An Egyptian named Abdul Baset Mohammed, President of the Academy of the scientific miracles in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, is claiming that NASA has proven the Quranic story of Laylat al Qadr.
According to the legend, on that night - being celebrated in various odd-numbered dates towards the end of Ramadan - the sun appeared without any visible sunbeams, sort of like the moon. This is the night that Muslims believe the first verse of the Quran were revealed to Mohammed.
Mohammed says that ten years ago, NASA found proof of this phenomenon but is hushing it up.
Not only that, but another NASA scientist who has seen proofs of the Koran in his space research converted to Islam - and was then fired by NASA.
He goes on to tell other stories about how Quranic claims about anatomy have been proven by science, ,as well as a tale about British scientists who supposedly determined that the stone at the Kaaba was not from this solar system.
This all recalls the Muslim claim that Neil Armstrong and other astronauts heard the Muslim call to prayer when they walked on the moon, and that scientists determined that the Kaaba in Mecca is a center of cosmic radiation.
#2
Laylat = night
al = of
Qadr = power or decree or measure
The revelations (there were two, one from Allah to Gabriel, one from Gabriel to Mo) were in a cave. Presumably, the sun was observed before the revelation at about sunset when it is possible to look at the sun without hurting your eyes.
That's a miracle that is repeated twice each day that is sunny.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/13/2012 14:25
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Posted by: Water Modem ||
08/13/2012
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#1
For some reason these quotes come to mind.
Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
[after a battered crook has accused Harry of beating him]
Chief: Have you been following that man?
Harry Callahan: Yeah, I've been following him on my own time. And anybody can tell I didn't do that to him.
Chief: How?
Harry Callahan: Cause he looks too damn good, that's how!
Israel has been surrounded since 1948. If Iran and/or Egypt feel lucky, that would be a huge mistake.
#2
Iran has times said that any attack by Israel will be deemed the same as an attack by the US or US-West which would validate an Iranian counterresponse, including but not limited to TerrOPs agz US, Israeli ME + International targets = personages, interests, etc.
Pesky Persians gotta be Pesky, + truth be told they like it that way - by Iran's own scope, IT WILL NOT BE JUST AN ISRAELI-IRAN MIL CONFLICT OR LIMITED TO JUST THE MIDDLE EAST, + IT WILL A BE A DECISIVE "WAR TO THE DEATH" = 'WAR OF ANNIHILATION". IMO it will be a "long war" to despite any periods of intermediate "quiet/lull".
Radical Islam's jihad is already "global/
universal/international" by definition - an extra-Regional ME mil conflict seemingly initiated by Israel will only serve to complement it. IRAN + JIHADIS WILL NOT BELIEVE THAT THE US PER SE DID NOT APPROVE OF ISRAEL'S ACTION.
The Toulouse massacre did not bring French anti-Semitism to a halt. It actually increased.
The immediate reason for Jewish pessimism in France and for Bernheims change of heart may be the Toulouse massacre last March: the murder in cold blood of three Jewish children and a Jewish teacher by Mohamed Merah, a Muslim terrorist, on their schools premises. This crime, instead of instilling more compassion and understanding towards the Jewish community, has actually generated more anti-Jewish violence and hate talk, as if Merah was not seen as a vile thug but rather as a model by parts of the population.
There were no less than six cases of aggravated assault on Jewish youths or rabbis in France from March 26 to July 5, including one case in Toulouse again. According to the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations (CRIF), anti-Semitic incidents of all sorts have increased by 53% compared to the same period last year.
#2
"but rather as a model by parts of the population"
Let me guess what parts?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/13/2012 14:29
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#3
I'd be worried also. 2012 looks somewhat like 1938.
Despite all that, Bernheim suddenly warned Jewish leaders a few weeks ago about a growing rejection of Jews and Judaism in France, something he linked to the global passing of Judeo-Christian values in French society as a whole.
This seems like a recent phenomenon--amplified since the Obama policy shift away from our only ally in the Mideast, Israel and towards its adversaries.
No, it's just that it's being reported now, JohnQC. Until recently the French police often wouldn't even accept reports of violence against Jews, or downgraded the seriousness if they did. See Ilan Halimi's story as one example.
President Obama is exploring the option of using his executive authority to get government agencies and critical infrastructure owners to implement better controls for protecting their computer networks.
According to a report by Reuters, the White House is considering the move because of the continuing delay by Congress to pass the Cybersecurity Act bill.
Opponents, many of whom are Republicans, say the bill is too regulatory in its approach and vests the Department of Homeland Security with too much authority. So now the Prez will get to exert HIS authority!
The continued bickering in Congress may soon prompt the President to issue an executive order to protect critical infrastructure networks, White House Homeland Security adviser John Brennan is quoted as saying in the Reuters report. "I mean if the Congress is not going to act ... then the president wants to make sure that we are doing everything possible," Brennan is reported to have said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/13/2012
10:26 ||
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Twin earthquakes that devastated rural villages in northwest Iran killed a total of 306 people, most of them women and kiddies, Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi said on Monday, adding that the search for bodies was ongoing.
Another 3,037 were maimed, of whom 2,011 were given first aid at the scene and the rest were taken to hospital, where 700 surgeries were performed, Vahid Dastjerdi told politicians in a report published on the parliament's website.
"We are continuing the search for bodies," she said.
Another official addressing the politicians, Hassan Ghadami, a deputy interior minister in charge of crisis management, said: "Many of the victims were killed in the first hours (after the quake) due to the mass of muddy rubble... and the old structure of houses in the region."
The two earthquakes, measuring 6.4 and 6.3 on the moment magnitude scale, rumbled through northwest Iran on Saturday on quick succession, levelling mud brick and concrete homes in villages to the northeast of the city of Tabriz. So the Iranians can build nuclear bombs but can't implement a building code in an earthquake zone...
The head of Iran's Red Islamic Thingy, Abdolhossein Faghih, told the same hearing that 230 villages had been badly damaged, including a number totally destroyed. Others suffered moderate damage, Ghadami said.
Iran's government has launched a fund to quickly rebuild homes in the mountainous region before the onset of the harsh winter in around four months. A state grant of nearly $1,000 per family has been approved, along with low-interest loans for up to $6,000.
Faghih said the Red Islamic Thingy has provided relief in the meantime for the more than 16,000 people left homeless, distributing thousands of tents and blankets, and food and water.
Iran rejected offers of outside help in the wake of the quakes from a number of countries, including the United States, Germany, Turkey, Taiwan, Singapore and Russia. It said it could cope with the disaster itself.
"We received offers of help from several countries... but as we have sufficient men and resources we did not need this foreign aid. We thanked them for their offers," Faghih said.
Authorities called off rescue operations on Sunday after saying all possible survivors had been recovered.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Nigerian troops on Sunday killed 20 suspected Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists in the restive north-eastern city of Maiduguri, but lost one soldier while two others were maimed, a senior officer said.
"We got a report that some suspected members of Boko Haram were meeting at a particular location in Maiduguri. Our men mobilised, leading to a shootout. Twenty suspected bad boyz were potted while a soldier died in the operation and two others sustained injuries," commander Victor Ebhaleme told AFP.
He said no arrests were made during the raid on the hideout in the Gwaidamgari area of Maiduguri, a hotbed of Boko Haram activity.
The Islamist group is responsible for deadly gun and kabooms in some parts of Nigeria, particularly in the north-east, the centre and the capital Abuja, which have claimed more than 1,000 lives since mid-2009.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/13/2012
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#1
it's a start
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2012 9:37
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#2
Ya' beat me to it, Frank.
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/13/2012 20:13
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Well, now can die happy, because now you know. Syrian rebel footage. Note that the cameraman, before looking down the barrel of an RPG, was looking down the muzzle of a BMP. Smart fellow.
#1
Couple of points:
Sometimes, holding perfectly still among and in front of busted up stuff--no patterns--is good if not perfect as a way to be unseen. The BMP guys may have been leaning back, stretching, not using their scopes.
The RPG guy is pretty brave since he's looking down the muzzle of, iirc, a 73mm cannon and is one quick trigger pull away from catastrophe.
And, what happened to the BMP?
Also, where were the dismounts who are supposed to prevent AT guys getting that kind of shot?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2012 9:06
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#2
BTW, don't attempt this at home.
No alcohol was consumed prior to recording. Done in a hazardous environment by untrained cannon fodder enthusiasts.
#8
Really, can't both sides lose this one? Fight to mutual extinction, maybe?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2012 16:51
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#9
This reminds me of the ASL Backblast rule (ASLSK 4.4.3) or somewhere in the regular ASL rules: use the colored die of the TH roll as an unmodified 1 FP attack on the IFT against all units in the firer's location.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/13/2012 19:52
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#10
Scene courtesy of [almost]THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY???
I don't see anything in the Vid to indicate a direct hit.
Obama does indeed hate automobiles and the suburbs, as any good progressive should: the automobile makes the population mobile and therefore not controllable, and suburbs give the population a sense of personal power and therefore not dependent. Of course both have to go.
#3
It goes well beyond automobiles. Suburbs are often inhabited by whites who fled the cities when black officials took over. That consitutes racism and, in the name of social justice, all that wealth in the suburbs needs to come under urban control.
