A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center. A member of the loyal opposition since November 4, 2008.
A New Mexico man's decision to lash out with a billboard ad saying his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes has touched off a legal debate over free speech and privacy rights.
The sign on Alamogordo's main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!"
Fultz's ex-girlfriend has taken him to court for harassment and violation of privacy. A domestic court official has recommended the billboard be removed.
But Fultz's attorney argues the order violates his client's free speech rights.
"As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech," Todd Holmes said.
The woman's friends say she had a miscarriage, not an abortion, according to a report in the Albuquerque Journal.
Holmes disputes that, saying his case is based on the accuracy of his client's statement.
"My argument is: What Fultz said is the truth," Holmes said.
The woman's attorney is focusing on the privacy rights and Fultz claims that this is a free speech right.
Fultz has also turned this into an abortion issue, but it's not clear that an abortion even took place. The woman's friends claim that no abortion took place; this was a miscarriage, which is something that a significant percentage of all women who get pregnant will endure. It's an extremely disappointing and emotional situation and sometimes requires a medical procedure to remove the failed fetus.
What exactly has happened in the town of Jisr Al-Shugur? State run media outlets keep inflating the death toll in the town to 120 security and police killed by opposition protesters, but protest and human rights groups dispute those figures.
Many opposition figures and local residents disputed official Syrian media reports of what was happening in the town, Jisr al-Shoughour.
Some said the violence was set off by the defection of soldiers sent to besiege the town Saturday, a number of them seeking refuge with the citizens of the town, according to a statement by an opposition group, Local Coordinating Committees in Syria.
The number of dead ballooned throughout the day as state media described a massacre at the hands of unidentified gunmen and said residents were pleading for the army to intervene. But state television provided few details of the dead and no images of the town. Instead, throughout the day an ever-higher estimate of fatalities scrolled across the bottom of Syrian television screens against a video backdrop of girls frolicking in ponds and Syrian children singing patriotic songs.
Neither the government’s nor the opposition’s version of events could be independently verified, but both would represent a troubling escalation in the popular uprising — and the bloody government crackdown — that has gripped Syria since mid-March. Although the protests in many Syrian cities have been peaceful, the government of President Bashar Assad has claimed that it faces an armed insurrection by extremists and terrorists, possibly to justify the widespread deployment of troops and tanks to crush dissent.
There have been sporadic armed clashes with opponents of the government during the revolt, and human rights groups did not rule out the possibility of violent reprisals against troops by people who lived in Jisr al-Shoughour, a Sunni Muslim area that has a history of support for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Telephone and Internet service to the town was heavily disrupted last night. But residents reached by phone described chaotic scenes of mass flight and street barricades hastily erected by the people to defend against the return of security forces.
“The army split; the confrontation is between them,’’ said Saeb Jamil, a local activist who said he was helping people flee to the nearby Turkish border. “The army is confronting the army.’’
There's no way to confirm the events, but if we take the Syrian media outlets at their word, we can expect Assad's regime to engage in harsh reprisals against the town along the lines of the brutal Hama massacre carried out by Assad's father a generation ago. That's what dictators and despots do. When faced with existential threats to their regimes, dictators, despots, and autocrats will not hesitate to use force to maintain their power and control.
Syrian Palestinians are blaming the PFLP for the clashes along the Golan border with Israel, and further clashes erupted in the Syrian refugee camps between mourners and unidentified elements who opened fire on the mourners who were angry at both the Syrian regime and the PFLP for manipulating the situation:
14 or more Palestinians were killed in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus when security guards opened fire on angry mourners who attacked PFLP faction leaders for precipitating the Golan border incident over the weekend.
It would not be surprising that Assad was using the PFLP to manipulate the Palestinians to deflect attention from Assad's brutal crackdown. It is surprising though that the Palestinians are beginning to realize that they have no friend in Assad or the PFLP. Palestinians need to realize that they can't expect to eliminate Israel and that a 2-state solution is in their best interests but the Arab regimes and terror groups are operating to thwart those ambitions and aspirations.
Syrian and international rights groups say they have drawn hope from the ICC prosecutor's speed in calling for the arrest of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and others over the violence in Libya, and a willingness to investigate Ivory Coast and Kenya.
Damascus has not signed the 2002 Rome Statue that set up the court, which means the ICC does not have jurisdiction in Syria, unless the U.N. Security Council refers it to the court.
Amnesty International called on the Security Council to refer Syria to the ICC.
UPDATE: Cracks appear in the Syrian regime for the first time. A Syrian minister has resigned and additional witnesses from Jisr Al-Shugur have cast doubt on the Syrian official position about the deaths of 120 security personnel.
Syria’s ambassador to France resigned on Tuesday to protest the violence in her country, according to France 24 news, as details continued to emerge about a violent confrontation in a town that Syrian state media described as “a massacre” by “armed gangs” that left 120 people dead, most of them police and security forces.
The resignation by the diplomat, Lamia Shakkour, is a blow to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Syria and France have long-standing and close ties.
