzai said in his closing remarks at the Jirga on Sunday.
The issue of U.S. unilateral operations was the final point of contention between Kabul and Washington last week, but was put to rest at the Jirga as participants voted in favor of the agreement that allowed for America to launch its own missions under certain circumstances.
The Afghan president said he believed peace in Afghanistan is "first in the hands of the U.S. and secondly in the hands of Pakistain."
He said now that the Jirga has endorsed the document, he will continue bargaining with officials in Washington over his three pre-conditions.
The U.S.' residual forced post-2014 would be stationed in nine military bases in Afghanistan, according to the BSA, but representatives of central Bamyan province in the Loya Jirga requested an additional base in their province as well.
The U.S. is expected to keep roughly 10-15,000 troops in-country if the pact is finalized.
The Jirga has accepted that U.S. soldiers should be prosecuted under American criminal jurisdiction, while also still suggesting that an Afghan government representative should be present during any trial.
Article 13 of the accord, which addressed criminal jurisdiction over troops, was considered the most controversial element of the agreement. The same provision proved a deal-breaker in Iraq in 2011 when the U.S. was negotiating a similar pact with Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
The Jirga outcome also includes that the U.S. cannot have any prisons in Afghanistan and it must handover all Afghan detainees to the government of Afghanistan. This would likely lead to a continuation of the Kabul strategy of releasing bully boy prisoners in hopes of building good-will with the insurgency ahead of possible peace talks.
The U.S. insists the deal, which has taken months to negotiate, must be signed before the end of this year in order to secure plans for how many troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
The U.S. government's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistain James Dobbins on Friday said that the security pact between the countries ought to be signed in the next few weeks.
"We feel strongly that the agreement ought to be signed as soon as it's approved by the Jirga and then it ought to be sent to the parliament and approved and this ought to occur at some time in the next few weeks," Ambassador Dobbins told TOLOnews.
"The Afghan people are anxious whether the United States and the international community remain committed to their security and wellbeing and frankly the American people and the international community are uncertain about whether the Afghan people really want us," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[Libya Herald] Speaking at last night's late presser, Defence Minister Abdullah Al-Thini revealed that Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... will get checkpoints at its 9 main entry points.
Al-Thini confirmed that no one would be able to get into Tripoli without having to pass through these points, which he revealed would be manned by the Military Police.
The Defence Minister was indirectly alleviating concerns that some of the militias or their arms might be sneaked back into Tripoli unnoticed.
Al-Thini confirmed that 3,000 troops had been deployed all over Tripoli since the militia pullouts and that military personnel were currently covered by existing rules of engagement which protect them against legal action.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
And I believe the Libyan army's ROE for dealing with the militias is to shoot first and ask questions later. The militias have killed dozens of Libyan soldiers under the guise of "oops, sorry, we thought you were someone else" and I think the other shoe has dropped on the militias...or at least I hope so, I have clothes and about $15,000 in dinar stuck in a bank in Tripoli and I can't get back there.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
11/25/2013 10:30
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[An Nahar] Damascus welcomed on Sunday the international community's nuclear deal with Iran, calling it a "historic agreement," Syria's state media said.
Iran agreed with the U.S. and five other world powers to a temporary freeze of its nuclear program for six months in exchange for limited and gradual sanctions relief.
Iran is a chief backer of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... 's government.
Activists fear the deal will take international pressure off of Iran and embolden Syria's government to use an even harder hand to quash the 3-year-old uprising.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
Anybody need any other reason to oppose it?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/25/2013 18:34
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[Pak Daily Times] The Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... government -- perhaps because of its history of emerging from the womb of the army -- appears to be eliminating the 'bad Taliban' much more covertly than its predecessors.
Behind the angry posturing of PML-N Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and a coterie of politicians publicly denouncing the US for sending a drone through peace talks, the US and Pakistain appear to be coordinating against the Taliban who threaten western interests and attack inside Pakistain. Still, the credibility of politicians like Sartaj Aziz goes on the line when their pledge to halt drone attacks is followed by a missile strike the next day.
The discrepancy between what Pakistain says and does came to light last month when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Washington. As Sharif denounced drone attacks in his meeting with President B.O. on October 23, 2013, and victims of the attacks testified on the Hill, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee member Alan Grayson told the media, "With all due respect to an ally, it is well within Pakistain's capability to end those drone strikes tomorrow." The congressman went on to tell the media that the Pakistain Air Force is "very powerful", and has the capability of controlling its own air space.
Mark Mazetti, author of Way of the Knife, writes that Pakistain asked the US to launch its first predator drone strike to eliminate tribal leader Nek Mohammed in 2004, after he led a rebellion against the state. Afterwards, Pakistain claimed it had fired the missile that killed the tribal leader it had once patronised. Like his predecessors, Nek Mohammed and Baitullah Mehsud, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) commander, Hakeemullah Mehsud, killed in a drone strike on November 1, 2013, had apparently grown too big for his boots. The US offered five million dollars for his capture after Hakeemullah coordinated with a Jordanian agent in December 2009 and wiped out a sizeable staff of CIA employees stationed in Khost, Afghanistan. Pakistain put Rs 50 million head money on the TTP commander for his lethal attacks against the state and citizens.
Only a select cadre in the Pak government was apparently on board about the plans to take out Hakeemullah. The PML-N government had taken JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... into confidence about arranging a 'peace meeting' with the Taliban in North Wazoo. Still, while talks with bully boyz were publicised, the drone strikes were kept well under the radar.
Consequently, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Washington, followed by his announcement from London on October 31, 2013 that "peace talks with the Taliban have begun", were met by puzzled silence in Pakistain. TTP front man Shahidullah Shahid told journalists the same day that they were unaware of any talks. Parliamentary leaders publicly complained that they had been kept in the dark.
