According to the latest reports, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un executed his uncle last month by having him thrown naked into a pen with a pack of starving wild dogs, along with five of his associates. The ravenous dogs ate the men alive, while 300 senior officials were compelled to watch.
In other news, Zimbabwe is reportedly importing 150,000 tons of corn from South Africa to stave off starvation among its population. The country requires 2.2 million tons of corn per year, but only produced 800,000 tons last year, and needs to make up the shortfall.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
2 to 3 Standard Deviation Gap in Pull-Up Power Between Male and Female Marines
You’ve probably heard that the Obama Administration’s demand to put women in combat has stumbled upon only 45% of females at the end of Marines boot camp being able to do the minimum required three pull-ups. That’s compared to 99% of men, which suggests a z-score difference of two to three standard deviations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The New York Times Destroys Obama
The New York Times just delivered a mortal blow to the Obama administration and its Middle East policy. Call it fratricide. It was clearly unintentional. Indeed, is far from clear that the paper realizes what it has done.
Last Saturday the Times published an 8,000-word account by David Kirkpatrick detailing the terrorist strike against the US Consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. In it, Kirkpatrick tore to shreds the foundations of President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism strategy and his overall policy in the Middle East.
Obama first enunciated those foundations in his June 4, 2009, speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University. Ever since, they have been the rationale behind US counterterror strategy and US Middle East policy.
Obama’s first assertion is that radical Islam is not inherently hostile to the US. As a consequence, America can appease radical Islamists. Moreover, once radical Muslims are appeased, they will become US allies, (replacing the allies the US abandons to appease the radical Muslims).
Obama’s second strategic guidepost is his claim that the only Islamic group that is a bona fide terrorist organization is the faction of al-Qaida directly subordinate to Osama bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Only this group cannot be appeased and must be destroyed through force.
The administration has dubbed the Zawahiri faction of al-Qaida “core al-Qaida.” And anyone who operates in the name of al-Qaida, or any other group that does not have courtroom-certified operational links to Zawahiri, is not really al-Qaida, and therefore, not really a terrorist group or a US enemy…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Chrysler’s US Sales Up 9% in 2013
Biggest rise since 2007
(ANSA) — New York, January 3 — The US sales of Fiat-owned carmaker Chrysler rose 9% in 2013, the sharpest gain since 2007, the Detroit No.3 said Friday.
It was the fourth straight year of growth, it said.
Car sales were 11% up and truck sales 8% up on 2012.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Man Tries to Sell Stolen Brains on Ebay, Police Say
(CNN) — This was not was your typical undercover sting. For starters, it was happening at an Indiana Dairy Queen. And the target was brains. Yeah, a brain bandit.
The arrest last month of a 21-year-old suspect uncovered, police say, a macabre scheme to steal the brains of dead mental patients and sell them online. The suspect was peddling some 60 brains. And yes, amazingly there were customers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Millions in US Affected by Powerful Winter Storm, 1,600 Flights Canceled
A powerful winter storm system that affected much of the country dumped up to 2 feet of snow in areas near Boston, shut down major highways in New York and Pennsylvania and forced U.S. airlines to cancel thousands of flights nationwide.
There is a combination of storms that span from the southern Appalachians into New England and are expected to last into Friday, with the heaviest snow expected to fall on central New York to the Massachusetts coast, the National Weather Service said. The next arctic surge will arrive into the Northern Plains on Saturday. Besides the high accumulation, snow is accompanied by strong winds and dangerously cold temperatures.
U.S. airlines canceled more than 2,300 flights Thursday because of the snowfall and low visibility. By Friday morning, about 1,600 flights were canceled nationwide.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New York Woman Freezes to Death After Wandering From Home
Authorities say a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease has frozen to death after she wandered away from her rural western New York home.
Deputies say she wasn’t wearing proper clothing for the weather conditions, which included temperatures in the single digits with the wind chill well below zero.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Seeks to Build Quantum Computer That Could Crack Most Types of Encryption
In room-size metal boxes secure against electromagnetic leaks, the National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world.
According to documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the effort to build “a cryptologically useful quantum computer” — a machine exponentially faster than classical computers — is part of a $79.7 million research program titled “Penetrating Hard Targets.” Much of the work is hosted under classified contracts at a laboratory in College Park, Md.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Administration Proposes New Executive Actions on Gun Background Checks
The Obama administration on Friday proposed two new executive actions to make it easier for states to provide mental health information to the national background check system, wading back into the gun control debate after a months-long hiatus.