In the town where the clashes occurred, Jisr al-Shoughour, local residents reached by telephone disputed the official account of the violence. They said fighting erupted over the weekend following a wave of defections from military forces sent to besiege the town, where there was a large anti-government protest on Friday. Syria has been gripped since mid-March by an unprecedented popular uprising against the government of Mr. Assad, whose family has ruled with an iron fist for four decades.
Syria bars foreign journalists from entering the country and neither the government’s nor resident’s account of events could be independently verified. Nevertheless, either version would represent a serious escalation in both the chaos and violence of the Syrian uprising and harsh government efforts to crush it.
If we see additional resignations among the diplomatic corps, Assad could be in real trouble, especially if those who are resigning join up with the opposition and are able to form a viable opposition that could eventually be recognized as a legitimate entity to assume power if Assad is removed.
Labels:
Bashar al-Assad,
Civil War,
Golan Heights,
Israel,
PFLP,
protests,
Syria,
terrorism
The agency runs the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln and Holland tunnels as well as the Goethals and Bayonne bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing.
The same tolls apply on all six crossings.
Peak hours are defined as 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and noon to 8 p.m. on weekends.
A toll hike would likely come with a proposal to raise fares on the PATH train.
It would not, however, include an increase in surcharges at the agency's airports or seaports.
Once flush with cash, the agency's coffers have taken huge hits in recent years and it badly needs the $300 million the $2 increase would bring in.
The biggest financial drains have been the growing expense of rebuilding the World Trade Center, which came as the recession caused a massive decline in tolls and other fees from commuting, air travel and maritime cargo.
The Port Authority cites construction at Ground Zero as part of the reason it needs the higher fares and both Gov. Chris Christie and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are expected to sign off on the hikes.
What doesn't get mentioned is the fact that the serious cost overruns at the PATH hub at Ground Zero are a major reason that the Port Authority is in dire need of the toll hike. Originally expected to cost $2.2 billion, the project is now running upwards of $3.4 billion, and is likely to be much closer to $3.8 billion.
Considering that the PANY is over its original budget estimate by more than $1.2 billion (or $400 million if you're working from their more recent figures), that $400 million would have more than mitigated the need for fare hikes.
This shows that the Port Authority was not serious about containing costs on the PATH hub, and that inability is leading to commuters having to incur additional costs to cover the agency's operating and capital budget programs. The Port Authority has repeatedly claimed that it was taking steps to contain costs, but that doesn't appear to have occurred, particularly with the Transit Hub.
Labels:
PANY-NJ,
PATH,
Santiago Calatrava,
WTC Transit Hub
More photos keep coming to light courtesy of Breitbart and they do appear to show Brooklyn Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner in less than a flattering light. Does this mean that the crotch-photo that lit up the Twitterverse is legitimately Weiner, or that Weiner sent the photo himself?
That's still an open question, but it appears that the Yfrog exploit is going to turn out to be the side-story. Yfrog had a vulnerability that could explain how someone could take photos and insert them into Weiner's twitter-stream without him knowing. That exploit may or may not have been fixed, but the news today doesn't appear to be good for Weiner.
Weiner could still claim that his accounts were hacked and that he never intended to send either the crotch photo or these newly released photos, but that would end up requiring forensic proof showing that he didn't do so or that his account was hacked.
If these do appear to be legitimate and Weiner has actually sent these photos, including the crotch-photo to other people through Twitter, then Weiner's political career is likely done. After all, similar photos sent by Buffalo-area Republican Rep. Christopher Lee resulted in his resignation. Lee actually set some kind of record, as he resigned within hours after the story broke on Gawker.
If Weiner does admit to sending the photos, the question then becomes of his political career, and his seat in Congress. His district is reliably Democrat, but Weiner's political aspirations for higher office, including Mayor of New York would likely over. That would be quite the stunning fall for the one-time protege for US Senator Chuck Schumer.
UPDATE:
Well, he's gone and admitted to sending the photos, which is just plain odd. After all his odd defenses and statements, that's it? What a putz.
As for his chances for a political future outside his district, I'd say that they're over. However, since he's refusing to resign, consider that he's in a safe district for Democrats, so he's going to likely remain and serve at his constituents' pleasure not unlike the way that Rep. Charles Rangel was reelected twice after his tax cheating ways were revealed and was censured by Congress.
The state television report said armed groups in the area carried out a "massacre." It said the groups ambushed police and security forces, blew up the post office, torched government buildings and mutilated bodies. Thirty-seven were killed at a security post, the report said.
Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar said on Monday the authorities will respond firmly to armed attacks.
"We will deal firmly and decisively based on the law (and we) will never be silent over any armed attack that targets the country's security," he said in a televised statement. Human rights activist Mustafa Osso cast doubt on the government accounts.
There was no independent confirmation of the claims.
"The protesters have so far been peaceful and unarmed," he said. Osso said there were unconfirmed reports of a few army deserters who switched sides and were fighting security forces.
