[GoobjoogNews] Kenya and the United states have signed a new pact that will see Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) soldiers trained and provided with financial and technical assistance over the next five years.
"The agreement will also see the two countries collaborate on peace and security efforts within the country and in the region, including the planned deployment of Kenyan coppers to Haiti," US Secretary of Defence Lloyd James Austin III said at a press briefing in Nairobi yesterday.
Austin also added that both countries have had crucial partnership in the fight against the security challenges in the region posed by the al-shabaab turbans and Kenya’s move to offer to lead the multi-national peace mission in Haiti where the United States announced that it is prepared to provide up to Ksh14.8 billion ($100.3 million) in addition to technical assistance to the mission in Haiti once it is approved by the UN Security Council.
Following parliamentary approval, Kenyan coppers from specialised units of the Administrative Police will leave for the Caribbean country in the next few months to tackle armed gangs that control areas in the capital and provincial towns.
[ShabelleMedia] Somalia’s president expressed his deep appreciation to Turkiye on Monday for continuing to support his country’s development, security, and humanitarian needs.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud made the remarks after he met with Ottoman Turkish Ambassador to Somalia Ibrahim Mete Yagli in the central town of Dhusamareb and discussed bilateral relations between their two countries, the latest security developments, and other issues of mutual interest, according to Somalia’s Presidency.
Yagli was accompanied by TurkSom Chief Commander Brig. Gen. Sebahattin Kalkan.
Camp TurkSom, located in the capital, Mogadishu, is Turkiye’s largest overseas military base and training facility. It has the capacity to accommodate around 1,500 trainees at a time and has already trained more than 5,000 Somali security forces.
"During the meeting, the president commended the distinguished close relations between the two brotherly countries," Somalia’s Presidency said in a statement on X.
The meeting came as Mogadishu is campaigning to lift an arms embargo on Somalia.
The embargo was imposed by the UN Security Council in early 1992 following the collapse of Somalia’s military regime.
Somalia is enjoying a close economic, diplomatic, and military friendship with Turkiye that has been growing since Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... visited Somalia in 2011.
Since then, Turkiye has built an 80,000-square-meter (861,112-square-foot) embassy in Mogadishu, which is its biggest embassy in Africa.
Ottoman Turkish humanitarian organizations are also operating in the country and helped avert a famine in 2022. Somalia has witnessed one of the worst droughts in four decades for the last two years.
Last month, the Ottoman Turkish embassy in Mogadishu hosted a signing ceremony for a joint venture agreement between a Ottoman Turkish and Somali company to build a biogas power plant in Mogadishu.
The plant will have a production capacity of 5.6 MW/hour, providing energy to around 40,000 homes by the end of 2024, according to the embassy.
Somalia also anticipates the opening of a Ziraat Bank branch in Mogadishu, which will be the first Ottoman Turkish bank in Somalia.
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09/27/2023 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Tourism Minister Haim Katz lands in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... for a UN event, becoming the first Israeli minister to lead a delegation to the kingdom, his office says.
Katz is on a two-day visit as part of a United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) event.
"Tourism is a bridge between nations," Katz says, according to his office. "Cooperation in the field of tourism has the potential to bring hearts together, and economic progress."
"I will work to advance cooperation, tourism and the foreign relations of Israel," he says.
Katz’s visit comes as Israel and Saudi Arabia edge closer to a normalization deal.
In March this year, Saudi Arabia had refused to issue visas for an Israeli delegation to a similar UNWTO event.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/27/2023 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
[GBnews] Human Aid & Advocacy has faced two previous investigations by the Commission
A charity is being examined by the Charity Commission after it sent a delegation to meet with Taliban ...Arabic for students... ministers in Afghanistan over the summer.
The regulatory probe comes after GB News Investigates revealed that an NHS Moslem chaplain working in South London had met with and praised senior Taliban ministers while on the charity trip.
Suliman Gani, who works as a Moslem chaplain at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in South London, was photographed alongside the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in July.
Muttaqi was the Taliban’s culture minister during its brutal reign before the US invasion in 2001.
During the trip, Gani said that he was "very impressed" by the Taliban government.
In an interview broadcast live on state TV, he said: "Afghanistan now is prospering in the sense that there is peace ... I think this is the most critical point for the people living in Afghanistan."
The imam, whose NHS trust serves over 3 million people, said: "Now that there is a new government in place, I think ... what we have witnessed, the different ministers, the organization, the experience, the mistakes that they had learned from previously.
"I think many of those have been addressed and now we see things are in the right direction.
[Shafaq News] The Ottoman Turkish lira hit an all-time low of more than 27.236 against the US dollar on Tuesday, facing mounting inflationary pressures and a strengthening dollar. The lira's annual losses now stand at over 31 percent.