Vice President Biden’s office announced the proposals Friday afternoon. Both pertain to the ability of states to provide information about the mentally ill and those seeking mental health treatment to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
One proposal would formally give permission to states to submit “the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands,” without having to worry about the privacy provisions in a law known as HIPAA.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fiat Gains Full Control of Chrysler in $4.35 Billion Deal
Fiat SpA secured full ownership of Chrysler Group LLC in a $4.35 billion agreement that will conserve the Italian company’s cash while creating a global carmaker with better scale to take on General Motors Co. (GM)
Fiat rose the most in almost five years in Milan trading after Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of Chrysler and its Italian parent, struck an accord to buy a 41.5 percent stake from a United Auto Workers retiree health-care trust. The No. 3 U.S. carmaker will put up most of the funding for the transaction, underscoring the CEO’s reputation as a dealmaker.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France’s Odd New Year Tradition: Counting Torched Cars
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls held a press conference on Wednesday to report on crime over New Year, and gave the most highly anticipated statistic: the numbers of cars torched during the celebrations.
Highlighting that January 31 was “one of the year’s most important events in terms of pubic security”, Valls also addressed the deaths of three people who were stabbed in separate incidents. The minister then delivered the tally: 1,067 cars were torched across the country the previous evening.
Vehicle arson — mostly confined to disadvantaged suburbs near big cities — has become an embarrassing tradition of bringing in the New Year in France. Furthermore, the public expects to be informed exactly how many cars were set alight, in what could be seen from abroad as a unique and bizarre annual ritual.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gang of Latin American Jewelry Thieves Busted in Italy
‘Behind 2mn-euro Milan heist, others throughout Europe’
(ANSA) — Novara, January 2 — Police in northern Italy on Thursday said they busted a Latin American gang of jewelry thieves who stole a total of 10 million euros from across Europe in the past year alone. Police from Novara, west of Milan, were executing warrants for suspects from Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico. Police said the suspects had performed lucrative robberies throughout all of Italy, as well as in Austria, Belgium and Norway. Among them was a two-million-euro heist from the Milan jewelry store “Buccellati” in May, 2012. Their method was nonviolent, police said, using groups of 10-15 people to distract shopkeepers while slipping out with the loot undetected. A 53-year-old Venezuelan woman is said to be the head of the gang. She is still on the loose.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Coalition Row: Merkel Tries to Defuse ‘Poverty Immigration’ Debate
The debate over “poverty migration” to Germany has escalated inside Chancellor Merkel’s governing coalition this week, prompting her to step in and seek to calm fears as Bulgarians and Romanians gain access to the European labor market.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Storming the Food Banks: Charities Struggle With Growing Demand
Food banks and soup kitchens in many German cities are having trouble keeping up with growing demand. Some are now abandoning their free food models in their efforts to continue helping the needy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PD Leader Renzi Forces Party Staff to Florence for Meetings
After dawn meetings, Renzi continues overhauling party habits
(ANSA) — Rome, January 2 — Newly elected leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi continued to overhaul long-held habits at the political party with the introduction of dawn staff trips to his headquarters of Florence after having introduced dawn appointments at the party headquarters in Rome. This is the first time in Italian political history that a political party has held its central staff meetings in a city that is not Rome. Renzi also attracted attention because the meetings were called just before the Epiphany holiday on January 6, another first. Renzi has been heralded as a breath of fresh air in Italian centre-left politics. He has vowed to urge Premier Enrico Letta’s left-right government to push through much-needed reform including that of the current electoral law that forced a broad coalition government onto Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: CGIL Demands Clarity From Fiat After Chrysler Deal
‘We hope production stays Italian’ says Camusso
(ANSA) — Rome, January 2 — The leader of Italy’s largest trade confederation CGIL urged Italian carmaker Fiat to provide clarity on what it intends to do with its Italian production after announcing it has gained full control of American carmaker Chrysler in a $4.35-billion deal.
“After this important step that clarifies the ownership structure, it is indispensable for Fiat to tell us what it intends to do in our country,” Susanna Camusso said. The purchase “appears a matter of great relevance not only in light of the possible and hoped-for synergies on the world markets, but also because of the repositioning of the multinational company in relation to its competitors,” she added.
Italy’s largest vehicle producer on Wednesday announced it had gained full control of Chrysler after more than a year of negotiations with VEBA, a healthcare trust associated with the United Auto Workers union, to acquire the remaining 41.46% share of the company. In exchange, Fiat and Chrysler will pay out $3.65 billion in cash to VEBA, sharing the cost evenly, while Chrysler has agreed to paying it over the next three years an additional $700 million.