In North Waziristan, months of friendly communiqués between the government apparently put bully boyz at ease. The administration's imposition of curfew added to the impression that it was for upcoming TTP-government talks. On November 1, the Taliban gathered in a mosque near Hakeemullah's sprawling farmhouse -- bought by his cousin, Latifullah Mehsud -- for a meeting on whether to talk to the government or not.
The US apparently set the ball rolling shortly after NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... troops snatched Latifullah in early October from the custody of Afghan intelligence officials, and interrogated him at Bagram base. Latifullah was a key link between the Taliban groups that function on both sides of the border. The Karzai government had planned to use him as an interlocutor in 'peace talks' with the Taliban, despite the TTP's known role of attacking state institutions inside Pakistain. These increased cross-border attacks have, in recent months, caused Pakistain's Foreign Office to complain that Afghanistan is being used as a safe haven for TTP bad boys.
For two days, US drones fired missiles into North Waziristan searching for their target. The second attack on November 1 was successful. Hakeemullah and his two companions were killed outside his $ 120,000 farmhouse. Neighbours reported surprise at seeing the Taliban capo before his vehicle was struck. Hakeemullah was understandably a rarity here, being on the run from drone attacks that occur mostly in this Pak-Afghan border area. With the liquidation of the TTP chief, and his replacement by Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... , an enraged TTP has pledged attacks on the military and senior government officials in Punjab for being a 'slave' of the US.
However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... Islamabad says it will continue to pursue peace talks with the Taliban. In so doing, it has found PTI chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... 's reactions especially useful to soak up the anger. Khan's visible shock at Hakeemullah's liquidation and angry talk by the PTI and religious parties of stopping NATO convoys to Afghanistan, have served to deflect attention and let off steam. This is the same strategy that General Musharraf used after 9/11 when public anger at the US invasion of Afghanistan helped propel the coalition of Islamic parties in the border areas. Then, too, the US was allowed to become the favourite whipping boy of the masses.
However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... as the US prepares for withdrawal of its troops, and nations compete for a foothold in Afghanistan, Islamabad faces an uncertain future. Different intelligence agencies have gotten behind the Taliban as they fight the US, Afghanistan and Pakistain, while cementing tribal bonds across the Durand Line. The gunning down of Afghan Taliban financier Naseerullah Haqqani in Islamabad is the latest example of warring intelligence agencies. It also shows a falling out among multiple Taliban groups, once loosely commandeered by Hakeemullah Mehsud.
The drone attack in a madrassa in Hangu on November 21, 2013, which killed leading members of the Haqqani group, appears to have also hit at the Afghan bully boyz plotting in a settled area of Pakistain. As a dozen years of war have revealed, the younger generation of Taliban is angrier and less controllable than the bully boyz trained by Pakistain in the 1990s to take over Afghanistan. Indeed, there is a shortage of 'good Taliban' like Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality in a country already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... , Mullah Baradar and the Haqqani network taking refuge in Pakistain, who merely attack NATO troops in Afghanistan and do not attack state interests within Pakistain.
How Pakistain gets rid of its bad Taliban, while deflecting anger away from it, and simultaneously gains a foothold in Afghanistan, will be a high wire act worth watching.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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#1
The Paks can't control their own "sovereign nation", yet they still have aspirations of Great Gaming Afghanistan.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2013 14:57
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[Libya Herald] The son to the Colonel Salah Buhulaiga, the commander of the Zawia Martyrs Brigade in Sirte, seriously maimed in Benghazi when a gunman fired several shots at him, according to the Libyan news agency LANA.
Muftah Buhulaiga, an officer on the Special Forces Saiqa brigade, was shot on the corniche road in Sabri district, not far from the family home. He was rushed to the city's Jelaa Hospital but his condition has not been disclosed.
It is not clear if he was targeted because of his father's work.
A month ago, the family home in was attacked when a bomb was thrown at it. No one was hurt as the family were in Sirte and the building was empty.
The announcement about today's attack came from a front man in Sirte for the Zawia Martyrs Brigade, Colonel Khaled Al-Akari.
Nine security officials have been murdered in Benghazi so far this month and there have been other attempted killings.
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11/25/2013
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[Al Ahram] The 50-member committee entrusted with amending Egypt's suspended 2012 constitution is struggling to reach consensus over the charter's preamble and 17 other controversial articles.
Bishop Paula, the committee's Coptic Church representative, threatened to withdraw from the committee for a second time in protest of the constitution's preamble, which currently reflects a large input from the ultraconservative Salafist Nour party. The committee's representatives from the Catholic and Anglican churches have also threatened to withdraw over the preamble.
Paula told parliamentary correspondents on Monday that "representatives of Egypt's churches withdrew from the 2012 constituent assembly [which first drafted the suspended constitution] after Islamists insisted on drafting a new article that would define the principles of Islamic sharia. It seems that we will have to withdraw again, because the revised constitution's preamble offers a definition of Islamic sharia as per the Nour Party's demand."
Paula also charged that committee members decided to remove the word "civilian" from the preamble's description of the Egyptian state at the request of the Nour Party.
The current preamble in circulation amoung committee members now states "we are writing a new constitution that will establish a modern and democratic state in Egypt, and it is a constitution which stresses that the principles of Islamic sharia are the major source of Egypt's legislation."
Representatives from the Nour Party and Egypt's leading Sunni institution Al-Azhar have threatened to withdraw if the word "civilian" is included, because they argue that it reflects secular and western values.
The 50-member committee held lengthy closed-door meetings on Saturday and Sunday in a bid to reach consensus over the preamble and some 17 other articles which have not attained the required 75 percent approval over the past weeks.
Some press reports have estimated that the constitution draft will be put to a final vote on Thursday, but the growing distrust between the Islamists and their opponents may delay the committee's vote.
Sources said the committee has reached consensus over one of a total 17 remaining issues.