#4
$10/gal gasoline &/or gas rationing will take care of autos and the suburbs rather nicely, regardless of Obama, the enviros, Romney, or anyone else. That way of life is doomed, it's all over but the kicking and screaming. I'll stand corrected should the price of gas go (and stay) below $2 a gallon for 10 or 20 years.
#6
One of the comments at the Breitbart site mentioned a site: www.progress.org This site states: Saul Alinsky: Champion of the Nonsocialist Left.
The Nonsocialist Left? Just how does one make such distinctions? Are we not parsing words such as "What is the meaning of is?" Nonsocialist and socialist left? Is this not a distinction without a difference--only a matter of degree?
If someone embraces social justice, statism (everything coming from the central government), re-distribution of the wealth, homogenizing everyone based on some goofy fairness doctrine, ultimately taking property rights (a fundamental of our country), are we not talking about totalitarianism system based on the underpinnings of Facisim, Communism, and socialism?
If what Obama is selling is so good, why do these people try so hard to mask what they are saying and what they are doing from the American people?
It is time to vote out this demagogue and his minions and send them packing off to Chicago and wherever the rest of them came from? They are a very, very dangerous bunch.
#7
Suburbs are often inhabited by whites who fled the cities when black officials took over.
There was not only white flight, but also the old established upper and middle class black flight leaving the communities without that critical mass to keep destructive social behaviors and their abetters in check.
#9
Bad leaders, bad policy, loss of tax bases, bad management, thuggery, squandering of funds, abandonment of housing and businesses ensue such as occurred in Detroit and other Blue cities. Chicago tried to resurrect the inner cities back in the 70s and early 80s as I recall without much success. It was like sending aid to Zimbabwe--it never got by the corruption sieve. This must have been about the time when Obama was community organizing in Chicago.
#13
Any amount of land -- even a half-acre lot -- is anathema to the left. You can grow stuff with land, making you less dependent on the state. There might be mineral wealth -- making you less dependent on the state. You can get away from other people -- making it harder for the state to keep you under surveillance.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2012 16:49
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#14
except their own 5 acre secured-perimeter estates, Rob
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/13/2012 19:19
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#15
An interesting concept, but what about electric cars, Hydrogen and Nat gas fuels, and the internet?
I happen to be a Master Mechanic, although retired It's easy to travel wherever I wish, either through super high gas mileage, an electric propulsion system (NOT An electric car) more like a combination of electric and fossil fuel (One car maker does this already) and electric Trains, Buses and the inventiveness of Americans, NO, seems like a failure plan, but Americans WILL overcome this as well as anything else government throws in the way.
Gasoline MAY be a thing of the past, but Mobility is here to stay.
And NOBODY will stop it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/13/2012 21:57
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#16
Arise, CORSICANT - GREAT CAPITAL CITY-PLANET OF THE GALACTIC REPUBLIC [future - Empire], arise.
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa plans to sue Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday for refusing to provide documents related to the "Fast and Furious" gun-smuggling operation.
"The committee expects to file the civil contempt suit against the attorney general Monday," a Republican source said. The suit will be filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia.
The action is the latest escalation in the dispute between House Republicans and the Justice Department over the documents, which relate to a botched gun-smuggling operation. On June 28, the House voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress and authorized the Oversight panel to bring suit to enforce its rights.
In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns to "walk," which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.
The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at Border Patrol agent Brian Terry's murder scene.
Not to mention the hundreds of dead Mexican citizens...
#3
I doubt this suit will be heard before the election--maybe a year or two down the road. It would probably suck some of the oxygen out of Obama's campaign and be a distraction away from R-R's message of "Its the economy and entitlement reform."
#2
Debka is a source too..
Argument is interesting:
At 17:55 p.m., Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi dropped a bombshell in Cairo. In one fell swoop, he smashed the Egyptian military clique ruling the country for decades, sacked the Supreme Military Council running Egypt since March 2011 and cut the generals off from their business empire by appropriating the defense ministry and military industry.
That fateful eight hours-less-five-minutes have forced Israelâs leaders to take a second look at their plans for Iran.
Morsiâs lightning decisions were the finishing touches that proved the Islamist Bedouin terror attacks in Sinai of Aug. 5 fitted neatly into a secret master plan hatched by Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to seize full control of rule in Cairo
Posted by: Water Modem ||
08/13/2012 12:54
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#3
Not too sure about the coup part - who has the most guns?
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/13/2012 20:15
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Dateline February 1979
Washington is not particularly worried over sweeping changes enacted by Iranian theocrat Ayatollah Khomeini Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, including the sacking of several top military leaders, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported late Sunday.
The US has confidence in the installation of new defense minister Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who has had extensive contacts with Washington, Ignatius reported, quoting unnamed US officials. The new regime in Egypt does deserve the confidence of those who want islamofascism to prevail. Does the Western political class really wish for this?
On Sunday, Morsi sacked the head of the military and the defense minister, as well as several other top generals. Later in the day he instituted a number of reforms to put absolute power in his hands the drafting of a new constitution in the hands of the executive, further consolidating power and defanging the military in what some see as a Muslim Brotherhood putsch.
While the US is unconcerned, Israel has reacted to the changes in Cairo warily, saying the ousted military leaders had good contacts with Israel and the consolidation of power with Morsi could stifle independent voices. Clearly Israel's been taken over by islamophobic conspiracy theorists connected to Michele Bachmann. Who else wouldn't entrust absolute political power to an islamofascist? </sarc>
Wife and I are working on a bumper sticker. It says "coexist" using the emblems of hate groups. Hammer & Sickle for the 'C', swastika for the 'X' -- you get the idea.
Well, we are kind of stuck on the 'E'. Best we have so far is the crosswheel emblem from the KKK.
#4
Put a bumper sticker on your car like this and you are certain to get your car seriously messed over by the current crop of far leftists and Bama supporters. Think Occupy Wall Streeters and anarchists and the mess they created; defecating on police cars for example. I'd be wary.
#11
@Iblis
I think for a bumper sticker this looks too difficult to decipher. The idea is very interesting but maybe you should provide a bit more help to the casual reader.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/13/2012 21:43
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#12
Broadhead's right.
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/13/2012 22:03
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The newest strain of the Flame super-virus identified by Kaspersky Labs earlier this year, dubbed Gauss, may be targeting banks in Lebanon, stealing information needed by individuals interacting with their accounts.
Analysts believe the virus may be the work of the United States and/or Israel and be designed to attack assets held by Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
Arik Hesseldahl, a senior writer for the popular web site All Things Digital, wrote that one can deduce the identities of the trojan virus's authors by examining its targets. According to Kaspersky, the vast majority of infected computers are in Lebanon, with most others in Israel or Palestinian Authority areas. The trojan, wrote Hesseldahl, is likely aimed at Hezbollah, and seeks to compromise its cyber-defenses.
In revealing the malware's existence last week, Kaspersky Labs concluded that Gauss was made to hack into banking systems, specifically Lebanese ones.
Map of the prime targets of the Gauss trojan infection (Photo credit: Courtesy Kaspersky Labs)
"Functionally, Gauss is designed to collect as much information about infected systems as possible, as well as to steal credentials for various banking systems and social network, email and IM accounts," Kaspersky Labs wrote in a blog post Thursday. "Gauss contains a 64-bit payload, together with Firefox-compatible browser plugins designed to steal and monitor data from the clients of several Lebanese banks: Bank of Beirut, EBLF, BlomBank, ByblosBank, FransaBank and Credit Libanais. In addition, it targets users of Citibank and PayPal."
Kaspersky, in its blog post, wrote that there were many similarities -- in terms of how the Gauss trojan (which embeds itself on a system and activates itself in response to an internal or external prompt) was written and is deployed -- to other recently discovered trojans, such as Flame and Duqu. After analyzing the three trojan strains, Kaspersky wrote, "we can say with a high degree of certainty that Gauss comes from the same 'factory' or 'factories.'" And it was also clear from the level of sophistication in the Gauss payload, Kaspersky added, that the new trojan and its "cousins" represent "the high end of nation-state sponsored cyber-espionage and cyberwar operations, pretty much defining the meaning of sophisticated malware.'"
Kaspersky does not say which nation-state it believes is behind Gauss, but several experts have speculated that Israel and the U.S. may be the authors. Kaspersky itself points to a line of code which contains the word white, which they believe is a reference to Lebanon. Both words, the Kaspersky analysts points out, share the same root letters of LBN in Semitic lanuages.
Flame, Duqu and the Stuxnet virus were all thought to have targeted Iran, specifically its nuclear program.
Hezbollah, which acts as an Iranian proxy on Israel's northern border, would thus be a likely candidate to be targeted by whomever is behind the other viruses.
"Naturally, intelligence about the movements of money in [Lebanon] might be useful information," Hesseldahl wrote. "It might also be useful to drain certain accounts of funds as a way of slowing down operations. You can't shoot guns and missiles if you can't buy them first."