President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... 's steadfast support for a low-interest-rate policy, despite soaring inflation, triggered a currency crisis towards the end of 2021 and resulted in inflation surpassing 85 percent last year.
The central bank, which had refrained from intervening in the foreign exchange market to bolster the lira since June, recently reversed its course by implementing two consecutive strong rate hikes.
Despite these efforts, the lira has lost ground, depreciating by approximately 24 percent since the central bank adjusted its policy stance.
[Semafor via Townhall] There are new questions swirling around President Biden's now-on-leave special envoy to Iran, Robert Malley and his senior aides following new reporting from Semafor and Iran International that disclosed communications suggesting that Americans, some still in key positions, are tied to efforts by Iranian officials to influence global perception of Tehran.
Launched in the spring of 2014 and called the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), the new communications show how the influence operation seemingly succeeded via the Biden administration. According to Semafor, "officials, working under the moderate President Hassan Rouhani, congratulated themselves on the impact of the initiative: At least three of the people on the Foreign Ministry’s list were, or became, top aides to Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s special envoy on Iran, who was placed on leave this June following the suspension of his security clearance."
[Shafaq News] Families of the victims of the Speicher Massacre submitted a cassation request to the Federal Supreme Court to overturn the acquittal of the suspects, Ziad Tariq Nizal and Abdullah Yasser Sabawi, who were purportedly involved in the crime.
The duo had been previously cleared by the Rusafa Criminal Court, sparking controversy and raising questions about the judiciary's impartiality in this high-profile case.
The appeal highlighted the gravity of the Speicher Massacre, contending that the court's decision to release the defendant due to insufficient evidence overlooks the meticulous intelligence work that led to their arrest. The families speculate potential political pressure influencing the court's decision, deeming it a violation of legal, social, and religious norms.
Abdullah Yasser Sabawi, a relative of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and another individual, Tariq Khalaf, were accused of participating in the 2014 massacre. They were both acquitted on September 23, following their extradition from Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... with Interpol's assistance.
[IsraelTimes] Newly appointed Saudi ambassador to Paleostine Nayef al-Sudairi arrives in Ramallah to present his credentials to the Paleostinian Authority. Keep stirring the pot.
His arrival comes as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... edges closer to a normalization deal with Israel.
Al-Sudairi presents his credentials to PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase.... and to Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who praises the depth of the deep-rooted historical and fraternal relations that bind the two people, according to the official Wafa news agency.
Al-Sudairi pointed to the statements of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salaman last week, "in which he clearly indicated his great interest in the Paleostinian issue and the Paleostinian people," Wafa says.
He also refers to statements also made by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, "regarding the importance of the Paleostinian issue and its solution on the basis of the two-state solution leading to the establishment of the State of Paleostine."
Al-Sudairi, who is also ambassador to Jordan, was recently appointed the first-ever non-resident Saudi ambassador to Paleostine and consul general to Jerusalem.
Al-Sudairi says Saudi Arabia plans to open a consulate in East Jerusalem.
The visit comes as Israel and Saudi Arabia move closer to inking a US-brokered deal that would see Riyadh giving up on its earlier demand for a Paleostinian state before normalization. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... the Saudis are still reportedly demanding significant Israeli concessions to the Paleostinians as part of the deal.
[BenarNews] Kuala Lumpur is working to bring home two Malaysian suspects in the 2002 Bali bombings who have been detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay for 17 years, the home minister said Monday after a trip to New York last week. In a Facebook post that has since been removed, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said he had discussed the matter while in New York with Tina Kaidanow, the U.S. special representative for Guantanamo affairs. He said he had traveled to the prison, located in Cuba, but did not say when.
Malaysians Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep were arrested in Thailand in 2003, along with Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali
"I have met with two Malaysians detained there. Their story really touched me. It’s a downward spiral about life, about repentance, about the chance to be a better person," Saifuddin said. "With God’s grace, we will try to expedite the process for them to return to Malaysia."
The home minister did not reply to BenarNews’ request for comment about why the social media post was removed about nine hours after it went live.
Saifuddin and Inspector General of Police Razarudin Husain were part of the Malaysian delegation led by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... General Assembly in New York. Contacted by BenarNews, Razarudin deferred to the home minister.
Malaysians Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, along with Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali ...real name Riduan Isamuddin, close personal friend of Osama bin Laden, one of the founders of Jemaah Islamiyah and the planner of the 2002 Bali bombings. He was captured with the help of a mid-Eastern intel service, shipped to Guantanamo to rot but he'll likely be released eventually because that was a long time ago and we were all so much younger then... , were expected to face trial in a U.S. military court for their alleged roles in bombings in Bali and Jakarta in 2002 and 2003 that killed hundreds of people.