Monday's state television report said the officers were ambushed as they responded to calls from residents for protection from armed groups. It said 20 policemen were initially killed, and then the groups blew up a post office, attacked a security post
"Armed groups have set fire to a number of government buildings in Jisr al-Shughour," the TV said. It added the groups were hiding in homes and firing at soldiers and civilians alike, using residents as human shields in an ongoing shootout.
It added the armed groups carried out a "real massacre," mutilating some bodies and throwing others in a river.
Considering that no one can independently verify these events, one has to take these reports with a grain of salt.
One also has to consider the repercussions for residents in and around Jisr al-Shughour. Assad will not allow these kinds of attacks on his security forces to go unpunished. Jisr al-Shughour may end up on the receiving end of a Hama-style massacre.
Another possibility is that the opposition groups are moving away from merely protesting against Assad's brutal and barbaric regime, and are now taking up arms against Assad. This adds to an already dangerous situation that is likely to result in a significant escalation in Assad's body count.
Labels:
Bashar al-Assad,
Civil War,
Hama rules,
protest babes,
Syria
With Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh continuing to receive medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for the injuries sustained in the rocket attack on his compound, what exactly is next for this failed state that straddles important shipping lanes and has regularly played host to al Qaeda?
Celebrations broke out on streets when Yemenis learned that Saleh was out of the country, but Saleh's loyalists remain in control of the country. It would appear that Saleh's done as the Saudis and Americans aren't willing to allow Saleh back into Yemen.
Yemen's main political opposition accepted a transfer of power to the country's vice president after President Ali Abdullah Saleh traveled to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment following an attack on his compound Friday. But it's unclear who will replace President Saleh more permanently if he doesn't return, and whether Vice President Abdul Rabu Mansoor Hadi will be accepted by the other groups vying for Saleh's ouster.
Saleh was injured Friday when opposition tribesmen shelled the presidential compound, targeting a mosque during Friday prayers. Saleh's forces and Yemeni tribesmen, who have engaged in pitched battles for nearly two weeks in the capital, continued fighting this weekend, the Washington Post reports, despite a truce brokered by Saudi Arabia.
The capital erupted in fireworks after his departure, which some saw as permanent, given his injuries and increasingly weak political position. But the government rebuffed the political opposition's call for the establishment of a temporary coalition government, saying that Saleh was still Yemen's president and would return to the country soon. In the interim, Vice President Abd al-Rabo Mansur al-Hadi was named as acting president.
RELATED: Yemen 101: Who's who in the country's unrest?
US ally Saudi Arabia is expected to block Saleh from returning to Yemen (with US support), the Washington Post reports, but neither the US nor Saudi Arabia likely has an answer for how to ensure a peaceful transition to a new government that will satisfy the secular youth-protest movement's demands for change, command respect from powerful tribes, and be capable of reining in Islamist militants, including an Al Qaeda franchise active in the south.
Syria's Bashar al Assad continues with the violent crackdown against protesters and opposition groups that have staged protests for the past several months. The regime also claims that they're busy lifting draconian laws, providing amnesty, all while continuing the brutal crackdown against regime opponents. It's little wonder that Syrians are growing more cynical about the regime daily.
More than 1,200 civilians have died and at least 10,000 have been arrested since protests began against President Bashar al-Assad’s government in mid-March, according to rights groups. Repression and extrajudicial arrests continue to inrease.
Friday was one of the bloodiest days since the 10-week uprising began, with an internet blackout temporarily preventing footage of Syrian security forces opening fire on a 50,000-strong anti-government protest in Hama from leaving the country. At least 53 people died in Hama and another 10 elsewhere throughout the country that day, said the human rights organization Sawasiah.
An additional 35 people were killed since Saturday in the northern towns Jisr al-Shughour and Khan Sheikhoun, according to human rights groups, making this past weekend one of the bloodiest since the protests began.
Tanks also rolled into Hama Saturday night, where 100,000 people marched in funerals for those killed Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. On Sunday morning, at least three demonstrators were killed in a town in the northwestern province of Idlib.
Despite the ongoing violence, the government continues to insist it is implementing reforms.
On May 31, Assad granted amnesty for “all members of Muslim Brotherhood and other detainees belonging to political movements.” Several hundred political prisoners were released the next day.
The announcement — and the doublespeak and deception it represents — aggravated rather than mitigated the scale of protests after Friday prayers, several sources in Damascus said.
At the same time, the past several weeks have seen organized groups of protesters swarm and attempt to break into Israel across the Golan border. Those incidents have resulted in an unknown number of casualties, but with Syrian media outlets being state-run, it's in their interest to puff up the numbers so as to diminish the slaughter carried out by the Syrian regime against its own citizens. There's no way to independently verify the casualty claims from the incidents along the Golan border but independent human rights groups claim another 40 people were murdered by the regime across the country, and Assad's security forces continue murdering civilians without showing the slightest bit of hesitation.
One such video has leaked out showing Syrian troops on a rooftop in Dara'a where some of the heaviest fighting has occurred. They're walking among dead civilians.