In a recent article, the Russia Today web site said that it has specific information that Flame had been authored by the US and Israel. Citing "Western officials familiar with classified data on the effort," the site wrote that "the United States and Israel jointly developed the Flame virus, which collected intelligence for a cyber-attack on Iran's nuclear program. The CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Israeli military were all involved in developing malware to sabotage Iran's nuclear program, the officials confirmed." As a "descendant" of Flame, its likely that the same parties who authored Flame were behind Gauss, Kaspersky said.
Questions still remain over exactly what the virus does or what it is designed to do, but Kaspersky Labs seems certain the trojan, if it is a government project, was not implanted to just grab cash.
"It is hard to believe that a nation state would rely on such techniques to finance a cyber-war/cyber-espionage operation," the company wrote in its blog post.
In addition, Kaspersky said, Gauss has expanded the field for digital warfare. "This is actually the first time we've observed a nation-state cyber-espionage campaign with a banking Trojan component. It is not known whether the operators are actually transferring funds from the victim's bank accounts or whether they are simply monitoring finance/funding sources for specific targets."
Currently, Gauss appears to have been deactivated, Kaspersky said -- but the damage to its intended victims may have been devastating.
The company says it was not able to analyze the virus while it was running, but the existence for the first time of a Round Robin DNS, which can handle a large amount of data from several servers, indicates that the trojan's masters "were ready to handle large amounts of traffic from possibly tens of thousands of victims. This can offer an idea on the amount of data stolen by Gauss."
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > US WOULD SUPPORT ISRAELI STRIKE ON IRAN: US OFFICIALS.
Becuz the US = CONUS has to be tested as per how many "new 9-11's" or greater Terror Strikes it can "absorb", while also not mil retaliating agz anybody???
MUMBAI: Police in Mumbai have arrested more than 20 people in connection with violence that erupted at a rally in which two people were killed and dozens injured, reports said yesterday.
Protesters had gathered Saturday to condemn deadly sectarian clashes in India's northeast but the rally suddenly turned violent with three TV broadcast vans set ablaze, and police vehicles and buses pelted with bricks and stones. Police said yesterday the situation was calm and more than 20 people had been arrested, with accusations against them including molestation and theft, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
During the violence the mob snatched two self-loading rifles and a pistol from policewomen, they said, while 36 out of 46 of the injured were police, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters late Saturday.
Investigators are due to probe whether any inflammatory speeches were made at the rally by organizers or if vandalism was pre-meditated.
The police used tear gas and bamboo sticks to disperse hundreds of people after the demonstration turned violent at Azad Maidan, a park near the landmark CST railway station where rallies are often held. The demonstrators, wearing black bands, belonged to several Muslims groups, including Mumbai's Raza Academy, an organization promoting Islamic culture that had made a call to denounce recent ethnic clashes in India's Assam state.
Light dawns...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/13/2012
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AMMAN, Jordan - Two Syrian journalists were killed in the capital Damascus, state media and an Arab satellite television station reported on Sunday.
Syrian state news mouthpiece agency SANA said one of its reporters, Ali Abbas, was killed at his residence in Damascus. The report blamed an armed terrorist group the regimes catch-all term for its opponents but gave no further details.
Pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Arabiya television said that Baraa Yusuf al-Bushi, a Syrian national and army defector who worked with the station and several other international news organizations, was killed in a bomb attack while covering a story in al-Tal, a suburb in northern Damascus.
Both reporters were reported killed on Saturday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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PESHAWAR: Two soldiers were injured as a remote-controlled device went off on Sunday in Bannu district, the gateway to North Waziristan, security officials said. The device was planted on a roadside near Khajuri Fort. A small army convoy on its way to Razmak town in North Waziristan was passing through the area when the bomb exploded, an official said on condition of anonymity. An army vehicle was partially damaged in the attack. Bannu has been target of militants in the recent past.
A brazen attack on the Bannu prison was carried out in April to free convicted terrorist Adnan Rasheed, along with 400 other prison inmates.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is set to expel Syria from its congregation in an expression of the pan-Islamic body's opposition to the Assad regime's failure to end the bloodshed in his country. The decision is being described as one of the key outcomes of the two-day Islamic solidarity summit beginning here Tuesday.
And about as effective as a sternly-worded letter...
The recommendation to suspend Syria was taken at a preparatory meeting of senior diplomats of OIC member countries at the Conference Palace in Jeddah yesterday. The highly significant recommendation will now be presented to the OIC foreign ministers at their meeting in Jeddah today. Their decision will be final.
Syria's expulsion from the OIC will mark President Bashar Assad's total isolation in the Muslim world. The 22-member Arab League expelled Syria in November last year during its emergency session in Cairo.
The preparatory meeting, chaired by Muhammad bin Ahmed Tayeb, director general of the Saudi Foreign Ministry's office in Makkah Province, lasted nearly 12 hours. It included Iranian ambassador to Saudi Arabia and its permanent representative to the OIC.
Syrian officials were not invited to the meeting. This led the Iranian envoys to raise objections. "The Syrians are still part of the OIC, and they therefore should have been invited to the preparatory meeting," one of the diplomats quoted the Iranians as saying. However, there were few backers of this Iranian view.
Good. Now expel Iran...
With Iran continuing to support the tottering Assad regime, it found itself completely isolated. The recommendation to expel Syria found instant favor from an overwhelming majority of OIC countries, including hosts Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.
"Iran has refused to see the writing on the wall and continues to support a regime that has lost the moral ground to continue in power," said an Arab diplomat. "This was a good opportunity for Iran to echo the sentiment of the majority of the Muslim world."
Some nations, notably Kazakhstan, Iraq and Pakistan, suggested that efforts should not be given up to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.
There were divergent opinions among the member countries on the issue of the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. One section called for a strong condemnation and rapid reaction, while others including Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Bangladesh,
That is, the ones closest to the situation...
suggested a policy of engagement with Myanmar.
Mali was not supposed to be on the agenda, but almost all African member states vociferously raised the issue of the unprecedented political crisis in the landlocked West African country. The decision was consequently made to include it in the deliberations. The meeting recommended that the territorial integrity of the country be respected by all parties and that those who are flying the flag of rebellion against the central government should be stopped and condemned.
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#1
Iran???
given
* TOPIX > IRAN + SYRIA MUST DO EVERYTHING IT NEEDS [can] TO WEAKEN TURKEY: EXPERT.
On-going "Arab/Muslim Springs" + KURD CRSIS indictae that TURKEY, IN NEAR-TERM, MAY NO LONGER BE ABLE TO WALK BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN WEST + ISLAMIC WORLD - IT MUST CHOOSE TO BE A PART OF ONE, BUT TO NO LONGER BE A A PART OF THE OTHER???
[Ma'an] A holy man at a mosque in central Sinai called on Friday for Egyptians to support the perpetrators of an attack on the Egyptian border last week which killed 16 Egyptian security forces, witnesses said.
Describing the gunnies as 'mujahidin' or holy warriors, the imam sparked a walk-out by worshipers at the mosque near central Sinai village Wadi al-Amro.
Locals who attended told Ma'an they had refused to take part in the remainder of Friday prayers and left the mosque to protest the imam's hardline position.
Gunmen stormed an Egyptian border post in northern Sinai last Sunday, leaving 16 border guards dead and sparking a week of Egyptian military operations on the Sinai peninsula, killing up to 20 people.
Five people locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! in Sinai on Friday have been charged with leading "Jihadist" groups and smuggling weapons between Egypt and the Gazoo Strip.
Egyptian officials suggested initially that Paleostinian gunnies were involved in the Sinai attack. No one has grabbed credit, and Gazoo-based factions have vocally condemned the assault.
WASHINGTON -- Senior North Korean and U.S. diplomats had at least one informal meeting in New York last month to check each other's position after months-long dormancy in their nuclear talks, sources here said Sunday. However, there was no breakthrough from the meeting between Clifford Hart, the U.S. special envoy for the six-party talks, and Han Song-ryol, North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, with neither side deviating from their previous stance, added the sources.
"I know that there was informal contact recently between North Korea and the U.S., although no exact date is available," an informed diplomatic source told Yonhap News Agency. "But (the outcome) was no more than checking each other's position."
The source said the so-called New York channel is virtually the only communication channel between Pyongyang and Washington and it is always open in a sense. Representatives from the U.S. and North Korea exchange messages over phone or through face-to-face contact if needed, the source said.
Japan's Kyodo News Service also reported earlier in the day that Hart and Han met in July at North Korea's U.N. representative office in New York. In the meeting, North Korea criticized the U.S. for suspending a plan to ship 240,000 tons of food aid, Kyodo said, quoting its own sources "familiar with bilateral ties."
The U.S. reiterated that it was Pyongyang which broke the Feb. 29 deal with a long-range rocket launch in April, according to Kyodo. Under the agreement reached in high-level talks, Pyongyang agreed to impose a moratorium on some of its nuclear and missile activities in return for the resumption of food assistance.
The U.S. neither confirms nor denies any specific contact with North Korea through the New York channel.
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Egypt's new Islamist president Muhammad Mursi dismissed Cairo's two top generals on Sunday and cancelled a military order that curbed his powers, in a dramatic move that could free him of some of the restrictions of military rule.