Following their arrests in Thailand in 2003, the three were sent to secret CIA prisons, so-called black sites, before being moved to Guantanamo in 2006. A U.S. Senate report released in 2014 found that each was tortured during his time in the black sites.
A court document filed by the lead prosecutor in August indicated that bin Amin would no longer be tried along with the other two defendants.
Why?
Bin Amin’s lead attorney, Christine Funk, declined to comment when asked by BenarNews about the significance of the move and whether it might pave the way for his departure from Guantanamo.
Bin Lep’s lawyer, Brian Bouffard, could not be reached for comment. But Nurjaman’s attorney, James Hodes, said he expected bin Lep’s case would also be "severed" from his client’s.
"That’s merely my understanding," he told BenarNews on Monday, while adding he did not know for sure.
Hodes said he did not expect either Malaysian defendant to attend the next sessions, scheduled for Oct. 16 to 27 on the court calendar. A court administrator told BenarNews the sessions would likely be cut to one week..
Hodes said Hambali was "happy on the one hand" that it appeared his co-defendants could be returning to Malaysia.
"He’s hoping that will be the end result for him as well," Hodes said.
’READY TO TAKE THEM’
The three Southeast Asians appeared in court for the first time in 2021 for a two-day arraignment hearing, but there has been little progress since then, largely due to defense attorneys’ concerns over poor translation services, and a lack of evidence provided to them.
On Monday, counter terrorism analyst Ahmad El-Muhammady of the International Islamic University of Malaysia told BenarNews that he believed the Malaysian government was working on a potential deal for the return of both bin Amin and bin Lep.
"This is the way forward and to meet the humanitarian rights perspective. They have been under detention for 20 years," he told BenarNews.
Ahmad, who is an adviser to the Royal Malaysian Police on terrorist rehabilitation programs, said both would need to undergo psychological and ideological assessment should they return home.
"But their return will be a lowkey affair due to the sensitivity of the issue. They also need to be put under rehabilitation programs like the former IS fighters and family who we brought home," he said.
Mohd Mizan Mohammad Aslam, security analyst at the National Defense University of Malaysia, said he would love for bin Amin and bin Lep to be repatriated.
"Let our judiciary system do its best for them. I believe our government is ready to take them and give them an opportunity to come back to our country because they are our people. If they already agree to any kind of consequences, that would be good for them," he told BenarNews.
"They might spend another few years in detention and then be released back into society."
In the past, when former Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... fighters or their family members returned home, they were sent to prison or required to undergo rehabilitation and deradicalization programs, he said. Some had to wear electronic monitoring devices on their ankles for up to two years.
[IsraelTimes] A Lebanese journalist with the Hezbollah-affiliated al-Manar station films himself within touching distance of an Israel Defense Forces tank on the border.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, the tank was at the site to protect Defense Ministry workers erecting a new border barricade at the site.
"Face to face with an Israeli tank," writes Ali Shoeib in the post.
Soldiers from the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Interim Force in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... (UNIFIL) can be seen in the video standing by without intervening.
That is their role in life, and they fulfill it assiduously.
Israel and Lebanon do not have a formal border due to territorial disputes; however, they largely abide by the United Nations-recognized Blue Line between the two countries.
The Blue Line is marked with blue barrels along the border and is several meters from the Israeli fence in some areas, which is built entirely within Israeli territory.
The IDF has been working on a new border wall with Lebanon to replace an aging fence in the area.
It’s called the “Fortified Galilee” project. Hezbollah would prefer Israel not make the border between them more secure, especially after the tunnel they were digging under the border suddenly was filled to overflowing with Israeli cement — just as the UN inspectors happened by. Unkind souls found the whole thing highly amusing...
The engineering work, which typically takes place to the north of Israel’s fence but within Israeli territory, has sparked several minor clashes on the border in recent months.
[Rudaw] CENTCOM said in its monthly report on the anti-ISIS mission that 36 operations were carried out in partnership with their allies on the ground in Iraq and Syria in August, killing at least seven ISIS operatives and detaining 25 others.
The above was excerpted from a story covered elsewhere.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/27/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
Imagine what CENTCOM could do if they had an AI. /sarc
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
...Arabic for 
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
...real name Riduan Isamuddin, close personal friend of Osama bin Laden, one of the founders of Jemaah Islamiyah and the planner of the 2002 Bali bombings. He was captured with the help of a mid-Eastern intel service, shipped to Guantanamo to rot but he'll likely be released eventually because that was a long time ago and we were all so much younger then...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