The trade union leader requested Fiat explain how it planned to integrate the Italian production facilities into the newly formed entity that would arise from the complete purchase of Chrysler. She added that she hoped that company management, including company strategy and divisions, remained Italian.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway’s Problem With Anti-Semitism
By Julie Bindel
Norway regularly tops surveys of wealth and wellbeing. The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index last month ranked it the most prosperous nation on earth. For many people, however, the first image that now comes to mind when they think of Norway is the Breivik massacre. The 77 victims who died on July 22, 2011 were mostly young supporters of the ruling Labour party, which the far-right gunman Anders Behring Breivik accused of permitting the country’s “Islamisation”.
Norway could soon come top of another ranking: as the first country in Europe to be Judenfrei or Judenrein (the Nazi terms for the ethnic cleansing of Jews). Anti-Semitism in Norway has become such a serious threat that many Jews are emigrating to Israel and elsewhere to escape it. Human rights activists, police and leaders of the rapidly shrinking Jewish community fear that soon, for the first time in centuries, Jews will have no visible presence in Norway at all…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Studies of a Skin Color Gene Across Global Populations Reveal Shared Origins
All instances of a gene mutation that contributes to light skin color in Europeans came from the same chromosome of one person who most likely lived at least 10,000 years ago, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Climate Change Trip Stuck in Ice
by Ross Clark
My favourite quote of the season comes from Tracy Rogers, a marine ecologist who sometime today will be winched from the research vessel the Akademik Shokalskiy and rescued by helicopter. ‘I love it when the ice wins and we don’t,’ she says. ‘It reminds you that as humans we don’t control everything and that the natural world is the winner here.’
The unintended irony is delicious. If the winner of the fiasco which has been developing in the Antarctic over the past two weeks is the natural world there is little disguising who the losers are, even if, as I suspect, Tracy Rogers can’t quite see it. She and her fellow passengers are on an expedition led by Chris Turney, professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales, to retrace a voyage made by Douglas Mawson a century ago. That Turney has taken a large number of paying passengers along, and is also entertaining reporters from the BBC and the Guardian suggests that this is not simply an experiment but a publicity stunt, too. The idea was that the world would be left gasping at the changes measured by Turney compared with the measurements made by Mawson a century ago, thereby encouraging acceptance of the thesis of man-made climate change…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Absolute Moral Squalor on Display at a London Church
by Douglas Murray
‘Did Israel spoil Christmas again?’ I only ask because the claim that they did is becoming a modern tradition in Britain. The softest and most commonplace expression of the claim comes from those vicars or congregation members who claim that they find it ‘hard’ to sing ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ nowadays because of how dreadful the situation in Bethlehem is today compared with how little, still and dreamlessly sleepy it was back in Jesus’s time. This Christmas I had already attended one church which perpetuated this new conceit. And earlier this week I went to the church of St James in Piccadilly, which has made anti-Israeli propaganda its signature dish in recent years…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BNP’s Nick Griffin Declared Bankrupt
British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin MEP has been declared bankrupt. A bankruptcy order was made at Welshpool County Court on Thursday.
Mr Griffin tweeted: “Being bankrupt does NOT prevent me being or standing as an MEP. It does free me from financial worries.” He added: “I am now turning the experience to the benefit of hard-up constituents by producing a booklet on dealing with debt.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Downing Street suspected Moscow of being involved in transferring over $1 million to a Swiss bank account controlled by Arthur Scargill’s union, documents show
Whitehall aides hoped to catch Arthur Scargill’s union officials smuggling suitcases of Soviet-donated cash into Britain during the 1984-5 miners’ strike, newly-released Government files disclose. Downing Street suspected that Moscow was involved in the transfer of more than $1 million to an anonymous Swiss bank account set up by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to fund the bitter and drawn-out industrial dispute.
British agents were told to “exercise vigilance” for any signs that miners’ union officials might be travelling abroad to pick up consignments of banknotes. Customs officers would be asked to search their luggage for cash when they returned to the UK. They had no power to seize any money found but could alert the Inland Revenue and police, and the Government hoped that any such discovery would leak to the press…
[JP note: See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7377111/Was-Foot-a-national-treasure-or-the-KGBs-useful-idiot.html
And http://www.aim.org/publications/weekly_column/1994/12/15.html
On Richard Gott.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
World War II Bomb Explodes During Construction in Western Germany, Kills 1 Person, Injures 8
BERLIN — Police say a World War II bomb has exploded during construction work in a western German town, killing one person and wounding at least eight others. The dpa news agency reported that police in Euskirchen, near Bonn, said the driver of a bulldozer was killed in Friday’s explosion. Two people were seriously injured and six others suffered lighter injuries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
11 Killed in Egypt as Morsi Supporters Clash With Police
Protesters were killed in clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia, and Fayoum, according to sources
The death toll of clashes between police and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood has risen to 11 people across Egypt, sources from Egypt’s health ministry told Ahram Online. The cities where protesters died included Cairo, the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, Alexandria, and Fayoum, the source said.