According to Amr El-Shobaki, chairman of the system of governance subcommittee, the agreed-upon article is the charter's article 121.
Article 121 has been amended to state that the president -- in consultation with the majority party or the coalition with the most seats in parliament -- will name the prime minister. If the parliament refuses the selected prime minister, the parliament itself is entitled to name the premier. The president, in consultation with the prime minister, retains the right to name four key cabinet ministers: defence, foreign affairs, justice and interior.
The above text differs from an earlier version, which gave the majority party or the winning coalition the right to name the prime minister. According to the article's former wording, if the selected prime minister failed to gain the parliament's approval within 30 days, the president would be entitled to name the prime minister.
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[Pak Daily Times] The Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) staged a sit-in in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. Saturday to initiate an anti-drone campaign countrywide. Sunday saw Lahore, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... (KP) mobilised against drone strikes by PTI and its ally Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... (JI), while the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... trucks were stopped at Torkham. In his speech to the participating protestors, Chairman PTI Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... expectedly accused the US of sabotaging peace in Pakistain by throwing a spanner in the works of the grinding of the peace processor the government had decided to pursue with the terrorists. He accused the PML-N government at the same time of selling Pakistain short by not standing up to the US on the issue of drones. The panacea to every ill confronting Pakistain, according to Imran, lies in the US's complete withdrawal from the region and allowing Pakistain to follow its own destiny.
Pressurising the US to halt drone strikes in Pakistain through blocking NATO supplies has not produced this result in the past and is unlikely to do so now. The supply lines at present are being used more to transport goods out of Afghanistan then sending them in. For Imran Khan, who had repeatedly demanded of the US to leave the region, this was not the time to put hurdles in the way of the NATO supply route. And if Imran Khan is not playing to the gallery, which everyone believes he is, then how does he justify the registration of a First Information Report on the drone strike in Hangu against 'unknown' persons? Is the KP government, run by the PTI, really 'oblivious' of the identity of the 'culprit'? The US is assisting the KP government through different financial aid and grant programmes, running into millions of dollars. Imran cannot run away from the allegation of playing a double game by simply saying that those were the former government's initiatives. He can stop these as well, just as he thinks he could block the NATO supply route forever. Therefore Imran's position on drone strikes is tilted inwards -- to save the KP government from taking the direct heat of its inability to stem terrorism. The US's position on drones is clear. They are raining hell on our country because the gunnies dangerous to the safety of the world are provided safe havens here. We had the option to eliminate them ourselves so as to avoid the question of violation of illusory sovereignty and hold our head high in the comity of world nations. Instead, we chose to follow a policy of duality that has irretrievably weakened our case in the eyes of the world. Are we in a position to strike down the drones as is being demanded by PTI and the JI? Such affronts in the relationship with the US are even avoided by a Europe shocked by the extensive US surveillance programme over them. Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... , the Chancellor of Germany, having every right to be offended by the US snooping (the US tapped her phones from 2002 until this summer) has been hesitant to show her anger beyond making a call to Obama to register her protest. She has been reported as saying that "The transatlantic alliance remains of utmost importance to us Germans." Does Pakistain stand anywhere near Germany in terms of economic power? In fact our economic survival depends on the IMF's assistance. We need donor agencies and lending institutions to reform our balance sheet. And all this cannot happen without the US's approval. Realism calls for honest, pragmatic and sustainable assessment of the problem. Can Imran or his party stop NATO supplies forever throughout the country or for that matter force the US to stop drone strikes? Falling under the purview of foreign policy, this is in any case the constitutional prerogative of the federal government alone, a consideration that has kept the KP government from joining the protest in Peshawar. Imran's accusations against the government, especially hitting the prime minister for bowing too low to the US, could at best be viewed as emotional rhetoric but not a sane man's view. The government knows that the rage over the drone strikes is largely impotent unless the US is punished, something a country like Pakistain can only think of at the peril of the exacerbation of its political and economic weaknesses, while getting more isolated or maybe actually pushed into the Stone Age. *
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[An Nahar] A television journalist rubbed out in north Iraq was among six people killed nationwide on Sunday, amid a surge in unrest the authorities have failed to quell.
The bloodshed, which has left around 200 people dead in the past week alone, has forced Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... to appeal for international help to combat militancy just months ahead of its first general election in four years.
Officials have also voiced concern over a resurgent al-Qaeda emboldened by the civil war in neighboring Syria which has provided the jihadist network's front groups in Iraq with increased room to plan operations.
In the restive northern city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , gunniesrubbed out Alaa Edwar, a Christian journalist working for Nineveh al-Ghad, a local television network backed by provincial Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi.
Edwar was bumped off near his home in east Mosul, police and medical sources said.
His murder came after attacks last month in Mosul killed three journalists and badly maimed a fourth.
The predominantly Sunni Arab city is one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq, with hard boyz frequently carrying out attacks and also reportedly extorting money from shopkeepers.
Iraq has come in for repeated criticism over shortcomings in media freedom, and ranks first in the Committee to Protect Journalists' Impunity Index, which tracks unsolved murders of journalists.
Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, saw the lion's share of Sunday's attacks.
Two separate shootings killed an off-duty soldier and a civilian in Mosul, while a roadside kabooming targeting a security patrol in Nineveh's west killed an army captain.
In southern Storied Baghdad, meanwhile, gunnies killed a restaurant owner, and a gun attack targeting an army checkpoint in Balad north of the capital killed a soldier.
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#1
Real journalism is dangerous - which is one reason our journalists don't do it.