Israel has beefed up security even further along its border with Syria, knowing that the Syrians are attempting to foment incidents involving Israel so as to take pressure off the Assad regime. Assad has no problem sending people to their deaths to remain in power. It's what autocrats do, and those people who are attempting to cross into Israel are being put into a dangerous position because of Assad and his attempt to drag Israel into his regime's ongoing fight for survival.
Israeli diplomats will be complaining to the UN for what it's worth over Syria's manipulation of Palestinian protesters to initiate incidents along the border. The problem for the UN is that they're completely incapable of dealing with Syria, and while the situation roughly corresponds to the ongoing civil war in Libya, the opposition in Syria isn't nearly as well defined. Yet, Assad is engaging in the same kinds of ethnic cleansing/war crimes/democide that Khadafi has done.
A military spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, said that Israeli forces warned the protesters not to approach the border, in Arabic with megaphones; used nonlethal riot dispersal means like tear gas, which failed to deter them; and then fired warning shots in the air.
When the demonstrators reached the fence, soldiers were “left with no choice,” she said, “but to open fire at the feet of the protesters.”
Syria’s role also creates a quandary for Israel. Although the countries technically remain in a state of war, Syria has kept the border quiet for 37 years.
Protesters there could not have approached the border without government acquiescence, and analysts said the decision to allow the protest was aimed at deflecting attention from the protests sweeping Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
“I would note that these protests were carried live on Syrian television” an Israeli official said. “They do not carry the protests against their own regime live. They made a decision to try to exploit this for their own purposes.”
The official spoke anonymously because, he said, Israel did not want to allow the protests to stoke tensions with Syria.
Lebanon had a similar incident two weeks ago, but they made sure to seal the border area ahead of the commemoration of the anniversary of the Six Day War. Syria took no such action, and the fact that they were busy televising the situation along the border all while continuing to block the Internet and clamping down on the protesters throughout Syria shows that the regime was fully engaged in trying to manipulate the situation along the Golan border to its own ends. Once again, Palestinians are a pawn and cannon fodder for unholy regimes whose only intention is to remain in power.
Labels:
Bashar al-Assad,
Golan Heights,
Israel,
protests,
Syria
This is the second such incident in a month. Syria's Bashar al Assad knows that his regime is under a serious threat from the ongoing protests against his brutal regime, so he's falling back on the region's one constant relief valve - find a way to bring Israel into things.
Syrian television says four protesters were killed. An Israeli army spokesman said about 12 demonstrators were wounded but said he could not confirm any deaths.
The Israeli army says its troops had "no choice" but to open fire after hundreds of demonstrators ignored numerous warnings to stay clear of the boundary fence on the Golan.
The demonstrators were marking the anniversary of Israel's capture of the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The fighting occurred over several hours and throngs of Syrians repeatedly attempted to illegally enter Israel.
The way the border works, there's a series of fences and zones. There's a Syrian fence, a no-man's land that happens to be mined, and the Israeli fence. These Syrians, including armed individuals, got past the Syrian fence, and were moving towards the Israeli fence
Two armed men were identified near the border fence in Kunetra, on the Syrian side of the border, the IDF Spokesman told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday afternoon.
There was no further official information about he identity of the gunmen, or their proximity to the border but a security official suggested that the men could be Syrian police or army forces
Prior to spotting the armed men, according to the IDF spokesperson, around 150 people managed to cross to the Syrian side of the fence, entering a mined zone between the two fences in the Majdal Shams area.
Curiously, Syria has done nothing to stop protests on its side of the border with Israel even as Lebanon has taken steps to prevent further border events. Lebanon declared the area a closed military zone, but Syria, with its ongoing protests against Assad, is using Israel as a foil to deflect attention from his barbaric crackdown that has killed at least a thousand protesters opposed to his regime.
Labels:
Bashar al-Assad,
Golan Heights,
Israel,
Lebanon,
Six Day War,
Syria
Considering that Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh was fighting to remain in power and was seriously injured in a rocket attack on his compound, it's little wonder that his regime has given out little information about the seriousness of his injuries.
Far from being the minor injuries that were initially indicated, it appears that his trip to Saudi Arabia for treatment was an admission that he was actually quite seriously injured. In fact, reports are indicating that he required neurosurgery to address his injuries. So, while his flacks are saying that he suffered only minor injuries, Western diplomatic sources are saying he was actually quite seriously injured:
Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia Saturday after the attack, leaving Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in charge.
Yemeni ruling party spokesman Tareq Shami said Sunday that Saleh's health is "very good and this is an ordinary visit."
"Saleh is not sick and he will be back in Yemen soon," Shami said
Saleh was hurt in an attack on a mosque in his palace on Friday.
Government officials are now investigating whether the local branch of al Qaeda was behind the attack, after earlier blaming a rebel tribe.
Saleh flew to Saudi Arabia Saturday, a source close to the Saudi government told CNN.
He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital after his plane landed in Riyadh.
Saleh's medical condition is worse than originally thought,the Saudi source said.
Hadi took over Saleh's responsibilities as president Saturday, Yemeni government spokesman Abdu Ganadi said.