A member of the military council told Reuters that Mursi, a moderate Islamist popularly elected in June but with constitutional powers sharply circumscribed in advance by the generals, had consulted Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, 76, and General Sami Enan, 64, the military chief of staff, before ordering both men to retire.
However, coupled with what Mursi's spokesman described as the cancellation of the constitutional declaration issued just before Mursi's election, by which Tantawi and his colleagues curbed presidential powers, the surprise move seemed to indicate a substantial reordering of Egypt's political forces as it waits for a new constitution after six decades of unbroken army rule.
"Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has been transferred into retirement from today," presidential spokesman said in a statement, appointing in his place as armed forces chief and defense minister General Abdellatif Sisi.
Enan was replaced by General Sidki Sobhi. Enan, long seen as particularly close to the US military which has been the main sponsor of Egypt's armed forces, and Tantawi, who was Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years before helping ease him out in the face of street protests 18 months ago, were both appointed as advisers to Mursi. The changes were effective immediately, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said.
[Jerusalem Post] Violence escalates as military crackdown on Islamists continues; source close to Islamists says hundreds organized meeting to discuss response to killing of 5 suspected terrorists.
A group of gunniesrubbed out a tribal leader and his son on Monday in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on the border with Israel, a security source said, as violence escalated on the sixth day of a military crackdown on Islamists in the area.
"Tribal leader Khalaf Al-Menahy and his son were rubbed out by hard boyz on their way back from a conference organized by tribal leaders to denounce militancy," said the security source in Sinai.
The attack occurred during a security sweep that began on Wednesday after the killing of 16 Egyptian border guards on Aug. 5, which Egypt blamed on krazed killers.
The military operation is the biggest in the region since Egypt's 1973 war with Israel.
Lawlessness has been growing in Sinai, a region awash with guns and bristling with resentment against Cairo, since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in an uprising last year. Parts of northern Sinai have been controlled by Bedouin tribes since police deserted the area during the uprising.
Another source close to Islamists in Sinai said hundreds of them had organized a secret meeting on Sunday night to discuss their response to the killing of five suspected Islamic fascistiby Egyptian soldiers earlier on Sunday.
"They agreed that the reaction will be harsh," the source said.
The military crackdown in the Sinai peninsula is seen as an early test for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy - a moderate Islamist elected in June- to prove he can rein in the hard boyz whose activity near the border worries both Egyptians and Israel.
The commanding officer of a Groton, Conn.-based attack submarine was fired Friday for "allegations of personal misconduct," Submarine Group 2 said in a Sunday news release.
Cmdr. Michael Ward, CO of Los Angeles-class submarine Pittsburgh, was fired by Capt. Vernon Parks, commander of Submarine Development Squadron 12, SUBGRU 2 spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Cragg said. Cragg, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to comment on the nature of the alleged misconduct or whether it had taken place on Pittsburgh.
It was a short end to Ward's stint in command. He had only taken charge of the crew a week before. He was temporarily relieved by Cmdr. Michael Savageaux, the officer Ward relieved on Aug. 3.
Ward is the Navy's 13th commanding officer fired this year and the fifth the Navy said was fired for misbehavior.
#5
Character aside for the moment, guys in his position should be better problem solvers than faking his death via e-mail.
Question: Is this the first time he's screwed up? If not, his superiors' OER from ensign to this date ought to be reviewed. 'cause if it isn't, they screwed up. Costs time and money and opportunity to get a guy this far, and if he's a known loser, that's a big organizational screw up.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2012 9:15
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#6
And the only reason they bagged this guy is that she dimed him out? Says a lot for his superiors...
#8
This sort of reminds me of a guy I knew in the Navy. Let's call him J. While our ship was in the yards in Philadelphia, J's wife stayed with her parents in New York. He took up with a dancer at a club, telling her that he and his wife were separated. That part was true - he was in Philly, she was in New York. Anyway, when our ship left the yards, he told the dancer that he and his wife had reconciled.
His roommate, T, decided to play a trick on him - T and the comms officer faked a telegram from the dancer saying that she was not going to give him up without a fight. She planned to meet the ship when we arrived in port, knowing that J's wife would be on the pier as the ship pulled in. The dancer planned to have it out with J's wife, and let the best woman win.
They gave J the telegram when we were a few hours out from port to give him some time to stew over it. They finally had to tell him the truth before he jumped overboard.
J later was cashiered from the Navy for sexual harassment, drunkenness in uniform and a variety of other charges. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/13/2012 18:20
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Strategypage. Interesting look inside Drone World...
UAVs have become where the action is. There are more UAVs in action over Afghanistan and other war zones, than all other air force combat aircraft. So, if you want to see some action, you need to be a UAV driver. This has not been enough to lure many fighter pilots away from their "fast movers." The UAV operators, especially those who are not pilots are not considered the equal of the pilots. This despite the fact that flying manned combat aircraft is now far safer than it has ever been. For a combat pilot who owns a motorcycle or sports car, they are probably safer overseas flying combat missions over Afghanistan than at home, because there is much lower risk of death or injury from motor vehicle mishaps. Most of the medals awarded to air force personnel for combat in the last decade have gone to enlisted airmen who volunteer to spend a year with the army in the combat zone, to help with support jobs.
The air force was under a lot of pressure to keep paying TDY pilots flight pay and to award medals usually reserved for success in flight operations. While UAV operators undergo a lot more stress than pilots (because the operators "fly" a lot more each month) the operators are still working from the ground, not an airborne cockpit and so are not given awards and bonuses due real pilots.
But the fighter pilots forced to do a three year tour with UAVs don't regret it. While the duty is often tedious, UAV operators do eight hour shifts, and you are focused on the ground, where the enemy, and the action, is. Instead of a cockpit, UAV operators sit in front of multiple flat panel displays (showing system status, maps, chat room discussions with troops and other operators, and video from the cameras), and interact via a joystick, rudder control and a keyboard. While UAV operators sometimes (in about three percent of missions) fire Hellfire missiles, most of their work is more like a detectives' stakeout, watching for suspicious activity, and passing on video, and observations, to the ground troops. Some air force pilots are attracted to UAV duty because they see this as the future, but most existing pilots see it as not what they signed up for and the majority leaves as soon as they can. The air force then has to train another TDY pilot, who will also leave after three years, and take their experience with them. That will only end when enough pilots decide to become 18Xs and are joined by a sufficient number of non-pilot operators.
Meanwhile, the army already uses NCOs trained specifically for UAV operation, while the air force insists all operators be officers. The army has no operator shortage. The air force is under pressure (both from within, and outside, the air force) to allow NCOs to be career UAV operators. But it will probably stay with officers or, as the army does with helicopter pilots, using warrant officers (officers who concentrate on their technical specialty, and not command duties).
#2
Pilot on a bomber with multiple crew is different from bombardiers. Pilot is the command authority over all the crew. Bombardier might fly the plane briefly, but he isn't in command of crew.
The mission would depend on the mission. A recon drone could be an NCO. A recon drone with a weapon should have an officer in charge but could be a warrant officer. When we evolve to the point where we have unmanned aircraft of the size a capability of an F-15, it should be a commissioned officer.
#5
We've seen this sort of prestige-chasing before. Until manned fighters are completely replaced, which I don't think will happen, we'll need both. But both sides nee some sense of reward.
I remember that A-10 Warthog pilots felt as though they were falling behind in the promotion race. The troops on the ground appreciated them though. The Navy needs minesweepers, but no one wants to captain them.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/13/2012 6:21
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#6
Nothing is more rewarding than sitting in front of a big screen and watching a UAV such as a Warrior Alpha, Tiger Shark, or other platform (flown by crusty old contractors or tech-savy young 25 year old geeks), conduct an ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnisance) mission, spot and confirm an enemy force, and gain approval for a pair of A-10's to come it and take care of business. Keeping the UAV aloft and orbiting during and after the strike permits great BDA (bomb damage assessment) and lots of 'HIGH-FIVES' in the TOC (tactical operations center) as well.
My personal A=10 preference? The 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron (EFS) the famed Flying Tigers of course. Hat tip and a crisp salute to those lads.
When it comes to ISR and kinetics, it's an all of the above approach.
#9
So, who said that only a certified pilot can fly a UAV?
The Air Force senior command (which IIRC was relieved in part because of foot dragging in getting the program running, replaced by a Transport Driver rather than another Fighter Jock.)
#10
While UAV operators undergo a lot more stress than pilots (because the operators "fly" a lot more each month) the operators are still working from the ground, not an airborne cockpit and so are not given awards and bonuses due real pilots.
Certainly there must be a significant amount of workload stress due to extended vigilance and monitoring for UAV operators but it just doesn't seem like the pucker factor is there for UAV operators as compared to fast movers or helicopters pilots in combat.
#12
I imagine they will rethink some things and end up with specialists (non-pilots) flying UAV. We might get some kind of UAV useful in aerial combat, those would still need pilots but the normal drones we have now? Sort of overkill having a pilot.
#14
Personally I would like to see "non pilots" flying UAVs. A UAV pilot doesn't need the top notch physical conditioning that a fighter jock does. Nor does he/she need 20/20 vision, for example. I realize that UAV pilots need pilot training for things like being aware of the airspace around the vehicle, etc. But slugs like me could pilot a UAV, with training.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/13/2012 23:07
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Venezuela is training a "guerrilla army" aiming to be a million strong by 2013 to fight off a possible US invasion, an opposition lawmaker said Sunday.