The Brotherhood-led National Coalition to Support Legitimacy, which called for Friday’s protests, released a statement earlier on Friday evening claiming that 19 protesters were killed by police.
Scores of others were injured as supporters of the Islamist movement continued to protest against the transitional authorities, who labelled the group a terrorist organisation last month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Two Killed in Alexandria
Alexandria — Two people have been killed in clashes involving pro-Islamist protesters and police in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, the authorities said. The Interior Ministry said the clashes happened during two marches organised by some 200 Brotherhood members in Alexandria…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Japanese Archeologists Unearth Tomb of Ancient Egyptian Beer Brewer in Luxor
Egypt’s minister of antiquities says Japanese archeologists have unearthed the tomb of an ancient beer brewer in the city of Luxor that is more than 3,000 years old.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Embassy Criticises British MPs Over Gaza Letter
The Israeli embassy in London has hit back at a group of parliamentarians who blamed Israel for the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In a letter published in the Guardian on December 27 — marking the fifth anniversary of Operation Cast Lead — more than two dozen MPs and peers called for the British government to “to take immediate action to bring an end to the blockade on Gaza”. The letter blamed Israel solely for conditions in the Hamas-controlled territory. They made no reference to the Palestinian group, and failed to mention the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli civilians in the run-up to the 2008-09 IDF operation. Among the signatories were Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, Lib Dem MPs Julian Huppert and David Ward, controversial peer Baroness Tonge, and chairman of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Hugh Lanning…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Prime Minister Netanyahu Fights Coalition as Peace Caravan Returns
United States Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Jerusalem this weekend for his 10th visit to the region since being appointed less than a year ago. This time, he is expected to start talking with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on a “frame agreement”. It is unclear exactly what this agreement will contain, or to what degree the two sides will be committed to its contents. Above all, it is hoped that the deal will allow talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to be extended beyond the original deadline in April…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Doctors Without Borders Says 5 of Its Staffers in Syria Taken in for Questioning
BEIRUT — An international aid organization says five of its staffers have been taken for questioning in northern Syria. An official with Doctors Without Borders says the five staffers have been out of contact since Thursday evening.
Media Relations Manager Michael Goldfarb did not say if the five had been taken by government forces or rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad, and refused to give further details in order to protect their safety.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hezbollah’s Missile Threat to Israel Expands While Arrow III Tests Succeed
Dr. Ronen Bergman, intelligence and military columnist for Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth confirmed, Wall Street Journal reports that Syria and Iran’s Qod’s Force may have successfully disassembled and transferred to Hezbollah 12 Russian Yakhont anti- ship cruise missiles. See New York Times article, “Hezbollah Moving Long-Range Missiles From Syria to Lebanon, an Analyst Says”.
This despite the IAF five attacks conducted against Syria facilities and supply trains in 2013 using advanced missiles fired on targets from Lebanese airspace. The IAF attacks reported to have destroyed a shipment of advanced mobile air defense Russian SA-17’s in January 2013, Iranian Fateh-110 surface to surface missiles in May and a shipment of Russian Yakhont missiles in July. Further, according to the New York Times account, Bergman said:
Hezbollah, which is also Lebanon’s strongest political party, has a network of bases that were built inside Syria, near the border with Lebanon, to give the group strategic depth and to store the missiles, Mr. Bergman said. But with a nearly three-year insurgency threatening President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, an ally of Hezbollah, keeping the missiles in Syria is no longer as secure, Mr. Bergman said.
The missiles being moved, he said, include Scud D’s, shorter-range Scud C’s, medium-range Fateh rockets that were made in Iran, Fajr rockets and antiaircraft weapons that are fired from the shoulder. […}
Coincidentally, Israel completed another successful test of the Arrow III anti-Missile system over the Mediterranean today. The Arrow III is a joint development of Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Boeing. According to a Defense News, article, “US-Israel Arrow-3 Marks Milestone Test”, “ IAI also provides the Super Green Pine fire control radar, while Elbit’s Tadiran provides the system’s battle management control center”…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Arrests Billionaire Babak Zanjani on Financial Corruption Charges
TEHRAN — Iranian billionaire business tycoon Babak Zanjani has been arrested on financial corruption charges, Prosecutor General and Judiciary spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei said on Monday. Zanjani was arrested so that he would not flee the country, Mohseni-Ejei said, according to the Fars News Agency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Emanuele Ottolenghi
The Joint Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear programme that was agreed in late November between Iran and the six world powers is comparable to a marathon where the leading runner stops 100 metres from the finish line to wait for his opponents…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Security Forces Press on With Battle to Push Al-Qaida Militants Out of Key Western Cities
A provincial spokesman says Iraqi security forces and allied tribesmen are pressing their campaign to rout al-Qaida from two main cities in the western Anbar province.
