Posts

Showing posts from April 13, 2014

US drone kills 21 in Yemen

A US drone raid on Saturday killed 16 Al Qaeda militants and five civilians in Yemen, an army officer said. The drone hit a pickup that was carrying 16 suspected militants in Hazmiah area of al-Bayda, about 268 km southeast of the capital Sanaa. Five civilians passing by in a car were also killed,  Xinhua  reported. Six other civilians travelling in another car on the highway of Hazmiah area were injured, the witnesses said. It was the seventh drone strike in the past two months. A drone strike killed three suspected Al Qaeda militants early this month in the southern province of Abyan. In March five separate drone strikes in al-Jawf, Marib and Shabwa killed at least six militants. Source  http://thehindu.com/news/international/us-drone-kills-21-in-yemen/article5928827.ece/?secid=2782

Senior Pakistani journo Hamid Mir shot at in Karachi

Award winning journalist and anchor for  Geo TV  Hamid Mir was shot at by an unidentified gunman as he was on his way to his office in Karachi from the airport at around 5.19 pm on Saturday. Mr. Mir’s driver showed presence of mind and didn’t stop till he reached a private hospital. Mr. Mir who was sitting in the backseat of the car was shot in the pelvic area and is undergoing surgery. His driver told  Geo TV  that he picked up Mr. Mir from the airport and reached the Natha Khan flyover a little distance away when he slowed down and was about to turn right onto the main road. He said he saw one man firing at the back of the car but didn’t stop to look and sped away to the hospital. He said there was someone else following the car but he didn’t see the others and only saw this one man who fired at least four times. The white car has been punctured with bullet holes and the windows have been shattered. The driver said there was no police anywhere and  Geo TV  reporters from the spot sai

Locals torch house of suspected LeT overground worker

Srinagar Apr 19, 2014 Last Updated at 05:42 PM IST Angry residents of a locality in Sopore town of Kashmir today torched the house of an alleged overground worker (OGW) of Lashkar-e-Toiba after he had made an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap a girl. Imran Ahmad Dar alias Imran Jabroo, a resident of Nowpora locality in Sopore, was arrested yesterday following a complaint by local residents that he had tried to kidnap a girl on gunpoint, a police officer said. Police arrested Dar last night and also recovered a AK-47 rifle from his possession, all Angry residents of a locality in Sopore town of Kashmir today torched the house of an alleged overground worker (OGW) of Lashkar-e-Toiba after he had made an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap a girl. Imran Ahmad Dar alias Imran Jabroo, a resident of Nowpora locality in Sopore, was arrested yesterday following a complaint by local residents that he had tried to kidnap a girl on gunpoint, a police officer said. Police arrested Dar last night and also

Why Better Together are slowly losing the argument and Scotland

Image
  Something seems to be seriously wrong in the pro-union campaign, ‘Better Together’. They may still be ahead in the polls, but the gap has narrowed significantly. Two years of dire warnings about the perils of ‘separatism’ and ‘tearing Scotland out the United Kingdom’ have only exposed the threadbare, tetchy character of the  pro-union argument so far.  In November last year ‘The Economist’ declared the referendum won for the union; now it reflects on the ‘teflon’ qualities of Scottish nationalism, and the incessant ‘pessimism’ of the pro-union side. Beyond George Robertson’s dire warnings of ‘cataclysmic’ geo-political consequences and ‘the forces of darkness’ a sea change is happening in Scotland which will have an impact long after the referendum. First, look at the careless language pro-union senior figures use. Margaret Curran dismissed Alex Salmond’s major conference speech at the weekend as ‘drivel’. Alistair Darling has form as well. Less than an hour after the Scottish Govern

Former Continuity IRA Tommy Crossan murder: 26-year-old man arrested

Image
Tommy Crossan was approaching his car when he was attacked Police in Northern Ireland have arrested a 26-year-old man over the murder of former dissident republican leader Tommy Crossan. Mr Crossan, 43, was shot dead at a fuel depot off Springfield Road in west Belfast. The killing of the former senior member of the Continuity IRA was condemned by Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers. The suspect was arrested in west Belfast. Mr Crossan was killed just after 17:00 BST on Friday, in view of surrounding houses. It is believed he had been expelled from the Continuity IRA (CIRA) some years ago after falling out with other dissidents. The arrested man is being questioned at a police station in Antrim. First Minister Peter Robinson warned that murder "can never be justified in any circumstances" and urged those with information to come forward. Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said the murder would be opposed and rejected by "all