Saleh's flight came after months of unrest in his poor Middle Eastern country, a key battleground in the fight against al Qaeda.
Street battles broke out in the capital Sanaa in recent days between government forces and fighters of the powerful Hashed tribe.
Yemeni security forces on Friday pounded the home of Sadeq al-Ahmar, the Hashed tribal leader whose supporters were first suspected of being behind the attack on the presidential palace.
The flurry of shelling left 10 people dead and 35 others wounded, according to Fawzi Al-Jaradi, an official with Hamil al-Ahmar, a Hashed tribal confederation led by Sadeq al-Ahmar.
Demonstrators have demanded Saleh's ouster for months, and fighting between Yemeni government forces and Hashed tribesemen has spiked considerably in recent weeks.
It's the common tactic of dictators, despots, autocrats, and theocrats in the Middle East. When all else fails, blame Israel.
That's what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is doing once again. He also calls the notion of a 2-state solution "Satanic". He's spewing his usual anti Israel venom, claiming that there would be peace and tranquility in the Middle East if Israel simply didn't exist.
Of course, that would mean ignoring the Libyan dictator Mumar Khadafi's violent crackdown against fellow Libyans in a brutal civil war that has already killed thousands.
It would mean ignoring Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad's brutal crackdown against fellow Syrians who are opposed to his ongoing regime and its ongoing murder of protesters and children.
It would mean ignoring the Yemeni civil war that has broken out amid Ali Abdullah Sale's refusal to transition to a new government.
It would mean ignoring the violent crackdown against protesters in Bahrain.
It would mean ignoring the Tunisian revolution.
It would mean ignoring the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak by the Egyptian people.
It would also mean ignoring the brutal crackdown by Ahmadinejad's own government against opposition groups.
None of those events had anything to do with Israel or the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.
In fact, the ongoing civil wars, protests, and crackdowns have everything to do with the multitude of failed regimes, failed economic policies, and absolute repression of the Arab street by unelected regimes.
Israel has nothing to do with any of this.
But Israel is regularly scapegoated by these regimes, and Ahmadinejad in particular, because these regimes have no other answers and use Israel as a convenient excuse for all that ails the region.
Fighting broke out again in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a Saturday, with the forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh shelling the homes of anti-government leaders.
Sporadic rocket fire and firefights erupted in the al-Hasaba district of northern Sana'a, the home base of dissident tribesman Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar. He is a leader of what Saleh said was a "gang of outlaws" that carried out a rocket attack on the presidential compound Friday. Thousands fled the city on Saturday and roads were clogged at daybreak.
Seven people were killed in the rocket attack Friday, including key government officials, while Saleh was "lightly wounded" as the group attended prayers at a mosque inside the presidential compound.
Several top government officials wounded in the attack were flown to neighboring Saudi Arabia for treatment. Al-Arabiya TV reported that Saleh was among them, but a Yemeni spokesman said the report was not true and that he was still in Yemen.
The ongoing warfare between forces loyal to Saleh and anti-government protesters seemed to leave the country on the brink of a civil war. Saleh has three times promised to end his 33-year reign in a deal brokered by neighboring countries, but so far has reneged on the agreement.
Each passing day brings Yemen closer and closer to a civil war, and the exchanges of rocket and gunfire on the homes and compounds of rival leaders shows that neither side is particularly inclined to negotiate a peaceful solution to ending Saleh's regime.
Diplomatic efforts to broker a deal have failed three previous times, and time is running out for a peaceful resolution as the attack on Saleh's compound is likely to only harden Saleh's position and rally his supporters to fight to the bitter end.
Labels:
Ali Abdullah Saleh,
Civil War,
protests,
Yemen
Senior Al Qaeda-linked militant Ilyas Kashmiri has been killed in Pakistan by a United States drone attack, media reports.
The drone strike hit the village of Lehman, South Waziristan, in Pakistan's in north-west.
Local people told the BBC that Kashmiri, regarded as one of the world's most dangerous militants, was amongst nine people killed and that he and his men had only recently arrived in the area.
Intelligence and security officials have said they had no information confirming that Kashmiri was killed.
Kashmiri was considered a possible successor to Osama bin Laden. Now? He gets to join him in hell.
With this success following the bin Laden raid, one has to wonder whether intel gathered in the bin Laden raid had anything to do with the planning and carrying out of this latest drone strike.
Long War Journal's Bill Roggio notes that the location where Kashmiri was killed is territory in South Waziristan controlled by Mullah Nazir, who has openly stated he's affiliated with al Qaeda.
Several other top al Qaeda leaders have been killed by Predator strikes in Nazir's territories. One of the most senior al Qaeda leaders killed was Midhat Mursi al Sayyid Umar, who is better known as Abu Khabab al Masri. Abu Khabab was killed along with four members of his staff in a Predator strike on July 28, 2008. Also killed on Nazir's turf were Osama al Kini (Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam), al Qaeda's operations chief in Pakistan; and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, one of al Kini's senior aides. Both men were wanted by the US for their involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Kashmiri's death would be a major blow to al Qaeda and allied terror groups in the region. He is considered to be one of the contenders to take command of al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden's was killed during a May 2, 2011 raid by US SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
He is considered by US intelligence to be one of al Qaeda's most effective commanders. He served as the operational chief of the Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, an al which that operates in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The Harkat-ul Jihad Islami was designated as a terrorist entity by the US in 2010, and Kashmiri was added to the list of global terrorists for his role in leading HUJI as well as for his links to al Qaeda.