Dhari al-Rishawi says clashes were still underway on Friday. He says militants remain in control of the city of Fallujah and some parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi.
The two cities were taken over by the militants last Wednesday, when military troops pulled back following a request from the province’s disenchanted Sunnis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Fierce Battles as Al-Qaeda Tries to Seize Two Cities in Iraq
Iraqi security forces are fighting al-Qaeda militants in two entire cities in a sign of the terrorist group’s growing strength
Iraqi security forces were engaged in major battles with al-Qaeda militants on Thursday after the group attempted to seize control of two entire cities west of Baghdad. In some of the country’s heaviest fighting of recent years, Iraq’s special forces had to be drafted in to quell an audacious twin attack by al-Qaeda on the flashpoint desert cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.
Both were notorious as al-Qaeda strongholds during the years of the US occupation, and the moves to seal them off with troops and tanks bore strong parallels to two previous US sieges of Fallujah a decade ago in 2004. At the time the city proclaimed itself “the graveyard of the Americans”.
The renewed fighting also showed the extent of al-Qaeda’s resurgence across western Iraq over the last 12 months, to the point where it now feels confident enough to try to reclaim entire swathes of its former territory from Iraqi government control.
The violence first flared in Ramadi, a city of sprawling mansions in the Euphrates Valley that was home to many senior security officials during the rule of Saddam Hussein. It was apparently sparked by an attempt by Iraqi security forces on Monday to dismantle a Sunni Muslim protest camp that has served for the last year as a staging point for huge anti-government demonstrations.
While locals claim the demonstrations are purely peaceful protests against discrimination by Iraq’s Shia-majority government, the country’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, claimed the camp had become infiltrated by Sunni militants from al-Qaeda…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Forces Use Fighter Jets Against Pro-Al-Qaida Militants
There was heavy fighting Thursday between Iraqi forces and al-Qaida-linked militants who have seized control of parts of two major cities. The government used fighter jets and rockets against militants in Falluja and Ramadi. Casualty numbers are unclear. Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stormed parts of Fallujah and Ramadi on Wednesday, barging into police stations, taking over military posts, and freeing prisoners. The pro-Sunni extremists are taking advantage of the ongoing violence and tension between Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government and the Sunni minority…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
John Kerry and America to the Rescue — But is it Too Late?
by David Blair
John Kerry’s attempt to resolve the most toxic disputes in the Middle East may be doomed
John Kerry has many faults, but poverty of ambition is not among them. In the first half of 2014, the US Secretary of State has placed two items at the top of his “to do” list. One: secure a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, preferably by April. Two: settle the confrontation over Iran’s nuclear ambitions once and for all, hopefully before August. Then, with both of those Gordian knots safely cut, Mr Kerry might turn his hand to other tasks, like curing cancer, or exploring mining opportunities on Mars.
In truth, the easy jibes are unfair — for Mr Kerry really has decided that his mission is to settle the most poisonous and intractable conflicts the world has to offer. Other holders of his job, such as Colin Powell, were crippled by the follies of their presidents. Some, such as Hillary Clinton, shrank away from the thorniest problems because of their own ambitions to win the highest office. But Mr Kerry sees things differently. He believes that if the foreign minister of the world’s superpower is not going to accept responsibility for trying to solve these problems, no one else will.
Having seen his presidential ambitions go up in smoke when he lost to George W Bush in 2004, Mr Kerry is now bidding for the ultimate consolation prize: to be remembered as the most significant secretary of state since George Marshall. Indeed, at the age of 70, Mr Kerry appears to have been liberated from the fear of failure.
Concentrating on the Middle East is a remarkable choice in itself. We live in a world where Asia is booming, China’s rise appears unstoppable and America’s great strategic interests lie in the Pacific. Back in 2011, President Obama announced that the focus of US military and diplomatic strength would “pivot” towards Asia. Yet Mr Kerry landed in Israel yesterday, visiting the Middle East for 10th time since taking office only 11 months ago. Asked whether the Secretary of State was spending the majority of his time on the Middle East, a State Department official archly raised an eyebrow and replied: “Oh yes!”