S. Sudan army says fighting rebels attempting to control oil fields

April 19, 2014 (JUBA) - The South Sudanese military on Saturday said it was scaling up major operations against rebels seeking to control the country’s state oil fields, saying it had repulsed sustained attacks in Unity and Upper Nile states. "Bentiu remains a contested town. Our forces are at the outskirt and it is a matter of time before they take full control. This is a war which is being fought with military tactics," Phillip Aguer, the army spokesperson said by phone. "They [rebels] have resorted to guerrilla tactics and declared their objectives to hamper oil production,As the national, we have a constitutional responsibility to protect lives and properties of our people, the army spokesperson," he added. The rebel military spokesperson, Lt. Col Peter Riek Gew told  Sudan Tribune  on Friday that their forces have again captured Leer county, southeast of Bentiu town. He further said that they had recaptured Tharjiath oilfields, the remaining oilfields in the st

New message from al Qaeda leader

Two videos and one audio link have come to light in recent days that suggest that the world's most recognizable terrorist group is still active, at least in online postings. The audio is a question-and-answer session purportedly involving al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri that was published Friday on the radical Islamist website Hanein. While CNN has not verified the authenticity of the tape, the voice is similar to al-Zawahiri's from previously authenticated recordings. In a wide-ranging, nearly hour-long interview with al Qaeda's media arm, known as al-Sahab, al-Zawahiri touches on everything from drones to Syria to Egypt. He insists that al Qaeda is holding strong 13 years after the United States launched its "war on terror" following the September 11, 2001, attacks. "The upper hand is for the one who does not withdraw from his land," al-Zawahiri says. "Who has withdrawn from Iraq, and who has not? Who has withdrawn from Afghanistan and who has n

14 more girls escape from Boko Haram abductors

Borno State Commissioner for Education, Inuwa Kubo, has said that 14 more students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, have escaped Boko Haram abductors. The commisioner said this in Maiduguri on Friday. He said, “I am glad to say that 14 more students have escaped from their abductors. Out of this number, three are currently with me at Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok; the scene of the unfortunate abduction, while Governor Kashim Shettima has confirmed to me today that 11 girls had escaped to a town along Damboa/Biu Road in Borno State after they escaped from captivity. The 11 girls were immediately moved from the location to other parts of the state to reconnect with their families. The remaining 33 students in Chibok have also been moved out of the school to different parts of the state to join their families. The steps were taken to safeguard them. “Meanwhile, with this development, we have 44 out of our 129 students at the hostel on the day of attack on the school. T

Blast kills suspected al-Qaeda militants in Yemen

Image
19 April 2014 Security was heightened in Sanaa after the assassination of the deputy governor of al-Bayda An air strike killed at least 13 suspected al-Qaeda militants in central Yemen on Saturday, security officials said. The strike in the province of al-Bayda targeted vehicles the insurgents were travelling in at the time. Some reports say three civilians in another car were also killed. The exact nature of the strike is unclear, but the US has launched several drone attacks on militants in Yemen in the past. Al-Bayda has seen serious security incidents recently, and earlier this week suspected al-Qaeda militants shot dead the deputy governor as he was leaving his home. Yemen's Defence Ministry website quoted a security source as saying a number of "terrorists" had been killed in the air strike. "An air strike targeted cars that suspected al-Qaeda militants were in and killed 13 of them in the Sawma'a area of al-Bayda," a security source told Reuters. The

Gunmen kidnap two Pakistani U.N. staff members from Karachi

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Gunmen have kidnapped two men working for the U.N. Children's Fund from Pakistan's southern city of Karachi, police said Saturday. The two Pakistani men were on their way to a bus terminal to pick up some relatives when they were taken, the police official said. The men were taken on Thursday night, he said. So far, no ransom call had been received, he said, and it was unclear who was holding the men. The police officer asked not to be named since he was not authorized to speak to the media. A spokeswoman for the U.N. Children's Fund, also known as UNICEF, was not available to comment. The port city of Karachi is Pakistan's financial heart and home to 18 million people. Many neighbourhoods are considered Taliban strongholds, including the area of Shorab Goth, which is near where the men were taken. In February, gunmen kidnapped three Pakistani men working for the U.N.'s World Health Organization in the north-western town of Tank. They are still

4 French journalists held hostage in Syria freed

Image
FILE - This file photo provided on Monday, June 10, 2013 by Prix Bayeux and dated Oct. 9, 2012, shows French journalist Didier Francois gesturing during a debate held in Bayeux, western France, as part of the Prix Bayeux Award. President Francois Hollande’s office said in a statement Saturday April 19, 2014 he feels “immense relief” after learning Saturday of the release of Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres _ all said to be in good health despite “very trying conditions” of their captivity. (Mikael Quemener, Prix Bayeux, File/Associated Press) SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 5:57 AM ET PARIS — France’s presidential palace says four French journalists held hostage in Syria since June have been released. President Francois Hollande’s office said in a statement he felt “immense relief” after learning Saturday of the release of Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres — all said to be in good health despite “very trying conditions” of their captivit