It's notable also that the Pakistani government has thus far not made any comment about the airstrike. With so many top al Qaeda terrorists operating from Pakistani territory and plenty of support from Islamists within the Pakistani government and security forces, the Pakistani government continues walking a fine line between trying to go after terror groups like al Qaeda and fending off potential threats to the government.
Labels:
Al Qaeda,
Pakistan,
terrorism
Heavy fighting continues in Syria, where protesters continue to be murdered in significant numbers by Bashar al-Assad's security forces. At least 27 were killed when Assad's thugs opened fire on protesters in Hama. Witnesses reported that snipers opened fire on the throngs of protesters.
Protests in Hama have a particular resonance, since the city was attacked in 1982 by Assad's father, then President Hafez al-Assad, who crushed an armed Islamist uprising, killing up to 30,000 people and razing parts of the city to the ground.
"Tens of thousands turned up in Hama and Idlib in the biggest demonstrations since the uprising. This is a natural reaction to the increased killings and lack of seriousness by the regime for any national reconciliation," said Rami Abulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who gave the latest death toll figure.
Syrian forces also opened fire on demonstrations in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and in Damascus' Barzeh district.
Francis Deng, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Edward Luck, the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, said in a joint statement that they were "gravely concerned at the increasing loss of life in Syria as a result of the continued violent suppression of anti-Government protests."
"We are particularly alarmed at the apparently systematic and deliberate attacks by police, military, and other security forces against unarmed civilians taking part in the last two months of protests. These attacks have reportedly resulted in many hundreds of deaths," the statement said.
"The deployment of armed forces and the use of live fire, tanks and artillery in response to peaceful protests, and the targeting of residential areas where protests have taken place, are unacceptable under any circumstances."
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was wounded when opposition tribesmen determined to topple him hammered his palace with rockets Friday in a major escalation of nearly two weeks of fighting with government forces. At least four guards were killed and seven top officials were also wounded, an official said.
The official said Saleh suffered light injuries to the neck and was treated in the palace. Yemeni state TV quickly aired a statement that Saleh was "in good health," denying a claim on an opposition TV station that the president was killed in the strike.
It was the first time that tribal fighters have directly targeted Saleh's palace in the fighting that has rocked the capital since May 23. The rocket strike came after government forces launched an intense artillery barrage at the homes of two tribal leaders and a top military general who also joined the opposition. The houses were flattened, witnesses said.
The fighting pits Saleh's troops against tribesmen loyal to Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar, head of the Hashid, Yemen's most powerful tribal confederation. Al-Ahmar supports the hundreds of thousands of protesters who have been pressing for Saleh's ouster since February, but his tribal fighters stayed on the sidelines until Saleh's troops last week moved against al-Ahmar's residence in Sanaa.
The rockets Friday hit the presidential compound as officials were praying at a mosque inside, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. Four guards were killed and seven other officials wounded, he said.
Repeated efforts to broker a deal for a transition government have failed as Saleh's followers have repeatedly fired on tribal groups, and Saleh has balked at several of the deals. The attack on Saleh's compound is likely to precipitate a civil war as Saleh (or his followers) wont go quietly.
Yemen's insecurity could lead to terror groups exploiting the chaos, whether by attacking shipping at sea or at any of its ports.
Then, there's the ongoing situation in Libya, and strongman Mumar Khadafi's support continues to crumble. Yet another minister has defected:
NATO has renewed its airstrikes against Libyian military forces, and extended the Libya mission for three more months. Despite the similarity between the actions by Khadafi and Assad, NATO and the UN can't seem to pull the trigger to stop Assad, while they're engaged in an all-too-alike situation in Libya. That's due to a combination of lack of military resources to commit to both locations and that Syria's backers in China and Russia have thwarted any more serious repercussions for Syria's brutal crackdown.
It's official: Edwards indicted of using campaign cash to pay mistress. This louse used campaign funds from his run for the President to hush up his extra-marital affair with Rielle Hunter and with whom he fathered a child. The lies piled up and he couldn't sweet-talk his way out of the mess of his own creation. Things really began to unravel when his aid Andrew Young began talking:
In December 2007, the group began traveling by private jets to luxury hotels on a cross-country game of hide and seek. It was all financed by wealthy Edwards campaign operative Fred Baron, and it was all with Edwards' approval, Young said.
"Maybe he didn't know exactly where we were, but he knew about the money, he knew about the methodology and he knew about the sources," Young said in an interview with ABC News.
Young and his wife have estimated that it cost Edwards' benefactors $1 million in cash, private jets and hotel rooms to cover up the affair and Hunter's pregnancy.