In other words, Mr Kerry is now doing exactly what European leaders have always demanded of America. Throughout the Bush era, one European foreign minister after another would lament Washington’s failure to negotiate directly with Iran, or to make a sustained push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. In diplomatic parlance, “American engagement” was the missing piece of the puzzle — and nothing else would work.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, sang from this hymn sheet when Mr Kerry flew to London within days of taking office last year. In the gilded splendour of the Locarno Suite in the Foreign Office, the Secretary of State listened as Mr Hague spoke of the “burning need” to restart peace talks “between Israelis and Palestinians”.
Well, Mr Kerry did as he was asked. As things stand, the Israelis and Palestinians are indeed talking — and Mr Kerry has set a deadline of April for them to achieve a “final status agreement” that would settle their conflict. Meanwhile, America and Iran eased their confrontation over the nuclear issue with the agreement reached in Geneva last November. This places handcuffs on Iran’s nuclear programme for six months starting from Jan 30, meaning that a final deal must be concluded before August.
So far, so good. But there is one profound problem: while it makes him an ideal Secretary of State in European eyes, Mr Kerry’s ambition runs up against the zeitgeist. For he has chosen to expend all this effort in the Middle East at precisely the moment when US influence across the region is in general decline. Partly, this is down to Bashar al-Assad’s brazen defiance in Syria, where he vaulted over President Obama’s red line and gassed his own people without paying a military price. Then there is America’s possible rapprochement with Iran. Both of Washington’s strongest allies in the region — Israel and Saudi Arabia — are appalled by this spectacle and each may respond by going their own way. After all, almost a decade of expensive oil has given the Saudis and the other Gulf states enough money to chart an independent course.
Such countries have spent decades sheltering under US protection — but today their view of America is changing. They remember Mr Obama’s failure to punish Assad, and question his credibility and his resolve to use force in their region. They bitterly recall how the President threw his country’s old friend, Hosni Mubarak, overboard the moment the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square. How would Washington react, they ask, if they were to face a similar challenge?
So Mr Kerry might be spending most of his time on the Middle East, but the region is in no mood to listen. And there is an added irony: even if he achieves one of his goals and reaches a deal with Iran, which he just might, it will hurt America’s standing with its friends, and so reduce its chances of brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Once again, the Middle East is proving itself a graveyard of Western hopes. The region has what it was awaiting for decades: a Secretary of State prepared to do whatever he can to solve its problems. But the region has prepared a terrible revenge: the moment America is finally serious about bringing peace could be the moment it no longer has the power to do so.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Army Files Complaint to Court Over Coup Cases
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 3 — Turkey’s General of Staff has told the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the capital Ankara to restart the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases against members of the Turkish Armed Forces, as World Bulletin website reports. “If the complaint is accepted, a retrial will be a certainty,” said Haluk Peksen, one of the defence lawyers in the trial of more than 300 officers sentenced in 2012 over the ‘Sledgehammer’ conspiracy, said to have included plans to bomb Istanbul mosques and trigger an army takeover. Erdogan has cast the corruption scandal which erupted last month as a foreign-backed plot to undermine him, and has responded by purging some 70 police officers connected with the inquiry. The military’s move comes just over a week after Erdogan’s top political adviser, Yalcin Akdogan, stirred controversy by suggesting that the government and armed forces had both been victims of similar conspiracies involving the judiciary. “Those who plot against their own country’s national army… and a civil administration which has won its way into the people’s heart, know very well they are not doing something for the good of this country,” Akdogan wrote in a column in the Star newspaper on December 24. Erdogan’s backers accuse Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric with strong influence in the police and judiciary and a former ally of the prime minister, of connivance in the corruption investigations.
Gulen denies the allegation. Ergenekon, often referred to as the hidden ‘deep state’ of Turkey, became the target of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government shortly after he came to power. The case saw the arrest, trial and sentencing of a number of current and former members of the Turkish armed forces, officials and journalists. Likewise, the ‘Sledgehammer’ case refers to an attempt to remove Erdogan via military coup, and also saw the sentencing of a number of high profile individuals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan Shooting: Yalda Waziri Killed in Herat
Gunmen in Afghanistan have killed a senior female official in the western city of Herat, police say. Yalda Waziri, who was 25, worked for the local government. She was shot in the head by two unknown attackers on a motorbike as she left her office in the city centre and died at the scene. Ms Waziri is the latest in a number of senior female officials to be killed in recent months. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for her murder.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Six Civilians, Female Official Killed in Afghanistan
Six civilians have been killed in a bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan while a female provincial official has been gunned down in the west of the country. According to the reports, the bomb detonated on Thursday when an explosive-laden motorbike blew up in the Baraki Barak district of Logar province. Officials said a woman and a child were among those killed in the attack, which also left at least 17 people injured…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Violence Could Compromise Bangladesh Poll
Ahead of parliamentary elections, the situation remains volatile, with opposition set to boycott. Since the end of December, Dhaka has been all but cut off from the rest of the country for fear of violent escalations.