"Plan Sucre" -- apparently crafted with input from close ally and fellow US foe Cuba -- covers the legal, logistical and other angles necessary to "transform a professional army into a guerrilla army," Representative Maria Corina Machado told El Universal newspaper.
And it's also darned convenient to use against a new government that might not be led by Chavez...
The former presidential candidate said she had obtained a copy of the plan, printed by an institution affiliated with the national army.
"The strategic objective is to build a new Bolivarian military doctrine" that would prepare Venezuela to be successful in a prolonged popular war against "the empire," or the United States, Machado said, citing the document. "This is clearly a proposal with Cuban inspiration and advice."
She said the military plan also provides for strengthening the guerrilla force at the expense of the regular army.
Almost as if the regular army would be the enemy...
The plan calls for "strengthening the territorial militias, in order to ensure the necessary strength for the overall defense of the nation, targeting recruitment levels of one million by 2013 and two million by 2019," Machado said, citing the document.
Venezuela's militia corps, described by firebrand leftist President Hugo Chavez as "an army of the public," was created in 2005 to protect the country against possible "imperialist" aggression. They are considered a part of the military but report directly to the president.
Or to Chavez, if he's not president...
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
So.. when Chavez dies of cancer in a few months... his supporters lay waste the hospital?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
08/13/2012 0:36
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#2
Methinks the Strait of Hormuz will be easier to close than the Amazon River-Basin.
#3
I'd be more concerned with PO'ing the neighbors who probably won't have to deal with anything more than a strongly worded statement from the UN council for gross human rights violations when they 'scorched earth' the place in pay back for funding and supporting death and destruction in their own countries.
#5
US invasion? Why? Canada has more oil, mostly speaks the same language, and would probably welcome the liberation from their French-speaking tyrants.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2012 16:47
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#6
Oh, and when do they plan on ARMING their guerrilla army? Mighty sensitive timing to that...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2012 16:48
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#7
And if we never show up, hey, they can just crush their own people...
ALEPPO, Syria: The Syrian Army pressed its assault on fighters in commercial capital Aleppo yesterday. The exiled opposition said that pro-government militia had summarily executed 10 civilians in a round-up in the flashpoint central city of Homs, while the official SANA news agency reported the murder of one of its staff, the latest in a series pro-government journalists to be killed.
In Aleppo, troops shelled rebel-held districts as fighting flared anew around a southwestern neighborhood that rebel fighters had quit last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said The Shaar, Tariq Al-Bab, Sakhur, Hanano and Bustan Al-Qasr neighborhoods all came under bombardment, as the army pressed a ground offensive it launched on Wednesday to recapture areas seized by rebels since July 20, the Britain-based watchdog said.
In the capital Damascus, gunfire was reported in the Qadam neighborhood.
Outside the capital, machine gun fire was heard in the town of Al-Tal, where 15 civilians were killed in shelling and clashes on Saturday. They were among 148 people killed across Syria on Saturday 85 civilians, 20 rebels and 43 soldiers, the Observatory said. The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper spoke of foiled bids to break the calm in Damascus, which was cleansed of terrorist groups who terrified residents.
In Aleppo, the paper said that the army was poised to assault the Sukari neighborhood in the south of the city, after its recapture of the nearby Salaheddin district on Thursday. The door to Sukari district, the second bastion of the armed men in Aleppo, is now open for the army, it said, adding that troops had gained control of several axes, which would allow them to storm the area.
The opposition Syrian National Council and activist groups said that the 10 civilians were executed a round-up of military-aged men in the Shamas district of Homs.
Militiamen detained nearly 350 people from the Shamas district, assembled them in a courtyard and executed 10 of them, activist group, the Syrian Revolution General Council, said. The fate of the nearly 340 others is unknown and we fear greatly that they have met the same fate as the 10 martyrs, the group added.
The opposition SNC issued a similar statement. Ten young men were executed in the Shamas neighborhood of Homs city after the army and pro-regime gunmen stormed the area and rounded up 350 young people, it said.
The official SANA news agency said that the head of its home news department, Abbas Ali, was assassinated by an armed terrorist group at his home in Jdaidet Artuz outside the capital on Saturday evening.
On Friday, rebels abducted three state television journalists as they accompanied government troops operating near Damascus, the Syrian Observatory said. It came after a bomb attack on state television headquarters wounded several people last week and after an Al-Qaeda linked group claimed the abduction and murder earlier this month of state television presenter Mohammed Al-Saeed.
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#1
Al Jazeera reporting rebels are attacking convoys between the coast and Allepo, which is ominous for the Syrian regime.
Of course she does. She's Pudgy's inamorata. What does the hunger of the people matter?
In a move reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, Ri Sol Ju, wife of North Korean leader Fat Boy Kim Jong Un, was spotted sporting a luxury Christian Dior purse on Tuesday. The bag, identified as a Lady Dior Clutch, retails for about $1,600 in South Korea, which is roughly the equivalent of an average North Korean worker's annual salary.
The Associated Press, with an office an Pyongyang, had no story and no comment.
The extravagances of Kim and his recently unveiled wife have come under intense scrutiny as North Korea continues to suffer from chronic food shortages. It's a long-standing crisis only worsened by floods in June and July that destroyed many North Korean farms and is expected to have a significant effect on food supplies in the tightly closed-off country.
Not much else is known about Ri or about her marriage to Suet Face Kim; pundits speculate that the two may have been married as far back as 2009. While Kim has been portrayed by international media outlets
all of whom are willing dupes in this charade...
as a more open Supreme Leader than his father Kim Jong Il, many aspects of his governance still remain shrouded in mystery. North Korean leaders have long been examined under a close lens -- as close as possible, that is -- for their lavish tastes while their country starves. Kim Jong Il was reputed to have a full-time sushi chef, a 100,000-bottle wine cellar and a taste for Hennessy cognac to the tune of $800,000 a year.
But its people barely have enough money for even the basics. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Even Jimmuah gets it, even if only a little bit...
voiced his concern to the BBC when he visited North Korea last year, noting that many of the children he saw were malnourished and had inadequate access to proper or sufficient nutrition. He also mentioned that the country had rationed its food intake from 1,400 calories to 700 calories for the average citizen.
In June, the U.N. warned that two-thirds of North Korea's population would face critical challenges in staving off starvation. Claudia von Roehl, a representative for U.N. World Food Programme, told Reuters that "there is a very chronic and severe problem in the nutrition of the population and in particular the very monotonous diet [consisting of] maize and rice, carbohydrates, and lacking ... in proteins and fats."
The impoverished country continues to be one of the most closed and tightly controlled in the world. Though it seems it makes exceptions for Christian Dior imports.
Not. Another. Dime. Not another pound of sugar. Nothing from the U.S. Let the Norks starve, or let the Chinese bail them out.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/13/2012
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#1
China will just take over the DPRK,
"voluntarily" or forcibly vee the PLA, which is not what either the NOKORS or SOKORS wanna see ditto Japan + Mama Russia.
As a Woman + "First Lady", the World will look at Her [+ kiddies], NOT Jong-un = Pudgy, to gauge the health + prosperity of mainstream North Korea - it appears that Jong-un + Pyongyang Boyz that the DPRK as "Best Korea" is doing A-OK.
#2
There were always a lot of 'Dior Purses' on sale in Itaewon and certainly not for about $1,600. I wouldn't bet that Dior got any royalties for them.
#4
Yeah...how do we know that purse isn't a NORK knockoff to be marketed elsewhere?
Also, Ms. Pudgy might wanna try to teach hubby about proper posture. Look at how he slouches in his chair like some kind of a pudgy pig while she sits up with her butt all the way to the back of the chair.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - The head of Syria's main opposition group in exile has called for a no-fly zone in border areas to protect civilians. The president of the Syrian National Council, Abdelbaset Sieda, told The Associated Press on Sunday that such a move by the international community would show President Bashar Assad's regime that his opponents are serious.
"There must be special protection," he said.
Asked who will impose the no-fly zone, Sieda said: "We leave it to the international community."
Since the opposition doesn't have an air force...
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KABUL/ISLAMABAD: Afghan officials have held secret talks with the Taleban's former second in command who is in detention in Pakistan in a move which could help rekindle stalled peace talks with the insurgents, according to senior officials from both countries.
Afghan officials have often seen Pakistan as a reluctant partner in attempts to broker talks with the Taleban
Since the ISI owns the Taliban and isn't willing to shut them down...
but its decision to grant access to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar may signal Islamabad's willingness to play a more active role.
Rangin Spanta, the national security adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and an architect of peace-building efforts, said an Afghan delegation had met Baradar in Pakistan two months ago. Baradar has been in detention since he was captured in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence agents in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010.
We have met Mullah Baradar, Spanta told Reuters in Kabul. Our delegation has spoken to him to know his view on peace talks.
Afghan officials have publicly been demanding access to Baradar, the Taleban's top military commander until he was captured, but Spanta's revelation shows preliminary contact has already been made.
Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, also said that Pakistan had granted Afghan officials access to Baradar.
They had access at the required and appropriate level, Malik told Reuters. We are fully cooperating with Afghanistan and whatever they are asking for the peace process, for developing peace in Afghanistan. We are giving every kind of help.
Baradar was the main day-to-day commander responsible for leading the Taleban campaign against US and NATO troops, plotting suicide bombings and other attacks. He was the right-hand man to reclusive Taleban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar providing him with great influence and prestige in Taleban circles.
Afghan officials hope Baradar could play a key role in any negotiations to end the war, acting as a go-between with Taleban leaders including Omar. Although Afghan officials may be pinning hopes on Baradar, it is unclear what influence he may have over a complex insurgency after spending years in detention.
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Egypts president ordered changes to the military top brass yesterday, including pensioning off Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi who served Hosni Mubarak for two decades, in a move that further stamps the new leaders authority on the state.
President Muhammad Mursi also canceled a constitutional declaration that limited presidential powers and which the ruling army council issued in June, as voting in the election that brought Mursi to power drew to a close.
So the Islamicist coup against Mubarak now closes Phase III of operations...
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi has been transferred into retirement from today, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said in a statement, appointing in his place as armed forces chief and defense minister Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Mursi also ordered Chief of Staff Sami Enan to retire and appointed Gen. Sidki Sobhi in his place. Both Tantawi and Enan were appointed advisers to Mursi.
Gen. Mohamed El-Assar, who was appointed deputy defense minister, said the decision had been taken in consultation with Tantawi and the rest of the military council.
In further changes, Mursi appointed a judge, Mahmoud Mekky, as his vice president.
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#1
So Mursi has gotten rid of the Top Eggs in the Egyptian Military whom once protected Mubarak but then later turned agz him + supported the "Egyptian/Cairo Spring".
QUETTA: At least two Pakistani nationals were injured allegedly by shelling and firing from Iranian security forces at the Pakistan-Iran border in Washuk district on Sunday.
According to sources, Iranian border security forces fired several shells and resorted to intense firing in the Jodar mountainous area, some 70 kilometres from Mashkel town of Washuk. As a result, two people, Muhammad Safi, resident of Mashkel, and Ameen, resident of Kharan, received serious wounds. Local people shifted the injured to a hospital in Dalbandin.
The Balochistan Frontier Corps spokesman said there were no immediate reports of any such incident from the Pakistan-Iran border in Washuk district.
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DUBAI/ABU DHABI: US businessman Zack Shahin, who was freed on bail in the United Arab Emirates last month after Washington expressed concern about his health, has fled the country for Yemen, where he was detained again, sources familiar with the matter said. The former chief executive of Dubai real estate developer Deyaar, in jail since 2008 over embezzlement charges, went on hunger strike in May and was released on $1.4 million bail.
The sources, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that Shahin was smuggled out of the UAE and was then arrested in Yemen.
It was not clear when he left the UAE.
Because he was freed on bail and thought he might not get a fair trial and end up being jugged again?
Shahin is still being detained by the security apparatus, a Yemeni security source, who declined to be named, said on Sunday. We expect that the man will be deported to the UAE before the end of the week.
I imagine the magistrate there won't be pleased...
The office of Dubai public prosecutions declined to comment. Neither Shahins US-based lawyer nor officials at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi were immediately available for comment.
The former executives flight may embarrass US authorities who had exerted pressure on the UAE to resolve Shahins case, especially after he went on hunger strike. There have been hearings on his case in Dubai, but no judgment.
In May, four other expatriates jailed in Dubai said they were among a group of prisoners who had gone on hunger strike to protest against lengthy prison sentences handed down to most of them for financial crimes. The men, most of them real estate developers and other businessmen who worked in Dubai during its economic boom, fell into debt when the emirates property bubble burst after the 2008 global credit crisis.
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As speculation mounted over who will succeed Kofi Annan when he steps down as international envoy later this month, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a "flexible UN presence in Syria" even after the mandate of the troubled observer mission he set up expires.
"A continued UN presence in Syria that goes beyond our important humanitarian work would allow systematic and meaningful engagement with the Syrian stakeholders, inside the country," the UN chief said in a letter to the 15 members of the UN Security Council.
"Furthermore, a flexible UN presence in Syria would provide the UN impartial means to assess the situation on the ground," he added. "The UN cannot discontinue its support."
The observer mission mandate is set to expire August 19, after the council voted last month to extend it for a "final" 30 days.
The mission -- originally 300 military observers and now reduced by half -- was deployed in April to oversee a peace plan, which should have begun with a cease-fire that never took hold. In mid-June, the observers suspended patrols as fighting intensified.
The Security Council is scheduled to debate the future of the UN mission on Thursday, but so far there is little consensus. The United States has been especially skeptical about prolonging the observers' mandate yet again. Syrian ally Russia is calling for an extension, saying the observers must continue monitoring the military situation.
Diplomats at the UN say veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, a former top League official, has been tipped to replace Annan but there has been no official word.
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An Afghan government delegation met with one of the Taliban's top military commanders, Mullah Ghani Bradar, in a Pak prison, Afghanistan's National Security Advisor, Ragin Spanta, told TOLOnews on Sunday.
Mr Spanta said he himself did not meet with Mullah Bradar. The meeting aimed to seek Mullah Bradar's opinion about peace talks and to decide whether, if he were released, he could play a role in convincing the Taliban to enter into talks.
"Several Afghan officials met Mullah Ghani Bradar in a Pak prison but I never met him myself," Spanta said in a telephone interview.
Pakistain's interior minister, Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. , confirmed the meeting to Rooters, saying his government will do anything possible to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.
"They had access at the required and appropriate level," Mr Malik told Rooters. "We are fully co-operating with Afghanistan and whatever they are asking for the grinding of the peace processor, for developing peace in Afghanistan, we are giving every kind of help."
One of the Taliban's most important conditions of starting peace talks is the release of prisoners from the prison in Guantanamo Bay. Mullah Bradar, who was captured in 2009 in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... in Pakistain, may be released in an effort to bring the Taliban to the peace table.
Five bully boyz planning a co-ordinated suicide kaboom in Kabul city were jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... by security forces on Saturday night, a front man for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security said.
"Five bully boyz were captured last night about 1:00am in the Shur Bazaar area of Kabul city," NDS front man Lutfullah Mashal said. "They wanted to attack the Parliament and 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... [and] Second Vice-President Mohammad Karim Khalili's house."
He added: "Four of them are Afghan nationals and one is a Pak national."
The group of bully boyz was armed with heavy weapons and boom jackets, AK-47 assault rifles, rocket launchers, hand grenades, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Isaf confirmed the capture of the would-be attackers. In a statement, Isaf said that an Afghan-led security force, supported by coalition troops, jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... multiple bully boyz during an operation in Kabul today.
"The Afghan security force jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... the bully boyz as they were finalising plans for an attack in the capital," the statement said.
The arrests come a week after five other bully boyz planning a co-ordinated suicide attack at a hotel in the Pul-e-Charkhi area of Kabul city were killed in a pre-dawn shootout.
Separately, three other bully boyz were captured during an Afghan police operation in the Bagrami district east of the capital.
The secret-busting organization WikiLeaks says it's been the victim of a sustained denial-of-service attack which has left its website sluggish or inaccessible for more than a week.
The heart [urp!] bleeds...
In a statement released late Saturday the group said the assault intensified around the beginning of August and has since expanded to include attacks against affiliated sites.Denial-of-service attacks work by overwhelming websites with requests for information.
#1
would call it a 'feel good' story but the operators of the site still seem to have credit scores and have not had their saving accounts emptied or seen loved ones killed (like the people whose info they 'leaked')
Posted by: abu do you love ||
08/13/2012 0:54
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#2
...Whadda shame. Popcorn, anybody?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/13/2012 5:52
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#3
In the breakroom of USCYBERCOM, folks grin silently.
#6
See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Mail Online] US GOVERNMENT IS SECRETLY SPYING ON EVERYONE USING CIVILIAN SECURITY CAMERAS [espec CCTV], SAYS WIKILEAKS.
IIUC Wikileaks thinks it was hacked after the above Artic came out, i.e. in retaliation???
CCTV is sssssoooooo-o-o late 1990's + Bush 43 - methinks the Artic is behind the times, as covert surveilllance has gone way beyond just CCTV.
[Jerusalem Post] Bardaweel, a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,front man, expresses confidence Egypt will work towards re-opening Gazoo-Sinai Rafah crossing.
Hamas is prepared to close all the tunnels under the border between the Gazoo Strip and Egypt if the Egyptians agree to reopen the Rafah border crossing on a permanent basis, Hamas officials announced on Sunday.
"The tunnels are a necessary popular method to break the criminal blockade on the Gazoo Strip," Salah Bardaweel, a Hamas politician and front man, told news hounds.
He said the tunnels were needed "to consolidate the steadfastness of the Paleostinian people and their resistance against occupation, which is working to Judaize the holy sites and is killing children, women and ill people."
On Saturday, the Paleostinian Authority called on Cairo to destroy the tunnels, saying they posed a threat to Egyptian security and damaged chances of achieving Paleostinian unity.