If he were to agree to a deal today, Edwards will not be required to serve any time in prison -- but the former high-flying trial attorney he will almost surely lose one thing he holds very dear.
Edwards has stated that he hopes to move back into legal work once this case is behind him. However, in North Carolina, if he pleads guilty or no contest to a criminal offense, he must go before the State Bar -- putting his license to practice law on the line.
It's laughable that Edwards could claim that he didn't know that the money was being used to pay for the silence of those who knew or had reason to know about the affair.
Had he agreed to a plea deal, he would have likely faced lesser charges, but which would have put his law license up for scrutiny before the North Carolina bar. However, now that this is likely to go to trial and Edwards loses, it's going to be a far worse situation. I suspect that his license to practice in NC would have been suspended, not revoked, if he had gone and taken the plea deal. Now, all bets are off as to what will happen. A conviction on these charges would likely result in the NC Bar moving to disbar him.
We've been down this road too many times to count in the nearly five years since Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid from Gaza that killed two other Israelis. He's been held somewhere in Gaza by the Islamic terror group ever since the June 25, 2006 raid.
And apparently the reports of a pending deal were too good to be true.
Prisoner exchange talks between Israel and Hamas, geared at the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, were near their fruition, the Palestinian envoy to Russia said on Thursday.
The comment by Fayed Mustafa, quoted by Russian news agency RIA Novosti, came after Egypt's former ambassador to Israel ignited a rumor frenzy after he was cited in the Al Masry Al Youm newspaper as saying that the Shalit deal was just hours away.
Later Thursday the Prime Minister's Office denied that there were any significant progress in Shalit talks, a claim that was seconded by an Egyptian official speaking to Haaretz.
However, speaking with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Palestinian envoy to Russia Fayed Mustafa said that "negotiations between Israel and Hamas, ongoing in Cairo with Egyptian mediation, are close to completion."
The RIA report stated that the Palestinian official provided no further information.
As they have since the outset, Hamas continues demanding the release of 1,000 or more terrorists from Israeli jails as part of the deal, including top terrorist like Marwan Barghouti.
Hamas refuses to grant the ICRC access to Shalit to confirm his state of health, and instead has demanded prisoner releases to secure a video showing Shalit was alive (that happened last year).
Labels:
Gaza,
gilad shalit,
Hamas,
Israel,
kidnapping,
terrorism
The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate Court's decision finding that a drunk driver can sue bars that served him alcohol. This may lead to higher costs for bars and taverns across the street as drunk drivers may attempt to go after those who serve them alcoholic beverages:
New Jersey's Supreme Court has ruled a convicted drunken driver has the right to sue the bar that served him.
Wednesday's 5-2 ruling stems from a 2006 motorcycle crash in which Frederick Voss had a blood-alcohol level of .196 percent, or nearly two and a half times the legal limit of .08 percent.
Voss later pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated.
He sued the Toms River restaurant Tiffany's, claiming it negligently kept serving him.
The tavern said the suit isn't allowed under a state law that says people convicted of DWI cannot sue.
The court ruled that law pertains to insurance claims, not to those who serve drinks.
The bar was sued by the drunk driver after he was arrested on DUI charges alleging that the bar negligently served him, the state Supreme Court didn't issue a written opinion, but instead adopted the position of the Appellate Division, which affirmed the trial court's rationale that the Dram Shop Act permits a person who sustains damages as a result of negligent service to sue.
The legislative history apparently indicated that the original Dram Shop Act would have prohibited suits by intoxicated drivers or passengers who knew the drivers were intoxicated against servers but that provision was stricken from the final legislation.
Two of the justices dissented, noting that the plain language of N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4.5(b) should bar Voss from suing and that the majority has rewritten a clearly expressed unambiguous statute:
Any person who is convicted of, or pleads guilty to, operating a motor vehicle in violation of R.S.39:4-50, section 2 of P.L.1981, c.512 (C.39:4-50.4a), or a similar statute from any other jurisdiction, in connection with an accident, shall have no cause of action for recovery of economic or noneconomic loss sustained as a result of the accident.
On its face, Voss should have been barred from suing the tavern, but instead the courts are substituting their own judgment for that of the legislature.
Again.
If the legislature intended for drunk drivers to be able to sue those who serve them alcohol, they would have stated it as such. As it is, the state statute above clearly indicates an intention to provide no such right. Just because the legislature doesn't specifically indicate in the legislative history that it meant to specifically address such liability doesn't override the fact that the statutory language is unambiguous. It clearly indicates that such suits are barred.
Expect this issue to again be taken up by the legislature to resolve the court's actions.
Labels:
alcoholic beverages,
law,
New Jersey
Syria's Bashar al-Assad's supposed call to provide amnesty to protesters doesn't quite jibe with reality. The protesters know that Assad isn't giving any quarter to the protesters, and the brutalization of Syrians continues day-in and day-out. So, while the media outlets claim that he's given amnesty, his regime continues murdering protesters and anyone standing in his regime's path.