[Pak Daily Times] The first amendment to the US constitution establishes the most unfettered free speech regime in the world. Even so, 'crying fire in a crowded theatre' is not free speech. Qari Shakir, the maulana (holy man) who instigated the riots in Rawalpindi did precisely that. Just as the Ashura procession approached, he deliberately created blatant provocation by suggesting -- quite erroneously -- that Hussain (AS) had decided to bear allegiance to Yazid but was forced into conflict by his son Zainul Abidin. This has absolutely no basis in history, which makes it all the more disturbing. What happened next was terrible and blame cannot be apportioned to one community alone. The events in Rawalpindi and elsewhere have underscored just how important it is to roll back General Zia's Islamisation process and perhaps to go even further and separate religion from the state and governance. This is important not just to preserve peace and sanity but also to safeguard religion from controversy.
In 2013's Pakistain, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the founding fathers of this country came from diverse sectarian backgrounds. Zafarullah Khan was an Ahmedi (then still considered Musselmen), Aga Khan was the foremost Ismaili, Bahaduryar Jang was a Mahdavi, the Raja of Mahmudabad and the Ispahanis were staunch Ithna Ashari Shias, Nazimuddin, Fazlul Haq and Liaquat Ali Khan were Sunnis and, last but not least, the Quaid-e-Azam, Jinnah himself, was a Khoja Shia Twelver. Within the movement there were all kinds of 'Musselmens', from secular-minded cultural Musselmens only like Daniyal Latifi to the devout Barelvis like Pir Jamaat Ali Shah. It was because the Musselmen League adopted a neutral and non-sectarian approach that they managed to bring on one platform a great majority of the Musselmen multitudes in the subcontinent. In the final stage, there were many scheduled caste Hindus and Christians who also threw their lot in with them. There was no single occasion in all seven years of the Pakistain Movement that official public prayers were instituted by the Musselmen League or when theology or 'Islamic ideology' came under discussion at any of the Musselmen League sessions, which were extensively recorded. Religion and theology were just not the point. Communal consciousness or Musselmen nationalism may well have been rooted in a common but tenuous religious tradition, but its markers were not religious. It was -- as Ian Talbot calls it -- a secular Musselmen nationalism comprising an argument, rightly or wrongly, based on language, culture and history rather than theology or ideology. The Musselmen League model was to unite Musselmens by keeping theology out. Perhaps this is the most important legacy that Pakistain today needs to unite its own fractured polity.
The ideological confusion created in the aftermath of partition in 1947, and more so after the breakup of Pakistain in 1971, ensured that this spirit of neutrality and impartiality was sacrificed on the altar of an undefined mouthful, the 'ideology of Pakistain'. The separation of East Pakistain, which contained a largely secular and highly politicised middle class, was a triple deathblow to progressive politics, an indigenous economy and Pakistain's founding national theory. After 1971, there were more South Asian Musselmens outside Pakistain than inside it, bringing its Musselmen homeland status into question. The alternative to Musselmen nationalism was sought philosophically in Pan-Islamism and financially in 'petrodollars'. This was achieved through the Islamic Summit Conference in 1974; the full impact of this much-touted Islamic unity conference on the national psyche of Paks awaits its scholar. Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio had his hands full of angry bleached blonde... the constitutional excommunication of Ahmedis laid down a dangerous precedent with General Zia taking the religious argument to its most absurd extreme.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 was seen with trepidation by the ruling dynasties of the Musselmen world on the lam. Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... -- a monarchy -- was deathly afraid of a revolution in the Kingdom and therefore bolstered Wahabi and Salafi movements as a counterweight to Shia-ism. In other words, the Saudis wished to co-opt their own snuffies and gunnies by playing up the Shia threat. This is why we see Saudi Arabia standing with Israel against Iran today, a classic case of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. Pakistain is a natural battleground for this sectarian agenda. An investigation will no doubt show that Qari Shakir, the prime instigator, was a foot soldier in this massive Arab cultural, imperialist invasion with its sectarian paraphernalia.
This cultural invasion is all around us. Speaking at Allahabad in 1930, Allama Muhammad Iqbal listed the liberation of Indian Islam from the stamp of Arab imperialism as one of the reasons for his advocacy of a consolidated Musselmen state in the north west of India. It is therefore an irony that the stamp of Arab imperialism has become even more pronounced in that consolidated Musselmen state; the new fad of 'Al-Bakistan' licence plates is a case in point. After speaking Urdu for almost 800 years, the Musselmens of Pakistain have decided to dispense with the letter 'p' and adopt 'Allah Hafiz' instead of 'Khuda Hafiz' (God be with you). That this is an urban 'Al-Bunjabi' middle class phenomenon experienced all along the Grand Trunk (GT) Road from Lahore to Rawalpindi correlates with the rise of sectarian and religious extremism in these areas.
One would care less if someone wanted to make a fool of themselves by having Al-Bakistan licence plates had it not been part of a larger, more disturbing trend accompanied with sectarian bigotry. The straitjacket and rigid interpretations of religion are ill suited for a populace that is informed in its religious identity by Indian, Iranian and Afghan influences and whose cultural heritage encompasses two millennia of eastern spiritual traditions. Pakistain is very much a South Asian country and will always remain one. The straitjacket of Arab cultural imperialism will only stifle us.
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A brief battle between the military and the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines left two dead a day before the New People's Army extended a ceasefire in areas hit by Typhoon Yolanda.
Members of NPA Front 16 clashed with troops on patrol in Brgy Alipao, Alegria, Surigao del Norte early Saturday afternoon. An unidentified NPA militant and a soldier were killed in the gunfight, which lasted for about 25 minutes. Two improvised explosive devices were recovered from the militants after the fight.
The clash happened a day before the Maoist group extended its ceasefire in the central Philippines, which the government has not reciprocated due to difficulties in the peace talks.
#1
As coupled wid older Artics denoting Commie, Islamist discord in the PHIL, + Angola now formally banning Islam, I'm interpreting this news to mean that the post-9-11, anti-US + Western, anti-Democracy honeymoon between Secular Commie-Socialists + Radical Islamist [Faith-based/Theo-Socialists] is over + bloody divorce is imminent.