Bardaweel said that a "civilized alternative" to the tunnels would be the opening of the Rafah terminal to goods and passengers.
"We are confident that the Egyptian leadership would work toward creating this alternative and we hope that the border crossing would not be closed for too long," Bardaweel added.
He pointed out that Mohammedans were now observing Ramadan and would soon celebrate Id al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the 30-day fast.
The Hamas official reiterated the claim that Israel was behind last week's terrorist attack in Sinai, in which faceless myrmidons killed 16 Egyptian border guards.
"The attack serves the higher interest of Israeli occupation," Bardaweel said. "There is a lot of theoretical and practical evidence to back this up. The Zionist enemy has been seeking to undermine Egyptian security and embarrass the Egyptian leadership, which it believes is hostile to the aggressive Zionist project."
Bardaweel accused Israel of seeking to drive a wedge between Egypt and Hamas in light of improved relations between the two sides and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... 's recent visit to Cairo, "where he was welcomed as the legitimate prime minister of the Paleostinian government."
Bardaweel also accused the PA of spreading lies in an attempt to implicate Hamas and the Gazoo Strip following the Sinai attack.
He said the Egyptians had not notified Hamas about the possible involvement of any Paleostinian from the Gazoo Strip in the attack.
Hamas is prepared to work together with the Egyptian authorities to reveal the identity of the perpetrators, he added. Hamas leader Mahmoud Warty Nose al-Zahhar ...a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership. Since 2006, Warty Nose has served as foreign minister in the government of Ismail Haniyeh. He is considered one of the more stubborn hard-liners and has no objection to kissing the Persian foot to keep the money flowing. Warty Nose's son, a member of the Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli raid in early 2008. Another one was disposed of when the IDF bombed his house in 2003... expressed his government's readiness to destroy the tunnels once the Rafah border crossing was reopened. He called for setting up a free trade zone between the Gazoo Strip and Egypt.
Zahar told the Saudiowned Al-Arabiya TV station that the closure of the tunnels would be in the context of Hamas's efforts to help the Egyptians. He too strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! Hamas involvement in the Sinai attack. He said that those who carried out the attack were acting on orders of Israel in a bid to frame Hamas.
"Why should Hamas, for the first time ever, carry out an attack outside Paleostine?" Zahar asked. "And even if Hamas wanted to strike against targets outside Paleostine, why should it attack the Egyptian brothers? Is it religiously permissible to kill a fasting person while he's having his [breakfast] meal?"
"That leaves the tunnels beneath the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of southern Gaza that borders Egypt. Israel left the Philadelphi Corridor in 2005 when it unilaterally evacuated Gaza. In the wider interest, as well as its own, it should retake the Philadelphi Corridor with dispatch."
BAGHDAD - Twin bombings and a shooting in and around Baghdad on Sunday killed five people, including three Iraqi policemen, security and medical officials said.
In the predominantly Sunni town of Jurf al-Sakhr, 60 kilometres (40 miles) south of the capital, an initial roadside bomb blast at 10:00 am (0700 GMT) killed three policemen, a police major and a medic at the main hospital in provincial capital Hilla said. When another police unit arrived at the scene of the attack, another explosion went off, wounding three more people, the officials said.
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London, Asharq Al-Awsat -- Dowlat Norouzi, spokesperson for the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran group, informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the Iranian opposition was in possession of information confirming that 14 of the 48 Iranians captured in Syria are officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp [IRGC].
The 48 Iranians had been taken hostage on Saturday by the Free Syrian Army [FSA] as they travelled by bus to the airport in Damascus. Iranian authorities are claiming they are religious pilgrims, whilst the FSA claims they are Iranian soldiers and officers taking part in the suppression of the Syrian people.
Tehran has called on Turkey and Qatar to intervene and help return the captives. Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, reportedly personally flew to Turkey to attempt to secure Ankara's help in the recovery effort, whilst Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, condemned the kidnapping, saying "in the name of Islam, some of these governments have launched killings and even treat Iranian pilgrims in Syria with violence." He added "these crimes are not something the Iranian nation will disregard."
However Iranian opposition figure, Dowlat Norouzi, speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, revealed that "the information coming from Iranian opposition sources is that the commander, deputy commander and head of artillery of the IRGC Martyrs Forces, as well as a number of operational and intelligence officers based out of IRGC Hamza base [in northwestern Iran]...are among the 48 captured Iranians." She added that an Iranian mullah was also amongst those Iranians captured by the FSA.
Norouzi revealed that the Iranian opposition had been able to confirm the names of 9 of the 48 captured Iranians in Syria, along with some personal details. She provided the following details to Asharq Al-Awsat:
- Brigadier General Abeddine Kharam, Commander of the Martyrs Forces of West Azerbaijan Province.
- Mullah Kareem Hussein Khani, Commander of the Basij Force of West Azerbaijan Province and a former member of the office of the representative of the Wali al-Faqih [Guardian of the Jurists] to the Martyrs Forces of West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Yousef Akbari, Deputy Commander of the Martyrs Forces of West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Hussein Nouri, Artillery Commander of the Martyrs Forces of West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Ghalam Reza Kerbra'i, Officer of the Martyrs Forces of West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Taleb Rahimi, IRGC commander of Miandoab County, West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Mohsen Zanji, officer of IRGC Hamza base in West Azerbaijan Province.
- IRGC Colonel Jaafar Barwal, officer of IRGC Hamza base in West Azerbaijan Province.
- Commander Kareem Behrami, commander of IRGC Guard Troop stationed in Salmas, West Azerbaijan Province.
Iranian opposition sources also informed Asharq Al-Awsat that information indicates that the IRGC officers were in Syria in order to actively participate in field operations, and that their role was not limited to training or consulting. The source claimed that the IRGC elements had been sent to Syria following an order from IRGC command, and that they had first been transferred to Tehran, before being dispatched to Syria. The source stressed that whilst they had not been sent from Iran to Syria armed, they were armed upon arrival in the country.
Kurdish bully boyz have kidnapped a Turkish opposition politician in his southeast constituency of Tunceli, the local governor's office said on Sunday, a day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan again warned their activities were on the rise.
Huseyin Aygun, a parliamentarian for the country's main opposition group, the Republican People's Party (CHP), was seized by members of the separatist jihad boy Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as he travelled from Ovacik to the city of Tunceli on Sunday night.
The kidnapping comes at a time of heightened tensions in Turkey. Erdogan said on Saturday there was a direct link between increased violence at home and the spiralling conflict in Syria.
Lunatic terrorist launched an attack on an Egyptian cop shoppe at the town of al-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula.
Arab media reported that the gunnies armed with machine guns and anti-tank missiles attacked the station, and that the coppers opened fire in response. No further information was available.
All credit to our British cousins, who pulled off an Olympics that had only the usual drama, but not a single terror incident. Special thanks to the British troops, who stepped in when the professionals discovered they couldn't handle it.
As many as 16 Taliban cut-thoats, mostly foreigners, were killed in a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... Arclight airstrike last night in eastern Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... , local security chief Mohammad Yaqoob told TOLOnews.
The incident occurred in the province's Musakhil district.
Separately, at least one Taliban capo was killed and another was captured in a join Afghan and NATO operation in central Maidan Wardak province, a security official told TOLOnews on the condition of anonymity.
The operation, which was conducted on Saturday morning in the Haft Asyab area of Sayedabad district, resulted in the death of Taliban capo Qari Mohammadullah, and the arrest of Qari Yaqoob, another local commander, the official added.
In northern Balkh province, the headmistress of Ahmad Shah Durani high school was fatally shot at her home last night, provincial police chief Shir Jan Durani told TOLOnews.
Headmistress Sima Akakhil's husband said his wife was killed by cut-throats while he was praying at a nearby mosque. The motive for killing Ms Akakhil is not yet clear .
[Ma'an] The Secretary-General of the Paleostinian People's Party arrived in the Gazoo Strip on Sunday to meet with Paleostinian factions.
Bassam al-Salhi told Ma'an that the Gazoo Strip is an essential part of Paleostine and there should be greater communication between the different Paleostinian leaderships in order to confront challenges facing the people.
The PPP leader said that he would visit Gazoo at every opportunity and will communicate with all factions to discuss reconciliation.
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Fatah signed an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement in May 2011 to end four years of divided governments in the Gazoo Strip and West Bank, but its implementation has repeatedly broken down.
The Taliban have increased their attacks during Ramadan and are targeting civilians and mosques, interior ministry front man Sediq Sediqi told TOLOnews on Saturday.
Afghan and Pak Taliban, in close co-operation with the Pak military, have attacked Afghan forces in Kunar and Nuristan provinces several times, he added. But cut-throats have been met with strong resistance from the Afghan police,
"The Taliban have increased their attacks during Ramadan. They are mostly targeting civilians. They neither care about innocent people nor the religion of Islam because they attacked mosques and Moslems," Sediqi said.
He added that 119 Taliban fighters were killed and 38 others were maimed in operations conducted by Afghan and international troops in the past week. As many as 174 were tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! .
Four Afghan coppers were killed in a roadside kaboom blast in eastern Paktia province on Saturday evening, a local official said. Two other copperswere maimed in the attack.