At least 15 people were killed in the central town of Rastan Thursday morning, local human-rights activists said, as Syrian forces continued a five-day assault on restive towns close to Homs in an attempt to quash dissent.
Shelling and heavy machine-gun fire have been reported in the town, north of the city of Homs, and nearby Telbiseh, according to activists and Homs residents, many of whom have family in the towns, bringing the death toll in the area to 69 since Sunday, according to Razan Zeitouneh, a human-rights lawyer in Damascus.
More than 40 of the 69 dead are in Rastan, and at least five are in Telbiseh. Over the weeks leading to the assault, both towns were scenes of massive and sustained protests during which statues of Hafez al-Assad, the former president and father of the current leader, were destroyed.
Activists also say assaults have been carried out against Hirak, a town close to Deraa, and report arrests in the coastal city of Banias.
In a repeat of what has become the Syrian regime's modus operandi for dealing with rebel towns, tanks moved to surround the towns over Saturday night, activists and residents said. Communications, electricity and water were cut, before soldiers and security forces carried out shootings and ransacked houses. The southern protest hub of Deraa was similarly encircled on April 25.
The UN can't be bothered to indicate that Assad is carrying out war crimes - as they've declared with Libya's Khadafi, even though both regimes are engaging in all-too-similar and familiar tactics. If anything, the situation in Syria is more serious considering that the opposition isn't nearly as well armed and that the targets of Assad are civilian protesters who oppose the regime and his forces are busy shelling and targeting villages and communities throughout the country that are giving support to the protesters.
Children are also being targeted by Assad indiscriminately, and media outlets have reported that among those killed was a 13-year-old boy who was tortured and killed by Assad's thugs:
Civil war in Yemen appears more and more likely as a result of Ali Abdullah Saleh's refusal to agree to a deal leading to a transition government. Dozens of people have been killed in running gun battles on the streets between Saleh's loyalists and tribal groups seeking his ouster.
The crisis engulfing Yemen deepened on Wednesday with dozens of people killed as President Ali Abdullah Saleh reinforced his troops after heavy clashes with gunmen loyal to an influential tribal leader.
Overnight street battles left at least 41 people dead, some trapped in burning buildings. Fighting raged until dawn as presidential guard units shelled the headquarters of an army brigade responsible for protecting government institutions.
Arab embassies were said to be evacuating their staff and the few remaining western residents were being advised to leave urgently. The Foreign Office is urging all Britons to leave while flights are still available in a situation diplomats described as "worse than Libya."
Residents of Sana'a woke to a chorus of birdsong and machinegun fire as plumes of smoke rose into the sky, mortar blasts rattling windows and nerves. Heavy clashes resumed as Saleh's republican guard forces equipped with heavy artillery pushed the tribesmen out of government buildings. By nightfall they had wrested back control of several key positions.
The week's gun battles between rebel tribesmen and Saleh's troops have already claimed 200 lives and the confrontations are fanning fears of civil war.
The whole kerfuffle and smear campaign against Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) just gets more interesting. Cannonfire and Milowent have apparently found a way to duplicate how the image of a man's torso and penis was ostensibly sent from Weiner's Twitter account. For starters it would appear that Yfrog has no security (or is leaky) to the point that anyone can not only share images, but place images in the directories of other people even if the other person has password protection on their account.
That kind of arrangement makes it real easy to share images, but also inevitable allows for all manner of mischief - such as what apparently happened with Rep. Weiner's account.
Kudos to Milowent and others who figured this out and showed conclusively that it doesn't require hacking to make it appear that someone sent images or "hacked" the account.
(c) Cannonfire
More to the point here's the key graf:
Please understand that I have never sent a single tweet in my entire life.The first two instances were created automatically, when I uploaded those first two test pictures to Yfrog (as outlined in previous posts). The third instance was created when milowent sent a pic to my Yfrog address.
Both the tweet and the image seem to originate with me, but they did not.
Thankfully I don't have a Yfrog account (and until now, never knew that such a thing existed), and my twitterings are usually quite tame text links, comments etc.
Whoever did this attempted the framing of a Congressman with lewd photos, and it would take a review of the IP addresses at Yfrog and Twitter to confirm that this happened.
Those who are proffering the original tweet and photo as proof of Rep. Weiner's misconduct are engaging in propaganda and attempting to delegitimize the Congressman as part of a smear campaign. It's a high tech attempt, and those responsible for spreading the smear might have gotten away with it except for the fact that others have managed to duplicate the manner in which the item was placed into Weiner's accounts - without actually hacking into the accounts.
Labels:
Anthony Weiner,
kerfuffle,
propaganda
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the Hollywood take):
Note that the browser might freeze for a moment while the video loads, but it doesn't seem to have any issues after. The trailer soundtrack includes Trent Reznor's take on the Led Zeppelin classic Immigrant Song, and we get quick glances at Mara Rooney's take on Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig playing Mikail Blomquist.
Earlier videos purporting to be the trailer have been pulled and differ slightly in content from this version. (HT: Mrs. Lawhawk)
It's official: 