THE SIMPSONS > REV. LOVEJOY'S WIFE ON COMMIE-ISLAMIST ESTRANGEMENT + DIVORCE = D *** NG IT, "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN"!
[An Nahar] President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers signaled an acceptance of uranium enrichment in Iran and that punitive sanctions were starting to crumble.
"Iran's right to uranium enrichment on its soil was accepted in this nuclear deal by world powers," he said in a speech broadcast live on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
"The structure of the sanctions against Iran has begun to crack," said Rouhani, referring to Western punitive sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, while adding that the "Iranian nation has never sought nuclear weapons."
Earlier, Rouhani said the agreement would "open new horizons."
"Constructive engagement (in addition to) tireless efforts by negotiating teams are to open new horizons," Rouhani said on Twitter after intensive talks in Geneva produced a long-elusive accord.
Rouhani said the deal had been made possible due to "Iranian people's vote for moderation," referring to his surprise election victory in June against a pool of conservatives.
The historic deal came after five days of intensive negotiations between Iranian interlocutors and high-ranking delegations from the United States, Britannia, La Belle France, China and Russia plus Germany in the grouping known as the P5+1.
The talks had hit snags over a few points of difference, including Iran's insistence to have what it calls its "right" to enrich uranium to be recognized by the six major powers.
The White House said such a right was not inserted in the deal, while a senior Iranian negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, said Iran's "enrichment program" had been recognized.
His boss Mohammad Javad Zarif speaking to Iranian journalists shed some light on the issue.
"This right does not need to be independently recognized. Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and the recognition is included in the article" four of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"The sanctions are being reduced," Zarif said in the remarks reported by Iranian media, adding that the reduction would be implemented within "two or three weeks."
Zarif also said Iran's cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog would increase over the next six month, the period for the interim agreement.
Also Sunday, Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the "achievement" of the country's negotiating team in clinching the deal with world powers, Fars news agency reported.
"The nuclear negotiating team should be thanked and appreciated for this achievement. God's grace and the support of the land of the Medes and the Persians were the reasons behind this success," Fars quoted Khamenei as saying.
"Resistance against excessive demands should be the criteria for (nuclear) officials," he added.
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[TRIB] The B.O. regime said Friday it will lose $139 million on a loan to struggling electric car maker Fisker Automotive Inc. after selling part of the loan to a private investor that immediately took the company into bankruptcy.
Hybrid Technology LLC, the Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, car marker's new owner, said it plans to keep Fisker operating after it emerges from bankruptcy.
The $139 million loss is the largest in the B.O. regime's green energy ... the attempt to produce energy without using fossil fuel. The preferred methods are solar, wind, geothermal, phlogiston, philosophers' stones, and rattling bears' teeth. The approach with the most promise involves attaching generators to perpetual motion machines, but using Words of Power to summon energy-rich demons may also work. The green in the term refers to the vast number of greenbacks that have been thrown at the problem since 1973 with indifferent results... loan program since the 2011 failure of solar panel maker Solyndra ...a green technological winner picked by the Obama administration that cost the taxpayers a half billion dollars, with the added benefit of the campaign contributors who put money into the project getting paid before the taxpayers when the wreckage went up for sale... . The government lost $528 million in the Solyndra collapse, triggering sharp Republican criticism of the loan program and President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... 's investments in green energy.
The Energy Department awarded Fisker a half-billion loan guarantee in 2009, but suspended it in 2011, after Fisker failed to meet a series of benchmarks. Fisker had received $192 million before the loan was frozen.
The Energy Department said it had recovered about $28 million before selling the remainder of the loan to Hybrid on Friday for $25 million. Hybrid is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li.
The department's actions, along with the sale, mean the Energy Department has protected nearly three-quarters of its original commitment to Fisker, Energy front man Bill Gibbons said Friday.
"While this result is not what anyone hoped, the ($139 million loss) represents less than 2 percent of our advanced vehicle loans, and less than one-half of 1 percent of our overall loan program portfolio" of more than $30 billion, Gibbons said.
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#1
The USG loaned Fisker $192. million. The USG recovered $28. million, which leaves an unpaid balance of $164. million.
The USG sold the loan to Chinaman Dick Li, and still lost $139. million. Does this mean Mr. Li bought a discounted $164. million note for $25. million dollars ?
Do I smell something rotten here, or is my math simply bad? What am I missing ?
Originally titled, Analysis: Iran deal leaves Israel few options
By JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM (AP) - After feverishly trying to derail the international community's nuclear deal with Iran in recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now has little choice but to accept an agreement that he has derided as deeply flawed.
So Josef, you think Bibi doesn't have a choice? Really? You should keep watching. No doubt you'll term Israel's response 'unexpected'!
Netanyahu believes the six-month deal leaves Iran's military nuclear capabilities largely intact, while giving Iran relief from painful economic sanctions, undermining negotiations on the next stage. At the same time, Israel's strongest piece of leverage, the threat of a military strike on Iran, seems to be out of the question despite Netanyahu's insistence it would remain on the table.
Why is it out of the question? Israel can certainly put a strike package together. It's easier if they have the covert support of the Saudis, which one shouldn't discount. They might get the support of certain Gulf states. They could use their Dolphin-class diesel submarines which are rumored to have cruise missile capability. And of course there's the usual cloak-and-dagger work for which Mossad is famous. Israel has options. You're a reporter in Jerusalem, you would know that if you and your editors weren't trying to use your news agency to manipulate the Israelis and the public. Did Champ ask your editors to do this?
"Today the world became a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world made a significant step in obtaining the most dangerous weapons in the world," Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday, calling the deal a "historic mistake."
He said Israel was not bound by the agreement, and reiterated Israel's right to "defend itself by itself," a veiled reference to a possible military strike against Iran.
He's telling you, Josef, but you aren't listening...