The incident happened yesterday in the picturesque provincial capital Gardez when the vehicle they were travelling in struck a roadside kaboom, provincial front man Rohullah Samoon said.
The injured coppers were taken to a nearby hospital in the city, he said.
No group including the Taliban has grabbed credit for the attack.
Insurgents use improvised bombs to target Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... troops, but most of the victims are civilians.
Lebanese authorities say they have uncovered a Syrian plot to destabilize Leb in an investigation that has led to the indictment of a top Syrian official and compounded fears that Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... aims to export its civil conflict next door.
The indictments issued in Beirut against two Syrian officers, including General Ali Mamlouk, mark an unprecedented Lebanese move against a more powerful neighbor that has been a major player in the country's affairs for decades.
If confirmed, the alleged plot drawn up in collaboration with a former Lebanese minister to ignite sectarian strife in Leb would represent a major blow to Syria's Lebanese allies, including Hezbollah.
The United States and Egypt are negotiating a package of assistance to address what administration officials described as a worsening security vacuum in the Sinai Peninsula, the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported.
According to the report, the Pentagon is discussing a variety of options for sharing intelligence which include intercepts of cellphone or radio conversations of cut-throats suspected of plotting attacks and overhead imagery provided by aircraft -- both piloted and drones -- or satellites, the officials said.
The president of the United States may get a new Air Force One jetliner -- that is, whomevers president after the 2020 elections.
The Pentagon started a program yesterday to develop and buy replacement presidential aircraft for use a decade from now. Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Frank Kendall authorized the Air Force to establish an office for the replacement program, which includes new Marine One helicopters available for use no earlier than 2020.
The first of two current VC-25A Boeing 747-200B aircraft that serve as Air Force One entered service transporting presidential parties in September 1990. The aircraft are expected to have 30-year service lives, the Air Force said.
The Pentagon has budgeted $757 million through 2017 for the first phase of the Air Force One replacement and $1.84 billion for the helicopter replacement through 2017 and most of the money would be spent after fiscal 2015, the official said.
The initial new Air Force One wouldnt be delivered for modification with specialized technology until 2019, according to the Pentagons latest 30-year aviation plan. A new presidential helicopter to replace the 35-year-old models now in service wouldnt be declared operational until 2020, followed by the new Air Force One aircraft in 2023, the official said, citing a formal schedule.
#3
...The 747 will still be in production for several more years, and I suspect the 'new' AF1 will be another VC-25 - it's the only beast, current or projected, that can carry everything and has four engines.
Unless they do a C-17 variant - probably practical, but doesn't quite have that awe-inspiring appearance.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/13/2012 5:56
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#4
Low cost solution, contract it out to Evergreen Aviation. He can sit on a 463L pallet and mine nose nuggets. We'll help the local NW economy, save lots of money, and he can stay busy.
#7
I'm sure there's a Cessna someone could spare. Maybe one salvaged from the Alaskan bush?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/13/2012 19:02
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#8
With a pilot who wears the only parachute on board?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/13/2012 19:34
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#9
DAILY TIMES.PK > 4,500 MPH WIDIN SECONDS. US TO TEST RADICAL NEW HYPERSONIC AIRCRAFT, i.e. the X-51A WaveRider.
[Sub]WARP DRIVE HERE WE COME???
Reminds me of post-SPIN TEST, FUNNY-FACED DAN ACKYROYD + BILL MURRAY from 1980's "SPIES LIKE US", where now in 2012 they ponder "Ya know, maybe being an Office-n-Chair-n-JoyStick based Drone Driver wasn't such a bad or boring job after all".
Again, as OWG-NWO = SPACE GOVT-ORDER, AIR FORCE ONE = renamed GLOBAL/TERRA ONE, although in all likelihood future OWG + post-OWG Space = "Star" Prezs may need a unique LUNA- or ARIES, ETC. ONE???
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 their national face... 's King Abdullah has ordered $50 million in aid be sent to a Moslem minority in Myanmar which a human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... group said has been targeted by the authorities since sectarian riots in June.
A report on the Saudi state news agency said. ... and if you can't believe the state news agency who can you believe? the Rohingya community had been "exposed to many violations of human rights including ethnic cleansing, murder, rape and forced displacement".
The governor of Laghman's Alisheing district was killed along with his three bodyguards in a kaboom on Sunday, a local official said.
The incident happened about noon local time in Alisheing, when district governor Faridullah Neyazi's vehicle hit a roadside kaboom, provincial front man Sarhadi Zwak said.
"The district governor was driving to a meeting when his Toyota Corolla was blown up in the road," he said.
Mr Zwak said he believed the district governor was the direct target of 'enemies.' He did not provide any extra details about who those enemies might be.
No group including the Taliban has grabbed credit for the attack.
Alisheing district borders Nuristan province in eastern Afghanistan, and cut-throats there frequently attack local police checkpoints.
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Seven gunmen were killed on Sunday in a north Sinai village when Egyptian troops stormed the area, security officials said. Five others were detained by the Egyptian army from al-Jora village near el-Arish.
A security official told Ma'an that police and army officers came under fire while conducting a security campaign in al-Jora, leading to heavy clashes."People in the area supplied information that there was a group of unidentified people staying in a makeshift hut. The area was immediately raided. The group opened fire and the police returned fire," one police source said.
Other officials gave conflicting accounts of the number of casualties. One senior police officer said six people had died in the fighting at al-Jora - three from bullet wounds and three more whose scorched bodies were found in the hut which was burned. In addition, a seventh militant was seriously injured and taken to hospital in el-Arish in north Sinai, he added.
A resident of al-Jora told Reuters he had seen the lifeless bodies of two men who were not from the area, and said two other militants were arrested. "They resisted very strongly," he said by telephone. "They fired rocket-propelled grenades at the troops."
The clashes came just days after the start of a military operation in the area against militants suspected of being behind a bloody attack on Egyptian border guards last Sunday, which killed 16.
Egypt sent hundreds of troops and armored vehicles into North Sinai on Thursday to tackle militants operating near the border in an offensive that commanders said had killed up to 20 people they deemed terrorists.
CHITRAL: At least 14 Pakistanis who crossed the border to join the Afghan police force have resigned from their jobs and returned home, officials said on Sunday, amid simmering tensions with Afghanistan.
The men, belonging to Chitral, are among a number of jobless Pakistanis in border areas who fled to neighbouring Afghanistan to escape grinding poverty and hunt for employment, officials said. Nearly three-dozen joined the ranks of Afghan security forces last year, a trend that has set off alarm bells in the Pakistani security establishment.
Afghanistan and Pakistan blame each other for a number of recent cross-border attacks that have killed dozens and displaced hundreds of families.
"At least 14 Pakistanis have reached back after resignation. We are expecting a dozen more this week," said Rematullah Wazir, a top government official in Chitral.
They returned after authorities warned their families of stern actions against the men, Wazir said. "We were worried that some anti-Pakistan elements could use them against their own country," he told AFP.
Afghanistan shares a disputed and unmarked 2,400-kilometre border with Pakistan, and Taliban and other al Qaeda-linked militants have carved out strongholds on either side.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/13/2012
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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.
The newest strain of the Flame super-virus identified by Kaspersky Labs earlier this year, dubbed Gauss, may be targeting banks in Lebanon, stealing information needed by individuals interacting with their accounts.
MUMBAI: Police in Mumbai have arrested more than 20 people in connection with violence that erupted at a rally in which two people were killed and dozens injured, reports said yesterday.
The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is set to expel Syria from its congregation in an expression of the pan-Islamic body's opposition to the Assad regime's failure to end the bloodshed in his country. The decision is being described as one of the key outcomes of the two-day Islamic solidarity summit beginning here Tuesday.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - The head of Syria's main opposition group in exile has called for a no-fly zone in border areas to protect civilians. The president of the Syrian National Council, Abdelbaset Sieda, told The Associated Press on Sunday that such a move by the international community would show President Bashar Assad's regime that his opponents are serious.
KABUL/ISLAMABAD: Afghan officials have held secret talks with the Taleban's former second in command who is in detention in Pakistan in a move which could help rekindle stalled peace talks with the insurgents, according to senior officials from both countries.
QUETTA: At least two Pakistani nationals were injured allegedly by shelling and firing from Iranian security forces at the Pakistan-Iran border in Washuk district on Sunday. 
Five 
...a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership. Since 2006, Warty Nose has served as foreign minister in the government of Ismail Haniyeh. He is considered one of the more stubborn hard-liners and has no objection to kissing the Persian foot to keep the money flowing. Warty Nose's son, a member of the Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli raid in early 2008. Another one was disposed of when the IDF bombed his house in 2003...
London, Asharq Al-Awsat -- Dowlat Norouzi, spokesperson for the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran group, informed Asharq Al-Awsat that the Iranian opposition was in possession of information confirming that 14 of the 48 Iranians captured in Syria are officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp [IRGC].
Kurdish 
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Seven gunmen were killed on Sunday in a north Sinai village when Egyptian troops stormed the area, security officials said. Five others were detained by the Egyptian army from al-Jora village near el-Arish.