“The situation is very tense at the moment,” according to Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka. The governing Awami League (AL) and its strongest opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have been engaged in a row for months now over how the elections, slated for Sunday, January 5, will be conducted…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kim Jong Un’s Executed Uncle Was Eaten Alive by 120 Hungry Dogs: Report
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful uncle was stripped naked, thrown into a cage, and eaten alive by a pack of ravenous dogs, according to a newspaper with close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party. The report could not be independently confirmed by NBC News on Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korean Leader Fed Uncle to Starving Dogs, Report Says
The execution of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s uncle was more brutal than initially reported, according to a Beijing-controlled newspaper, which said the country’s second-most-powerful figure was thrown into a cage filled with starving dogs and eaten alive.
The Singaporean Straits Times cited a report from Wen Wei Po, a Beijing-control newspaper, that said Jang Song Thaek and five close associates were stripped and fed to 120 dogs that had not eaten for three days. The entire process, witnessed by 300 senior officials, lasted for about an hour, the report said. Fox News could not immediately verify the report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korean Leader Killed His Uncle by Feeding Him Alive to Pack of Hungry Dogs — Report
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not execute his uncle, and political second in command, by firing squad as has been widely assumed, but by feeding him and a group of others alive to a pack of 120 wild dogs, a Chinese newspaper has reported.
China is North Korea’s closest “ally” and Western analysts use Chinese sources more than any other to attempt to work out what is going on in the secretive North Korean communist state.
Kim, widely considered a clinical psychopath, called his uncle “scum” and “factionalist filth” during New Year celebrations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chief of Dr Congo Troops Fighting Ugandan Rebels Killed
Government spokesman says Colonel Mamadou Ndala, the commander of Congolese troops fighting Ugandan Islamist rebels, was killed in an ambush along with two of his body guardsViolence could compromise Bangladesh poll
The commander of Congolese government troops fighting Ugandan Islamist rebels in the restive east of country has been killed in an ambush, the government said. “Colonel Mamadou Ndala has been killed … Apparently it was the ADF-Nalu (Ugandan rebel force) that killed him and two of his bodyguards,” government spokesman Lambert Mende said. “This is really an immense loss for the armed forces and the republic,” Mende told AFP. Ndala was travelling on Thursday between towns in strife-torn North Kivu province, “for the deployment of a commando battalion when his jeep fell into an ambush”, Mende said.
The attack was apparently the work of the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-Nalu), which is one of the oldest armed movements active in eastern DR Congo, military and UN sources said. “Just when we arrived at Matembo, a rocket came in from the right-hand side of the road and struck our jeep, which was mounted with a heavy weapon,” Corporal Paul Safari, a bodyguard of the colonel’s, told AFP near the scene.
“I began shooting until I ran out of ammunition, but the aggressors were still advancing,” he added. A senior officer in the UN mission in the DR Congo, known as MONUSCO, which is providing the army with military and logistical support, confirmed the ambush “probably by the ADF-Nalu against the FARDC (Congolese army).” “The situation is complicated,” the officer said without elaborating.
ADF-Nalu was created in the mid-1990s in western Uganda out of the merger of two armed groups opposed to the regime of President Yoweri Museveni. The rebel force last week killed 40 civilians in a grisly attack in the northeastern Beni region of DR Congo, when they raped women and hacked children to death, dumping bodies in latrines, according to local officials and MONUSCO, which sent attack helicopters on a retaliatory raid.
Elsewhere, a source at a military airport in Kinshasa told AFP there had been an exchange of gunfire between troops and “a vehicle full of unidentified armed men”. But government spokesman Mende said a soldier acting as a security guard at a nearby firm had opened fire to scare away a potential thief. “It’s an incident that happened outside Ndolo airport, although a soldier from the naval force was involved,” Mende told AFP. A second source, Georges Tabora, who commands the international airport at Ndjili, 10 kilometres (six miles) from Ndolo airport, also denied the reports.
On Monday, armed youths believed to be loyal to a pastor who challenged President Joseph Kabila in elections seven years ago stormed the state television station, the international airport and the military headquarters. According to Mende, 103 people were killed in Monday’s violence — 95 attackers and eight members of the armed forces.
The ADF-Nalu rebels have been led since 2007 by Jamil Mukulu, a former Christian who converted to Islam, and they are considered to be the only Islamist movement active across the border in DR Congo. The United States put the group on its list of terrorist organisations in 2001 and Mukulu has been targeted by UN sanctions since 2011 and European Union sanctions since 2012.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Zimbabwe Imports 150k Tons of Corn From S.A. To Avert Hunger as Millions Face Starvation
Zimbabwe’s agriculture ministry says it is importing 150,000 tons of corn, the nation’s staple food, from neighboring South Africa to avert a looming food crisis as millions face starvation.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Davis Marapira said Friday the government had so far received 300 tons which will be distributed to hard-hit parts of the country, state media reported.