Netanyahu has spent years warning the world against the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran, calling it an existential threat due to Iranian references to Israel's destruction, its support of hostile militant groups on Israel's borders and its development of missiles capable of reaching Israel and beyond. Israel also believes that a nuclear-armed Iran will provide militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah an "umbrella" of protection that will embolden them to carry out attacks.
Absolutely correct. Even if the Mad Mullahs don't nuke Israel directly, they can and will intimidate every state in the region.
As momentum for a deal built the past week, Netanyahu delivered speech after speech and held meeting after meeting, urging the world to seek better terms from Iran. Last week, he hosted French President Francois Hollande, then rushed off to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin in a last-ditch attempt to alter the agreement.
Netanyahu had said that any deal must ensure that Iran's enriching of uranium - a key step toward making a nuclear bomb - must end. He also said all enriched material should be removed from the Islamic Republic, and called for the demolition of a plutonium reactor under construction.
Which of course the Iranians won't do, and Bibi knew it. The west has no way to compel Iran do shut down enrichment short of a military strike.
But after the deal was announced, it was clear that Netanyahu made little headway. While freezing parts of Iran's enrichment capabilities, it will leave others, including the centrifuges that are used for enrichment, intact. The deal relies heavily on Iranian goodwill, a still-to-be-defined system of international inspections and the continued pain of sanctions that remain in place.
Bibi knew he was making little headway with Champ. That's why he continues to reserve Israel's right to fix the problem itself.
Yoel Guzansky, who used to monitor the Iranian nuclear program for Israel's National Security Council, said a deal that would satisfy Israel was unlikely from the outset due to differing "red lines" between Israel and the U.S.
While Israel sees any enrichment as a cause for concern, the U.S. was willing to tolerate nuclear development as long as it was unable to produce weapons, said Guzansky, who is now an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.
"It's a bad agreement because of what it symbolizes," he said. "It means Iran is getting an acceptance, a signature that it's a legitimate country." Even worse for Israel, he added, the agreement amounts to "acceptance of Iran as a nuclear threshold state."
Correct. And how do you 'tolerate nuclear development' and then verify that there are no weapons? It's double-speak and a way to obfuscate so as to justify a retreat and surrender. That's what Champ did; he's been wanting to do this since he took office.
U.S. officials said Sunday's deal was just a first step and further negotiations aim for a final agreement that would prevent any threat from Iran's nuclear program.
Those negotiations will take longer than a Carla del Ponte prosecution at the World Court...
They said the relief from sanctions was minimal and that the most biting economic measures, including sanctions on Iran's vital oil industry, remained in place and more could be imposed if Iran fails to follow through.
Bet the four billion dollars will help...
Guzansky predicted that despite the tough rhetoric, Israel would move quickly to repair relations with the U.S., its closest and most important ally, and do everything possible to influence the outcome of the world's final-status talks with Iran. That could include speeches, threats of military action or behind-the-scenes diplomacy. Israel is not a direct participant in the talks but remains in close contact with many of the negotiators.
The relationship with the U.S. will be critical as Israel conducts peace talks with the Palestinians in the coming months. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is mediating the talks, has set an April target date for reaching an agreement, and there is widespread speculation that the Americans will step up their involvement as the deadline approaches.
Israel need not make peace with the Paleos. The Paleos will do something stupid (count on it) to allow the Israelis to back away from the sham of negotiations.
Guzansky also said Israel's main card - military action - appears to be out of the question right now.
"How can Israel, after the entire international community sat with Iran, shook hands with Iran and signed an agreement, operate independently?" he said. "It will be seen as someone who sabotages 10 years of trying to get Iran to the table and trying to get a deal."
Because the entire international community, now including the U.S., doesn't give a rat's hind end if Israel survives. Whereas it truly is an existential threat to Israel.
Enrichment is at the heart of the dispute because it can be used for peaceful purposes or for producing a nuclear bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for civilian usage such as energy production and cancer treatment. Uranium at low levels of enrichment, up to 20 percent, is used in research or generating electricity. Uranium must be enriched to a far higher level - above 90 percent - to produce a warhead. So far, Iran is not known to have produced any at that level, but Israel argues that the technology for doing so is the same as that for enriching at lower levels.
Israel is correct again. And 20 percent uranium, while it won't go 'boom', can be a radiological weapon.
Under the compromise, enrichment would be capped at the 5 percent level, and Iran's stockpile of 20 percent uranium would be "neutralized," effectively preventing it from reaching weapons-grade level. Also construction on the plutonium reactor is to be suspended. The White House also promised "intrusive monitoring" of Iranian nuclear facilities.
What's the punishment when the Iranians delay or deny the inspectors the ability to monitor "intrusively" the nuclear facilities? A sternly worded note from the U.N.? Double secret probation?
Israel says any enriched uranium in Iranian hands is potentially dangerous, since its centrifuges can quickly convert it to weapons grade. Israel believes that Iran's ability to keep its nuclear infrastructure intact will allow it to can quickly resume the program if the later talks fail.
Or even while the talks continue...
"Iran is a threshold nuclear country," said Netanyahu's Cabinet minister for intelligence affairs, Yuval Steinitz. "So far it was completely against U.N. security resolutions, and now it gets some kind of recognition at least for the next six months as a threshold nuclear country."
In all, about 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of highly enriched uranium is needed to make a weapon. Iran already has about 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of enriched uranium.
No, no, one needs less than 250 kg. The Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima contained 64 kg (141 lb) of enriched uranium. Most was enriched to 89% but some was only 50% uranium-235, for an average enrichment of 80%. You might want to check your sources a little more closely, Josef...
Ephraim Asculai, a former official at Israel's Atomic Energy Commission, said Sunday's agreement was not all bad for Israel, since it capped enrichment activity and slowed construction of the plutonium reactor. But he said Iran's ability to "break out" and make a nuclear explosive device remained intact, perhaps in as little as four to six months once a decision is made.