The Cost of Violence in One of the Most Challenging Anti-War Films Ever Made

Image
Looking for any excuse, Landon Palmer and Scott Beggs are using the 2012 Sight & Sound poll results as a reason to take different angles on the best movies of all time . Every week, they’ll discuss another entry in the list, dissecting old favorites from odd angles, discovering movies they haven’t seen before and asking you to join in on the conversation. Of course it helps if you’ve seen the movie because there will be plenty of spoilers. This week, they bow to the ethical and empathetic complexity of a movie violently opposed to the inhumane destruction of conflict: Gillo Pontecorgo’s The Battle of Algiers . In the #48 (tied) movie on the list, resistance fighters hoping for Algerian freedom from France square off against French soldiers — each employing their own methods of madness — with regular citizens in the crossfire. But why is it one of the best movies of all time? Scott: So as we learn from The Battle of Algiers , it’s difficult to start a revolution, more d

Next Heartbleed could drain us

EDMONTON - Early in the afternoon of April 7, a website called Heartbleed.com went live, warning the public of a devastating new security bug that affected two-thirds of the Internet’s servers. Most of the world’s tech companies found out about it that day, along with everyone else, and raced to check their systems and fix the problem. In Ottawa, the e-commerce company Shopify scrambled its network security team and had a patch ready for its core servers by 7 p.m., and one for the secondary servers by midnight. The team worked all night, and by the next day it had reissued all keys and certificates, which are the tools used to make sure data are encrypted. A few days later, the company posted on its blog that it had patched the problem before companies such as Yahoo and Google had, and that as far as it knew, no sensitive data had been compromised. The general public seemed to have shrugged off the matter, too. “Despite public awareness of Heartbleed, we did not notice an overall reduc

It's real: hackers are using Heartbleed to attack servers

When the  Heartbleed  vulnerability was made public last week, it seemed terrifying. Afflicting thousands of servers across the Internet, the bug had the potential to expose a wide variety of private data, including credit card numbers, passwords, and even a server's private encryption keys. But one question that came up a lot was whether anyone had actually used Heartbleed to attack real computer systems. For the first few days, no one could point to real-world examples of Heartbleed attacks. But now that uncertainty has been put to rest, as the security firm Mandiant  reports  that it is has observed a Heartbleed attack occurring "in the wild."  The attack targeted a Virtual Private Network service at an unnamed organization, gaining access to its internal corporate network — and it shows that hackers are finding the parts of the internet are least likely to have been updated to protect against Heartbleed. The attack underscores an important problem with the Heartbleed

Harry Reid defends ‘domestic terrorists’ comments

(CNN) -  In a blunt exchange that hit on a major American divide, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, stood by his comments that militia groups involved in a ranch standoff are “domestic terrorists,”  while the state’s Republican senator, Dean Heller, replied that he considers them “patriots.” The two men appeared Friday afternoon on KSNV’s “What’s Your Point?” question-and-answer show. Follow @politicalticker   Follow @LisaDCNN The first question went to Reid, about his comments that a few hundred people protesting and blocking federal action against rancher Cliven Bundy are “domestic terrorists.” “What did you mean by that?” co-host Amy Tarkanian asked. “Just what I said,” Reid responded. The Democrat later clarified that he was not talking about Bundy himself necessarily, but about outside individuals who traveled to the area in the recent days. The standoff on the dusty Nevada land has been building for decades, as the federal government has worked to block B

Somali Refugees: Victims of both the terror of war and the war on terror

Image
I have been following up what’s unfolding in Kenya, more so on the fate of the Somali refugee community in Eastleigh, in the capital city of Nairobi after the barbaric shooting incident in a church in Mombasa, which was closely followed by three explosions all within Eastleigh’s 12th Street. I have been following on the reaction to the whole situation online on news sites, forums and blogs. Sadly what comes through from most of these quarters is sheer ignorance about the predicament of the Somali refugees in Kenya, a misunderstanding of the concept of terrorism and how to stop it, and finally, the question of religion in the entire debate. My heart weeps for all the victims of the terrorist activities that have been visited upon Kenya. If my counting is right, there have been over 80 terrorist attacks on Kenyan soil since 2011. The cost of the lives lost, value of property destroyed, as well as the reputational risks that both Kenya and Somalia have suffered in their efforts to res