The United Nations estimates at least 2.2 million Zimbabweans will need food assistance before the next harvest in April. Zimbabwe only managed to produce 800,000 tons of corn last year. Annual consumption is 2.2 million tons.
Before the chaotic and often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned farms in 2000, Zimbabwe was a self-sufficient regional bread basket and a major exporter of corn.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
California Grants Law License to Undocumented Immigrant
The California Supreme Court granted a law license Thursday to an undocumented immigrant, a first-of-its-kind ruling that allows Sergio Garcia to practice law in his adopted state.
The question remains: Can he find work as a lawyer?
The court ruled that a combination of federal and state laws allows for Garcia, who was first brought to the USA by his parents from Mexico when he was 17 months old, to obtain the law license necessary for him to practice law in California.
The opinion was not so clear on how he can use that license.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Rescues 1,000 Migrants Off Lampedusa Inside 24 Hours
Italian navy and coastguard vessels have rescued more than 1,000 migrants off the tiny island of Lampedusa in the past 24 hours, Italian officials say. On Thursday 823 migrants were picked up from four overcrowded, rickety boats. The migrants were mainly from Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq and Pakistan.
On Wednesday 233 migrants were saved in a separate operation. They were from Pakistan and several African countries. Lampedusa has struggled to cope with thousands of migrants coming ashore. The latest boatloads of migrants have been taken to Sicily.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pop Mogul Turns Holocaust Refuge Into Swedish Asylum for Profits
Bert Karlsson, a pop impresario who once led Sweden’s main anti-immigration party, is using the biggest influx of asylum seekers in more than 20 years as a business opportunity.
The 68-year-old has turned a sanatorium that used to take in survivors of World War II concentration camps into a refuge for people fleeing Syria and other war-torn nations. Karlsson plans at least 20 such facilities nationwide, mainly by converting unprofitable small-town hotels, after spotting a business opportunity to profit from the inflow.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obesity Quadruples to Nearly One Billion in Developing World
The number of overweight and obese adults in the developing world has almost quadrupled to around one billion since 1980, says a report from a UK think tank. The Overseas Development Institute said one in three people worldwide was now overweight and urged governments to do more to influence diets.
In the UK, 64% of adults are classed as being overweight or obese.
Globally, the percentage of adults who were overweight or obese — classed as having a body mass index greater than 25 — grew from 23% to 34% between 1980 and 2008. The majority of this increase was seen in the developing world, particularly in countries where incomes were rising, such as Egypt and Mexico.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
@UK: National Archives: Plans to Stop Miners’ Union Smuggling Soviet Roubles Into Britain During Strike
A squalled affray of public infighting between progressives that was not worthy of the miners or the British people – heroes led by dogmatic and stupid progressive donkeys on both sides.
To attempt to make present day political capital out of the self inflicted socioeconomic destruction of a nation is spectacularly embarrassing.
A dirty and bitter industrial dispute that was short on popular support being egged-up to the status of civil war by revisionist historians to conceal the progressive infighting on the way to the destruction of the UK.
The evidence the British people did not engage either side to propel this dispute into the actuality of civil war.
This story has Turks,
Cults, embezzlement, wikileaks, CIA, palace coups….
http://www.vdare.com/posts/the-economics-of-the-gulen-cults-american-charter-schools
Remarkable story. The Turk is literally inside the gate.
I ran one story on Gulen many moons ago. His compound back then was in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Several people with far more information than I were following his links to Turkish politics.
And then came the “schools” – why is there always a scam with such people? Sub-standard schools where children learn little. The Religion of Fear and Ignorance, from the culture of Stupidity & Cupidity. But they gave us the zero, or so they say. I’d tend to agree with them on that one.
Since the schools are nominally state- accredited (more and more does the federal behemoth intrude), they will have to be taken down state-by-state.
Which is not to say the states’ Attorneys General could not cooperate to speed the process along. I hope they do. With some pushing by local folk, they might be persuaded to do so.
Interesting article and comments from the uk conservatives webpage….
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/01/dr-martin-parsons-will-the-persecution-of-christians-continue-to-spread-in-2014.html
It’s not the first time that someone connected with the conservatives has raised the issue of persecutions of the Christians. One did on the bbc programme dateline last Saturday, to the stirrings of the other participants.
It’s not quite a rat that I smell, ..