And shorter if Iran cheats, but boy howdy why would they do that?
"The good part of the deal is that it causes the public to forget about ObamaCare for a week enrichment stops at the present level and that is also some of the bad news because enrichment does go on," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2013
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#1
It's double-speak and a way to obfuscate so as to justify a retreat and surrender. That's what Champ did; he's been wanting to do this since he took office.
No, not Champ - the one pulling his strings, his master - ValJar. Who, it is said, has been heading up 'secret' negotiations [of our surrender] with Iran for months.
#2
Well, of course Israel won't dare do anything contrary to the wishes of international community! Ooops, forgot, we defy international community by just breathing.
#3
International opinion? I recall Israel's Operation Opera (aka Operation Babylon) on Iraq (1981) and Operation Orchard (2007) on Syria to take out growing nuclear threats. I don't know about world opinion today as the world has changed considerably. Today is more like pre-WWII world. But chances are the world would consider a strike on Iran a favor to the world. What the P5+1 signers forget is that Israel won't be victims again--world opinion be damned. Israel is a small country surrounded by enemies but they do have teeth.
#4
Regardless of what the P5+1 think, Jordan Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates want Iran's nuclear program eliminated. So does Azerbaijan.
They will give Israel free passage (and probably real time radar inputs as well). If they give Israel basing rights, the Israelis won't have to worry about the P5.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/25/2013 11:36
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[Bangla Daily Star] The full text of the Supreme Court judgment that awarded death penalty to war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah is likely to be released in a few days, as judges have completed writing their shares of it.
On September 17, the apex court sentenced the Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leader to death for committing crimes against humanity during the country's Liberation War in 1971, overruling the judgement of the International Crimes Tribunal-2 that awarded him life imprisonment.
The SC sources said all the five apex court judges, who delivered the verdict by majority view, have completed writing their parts of the judgement.
Now, those will be compiled and then a full-text verdict will be released, according to sources.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told The Daily Star that the government will execute the SC verdict immediately after the certified copy will be released as per the provisions of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973.
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11/25/2013
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[Tolo News] Presidential candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... has argued that recent statements and moves by President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... indicate he is abusing the security pact negotiation process and preparations for the upcoming elections to suit his own interests.
Abdullah's comments came on the last day of the Loya Jirga, in which participants voted to approve the BSA to the Afghan government.
According to Abdullah, Karzai has given mixed messages when it comes to the upcoming elections, asking foreign nations not to interfere in the elections process while also demanding the U.S. guarantee transparency for the elections.
Transparent elections were one of Karzai's preconditions for the signing of the BSA, which would ensure a close military partnership between the U.S. and Afghanistan in the years following the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... troop withdraw in 2014.
On Thursday, at the opening ceremony of the Jirga, Karzai told the some 2,500 participants that he would wait to sign the BSA until after the Presidential elections in April.
Abdullah claimed that Karzai was looking to benefit his preferred candidate by postponing the signing of the agreement.
Abdullah ran for President in 2009 and lost to Karzai after the first round of voting left them dead-even, despite widespread documentation of voter fraud and other electoral improprieties in favor of the incumbent Mr. Karzai.
"We want good elections from the Independent Election Commission and from Electoral Complaints Commission, so what does the recent statement of President Karzai mean? - It means that President Karzai is trying to get approval ratings through this national issue," Abdullah said. "The candidate he is favoring is not and will not be acceptable to Afghanistan."
Abdullah is not the only candidate that has come out against Karzai's apparent move to delay the signing of the BSA. Former Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak has also been a vocal supporter of the accord and critique of the President's decisions.
U.S. officials have urged Karzai to sign the agreement before the end of the year
Peace in Afghanistan is among the new preconditions Karzai has set in front of the U.S. for signing the pact. Abdullah scoffed at this demand, and said that bringing peace to Afghanistan, immediately, was impossible and that President Karzai was simply trying to get the support of the people by setting expectations he himself could not meet.
The April vote will be the first time Karzai cannot run, with his term limitation imposed by the Afghan Constitution.
"Our demand is that the fate of this agreement be decided as soon as possible because the same way the political transition will take place in 2014, security responsibilities will also transfer," Abdullah said. "That is why people are concerned as investments are leaving Afghanistan and unemployment is increasing, corruption has reached its limit and many people think that this year is the last year...it is the responsibility of the President to calm these concerns."
Abdullah elected not to participate in the Loya Jirga this week in Kabul, which saw some 2,500 leaders from around Afghanistan gather to discuss the BSA. He argued the event was illegal and defied logic in determining the future of Afghanistan's relationship with the U.S.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[ARABNEWS] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and other GCC countries fear that the landmark nuclear deal concluded by Western powers with Tehran in Geneva on Sunday would boost Tehran's regional ambitions.
Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear program in the breakthrough interim deal that world powers claimed was the biggest step in decade-long efforts to deny Iran an atomic bomb.
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi political analyst and general manager of Alarab news channel, said Gulf states fear the agreement would encourage Tehran to act with a free hand in the region.
"The (Geneva) agreement has reduced the Iran problem to the nuclear level only, while its regional interference is of key concern to GCC countries," he pointed out.
According to Khashoggi, officials in Gulf countries feel the B.O. regime "is no longer interested in regional problems" in the Middle East.
UAE analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdullah said: "Countries in the region no longer have any confidence in the US."
Abdullah Al-Askar, chairman of the foreign affairs committee at the Shoura Council, warned against Tehran's hidden agenda. "The government of Iran, month after month, has proven that it has an ugly agenda in the region, and in this regard, no one in the region will sleep and assume things are going smoothly."
Askar said that if the deal did not succeed in preventing Iran from building a bomb it would lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. "I think Saudi Arabia will go ahead if Iran goes ahead (and gets a nuclear weapon). I think Egypt, maybe Turkey, maybe the UAE, would go ahead and acquire the same technology."
Under the Geneva agreement, Iran will limit its nuclear program in exchange for $7 billion (5.2 billion euros) in sanctions relief. "We are worried," said Anwar Eshki, head of the Jeddah-based Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies, pointing to the $7 billion.
"We need to know whether these funds will be used by the Iranian regime for its own people, or to further finance crises in the region," the Saudi official said.
The UAE and Bahrain have welcomed the deal. "The Cabinet hopes this would represent a step toward a permanent agreement that preserves the stability of the region and shield it from tension and the danger of nuclear proliferation," the UAE said in a statement.
Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa said: "The agreement removes fears from us, whether from Iran or any other state."
Tehran is a key backer of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... in his fight against a nearly three-year insurrection. It is also seen as feeding instability in Bahrain and Yemen.
President Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... moved quickly to reassure US allies on Sunday, saying Washington "will remain firm, as will our commitment to our friends and allies -- particularly Israel and our Gulf partners, who have good reason to be skeptical about Iran's intentions."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the nuclear agreement, calling it "not a historic agreement but rather, a historic mistake."
He reiterated Israel's right to defend itself, and his hawkish foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said "all options are on the table."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Welcome to "Globalism" + "SEVEN OWG CO-SUPERPOWERS FOR SEVEN OWG GLOBAL FEDERAL UNIONS ON/FOR SEVEN KNOWN CONTINENTS".
The lost continents of Atlantis + Lemuria [Other?]notwithstanding.
[Dawn] Club-wielding brownshirts activists from Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... 's political party forcibly searched trucks for NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... supplies in northwest Pakistain on Sunday in protest at deadly US drone strikes.
Around 100 workers from the former cricket star's Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) party set up checkpoints in the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. on a main road leading to Afghanistan.
They stopped trucks and hauled drivers from their cabs to check their paperwork, following a call by Khan at a rally on Saturday to block supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan in protest at the drone attacks.
The activists, carrying the PTI's green and red flag, broke open truck containers to check their contents, an AFP news hound at the scene said.
The PTI heads the government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province, of which Peshawar is the capital. But authority for the highways lies with the federal government, which has so far made no move to block NATO supplies.
Muhammad Faisal, a senior police official, said the PTI activists' actions were illegal but he was powerless to act.
"The protesters are doing unlawful acts by checking documents and screening goods, they don't have authority," he told AFP.
"But we can't take action against them because we have no instructions from the government. If the government orders us, we will stop this illegal activity."
PTI activist Asghar Khalil told AFP they were heeding their leader's call to action and would not stop until Washington promised to end drone strikes.
Khan has long opposed the US campaign of drone attacks targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces of Evil in Pakistain's tribal areas.
He has intensified his rhetoric since a US drone strike killed Pak Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud on November 1.
Khan says that attack was a deliberate attempt by Washington to sabotage efforts towards peace talks with the krazed killers, who have killed thousands in a six-year campaign of violence.
"They are doing unlawful acts. They broke the sealing of my container and forcibly examined the goods," Faiz Muhammad Khan, a truck driver transporting sanitary items to Afghanistan, told AFP.
"If they want to block supplies for NATO forces, they should stop it in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... or at the border."
Later in the day, one of Khan's allies, the right wing Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... party, led thousands in a protest against drone attacks and the NATO supply line in the southern port city of Karachi, where the shipments originate.
Pakistain is a key transit route for the US-led mission in landlocked Afghanistan, particularly as NATO forces prepare to withdraw by the end of next year.
NATO supplies were suspended on Saturday because of a major PTI rally, which was held on the route used by the trucks.
The drone strikes are deeply unpopular in Pakistain. Islamabad publicly condemns them as counter-productive and a violation of illusory sovereignty, although previous governments have given their tacit support to them.
The US regards the strikes as a highly effective tool in the fight against militancy.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Suspected al-Qaeda gunnies killed three coppers in an attack Sunday on a checkpoint at the entrance to the southern town of Seyoun, a Yemeni security official said.
"Armed men, probably members of al-Qaeda, opened fire on the checkpoint," killing three and wounding two others, the official said.
The assailants managed to escape in a car.
Al-Qaeda Death Eaters have stepped up attacks on security forces from strongholds in south and southeast Yemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2013
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A number of news outlets have reported that Angola has "banned" Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism.
Twelve years after the Taliban was ousted from power Afghanistan is planning to reintroduce public stoning as punishment for adultery, according to a new draft penal code.
Nawaz Sharif
Mehmood 
[Dawn] A seminary student was killed and his two fellows were 
North Korea
[An Nahar] Egypt's interim president Adly Mansour approved a controversial law Sunday that regulates demonstrations and gives authorities the power to ban protests deemed a "threat" to national security, officials said.
International Criminal Court
Wazoo
Kurram Agency
[USATODAY] Heavy 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dawn] KARACHI: "Don't ask me what happens now. What other choice do we have but to pick up the pieces from here and get back to work? I will rebuild my little business. We have to stay here and deal with whatever calamity comes our way.
Saudi Arabia says one more person has died from the Mers virus, bringing to 55 the number of deaths in the kingdom at the center of the outbreak.
[An Nahar] Speaker 
This weekend's nuclear deal with Iran may have come together after two short rounds of negotiation in Geneva, but it's been long in the making.
A lawyer representing a self-styled Muslim sheikh accused of being an accessory to the stabbing death of a woman in Sydney says his client will vigorously defend the charges.
[BBC.CO.UK] The US secretary of state has said the deal reached on Sunday over Iran's nuclear programme will make Israel and the Middle East a safer place.
David Cameron
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
A brief battle between the military and the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines left two dead a day before the New People's Army extended a ceasefire in areas hit by Typhoon Yolanda.
[Tolo News] Presidential candidate Dr. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
