[ToloNews] The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... has reshuffled their key posts and ranks by appointing designated governors, deputy governors and heads of military commissions for 19 provinces, calling it a normal practice within their ranks, but the government and analysts say the move is a sign of preparations for the upcoming fighting season and that it shows the group’s "unwillingness" for peace efforts.
The Taliban has appointed designated governors for 11 provinces, including Khost, Nangarhar
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] The British newspaper "The Independent" published information about what it described as "secret government plans" to make big cuts in overseas aid to many countries of the world, including Syria, 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... , Somalia and Sudan, that will start within a few weeks.
It said aid will be cut in half for Syria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , South Sudan, Libya, Nigeria and Lebanon, despite "the exacerbation of deep poverty and conflicts in light of the Corona pandemic."
The move comes after a reduction of a near-60 percent cut of aid provided to "war-torn Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ", which was considered "the first stark evidence" of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ...pro-Brexit British prime minister, succeeding no-Brexit Theresa May. BoJo is noted as much for his sparkling personality and his hair as for his Conservative policies.... ’s widely criticized decision to cut billions (5.5 billion dollars) annually from the aid budget.
It’s a lot easier to cut foreign aid when the budget desperately needs balancing than domestic social welfare spending...
Proposals for aid cuts amounted to 88 percent in "Lebanon, which is still reeling from the earth-shattering kaboom of the Beirut port last year," according to information obtained by the investigation website Open Democracy.
The cuts include plans to stop Sudan’s CSSF budget, which is a fund to combat conflict and promote stability and security, and is part of Britannia's aid program to Sudan, the British newspaper says.
On Saturday, a leaked document revealed that the United Kingdom (UK) plans to cut aid to conflict-ridden countries including Libya, Syria, and Somalia by up to two-thirds.
According to a report obtained by the openDemocracy website, the UK’s Foreign Office will reduce aid to Libya by 63%, Syria by 67%, Somalia by 60% and South Sudan by 59%.
A Government spokesperson said the “seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK economy has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions,” and further decisions on individual aid programmes were still to be made.
Documents obtained by openDemocracy now suggest the total bilateral humanitarian aid programme will be cut from £1.5 billion to £900 million.
The leak comes as more than a hundred UK charities condemned the Government’s decision to cut aid to Yemen. The UK has pledged at least £87 million in aid, down from a promise of £160 million in 2020 and £200 million in 2019.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/07/2021 7:59 Comments ||
Top||
#2
UK has taken in so many "boat people", and had such a high influx of Sahara Burma Belt-ers
that the programme has been renamed,
"The Domestic Reflief Programme"; it would be a redundancy to call it "Foreign Aid".
[RedState] Appeasement Weenie Central
Joe Biden excited a lot of concern from both sides of the aisle when he bombed Iranian-backed militia in Syria.
His reasoning for doing so was that the militias had attacked near American forces leading to the death of an American contractor although he was very slow in responding to that.
The Iranian-backed Houthis then attacked Saudi Arabia with multiple drones.
But both Democrats and Republicans in Congress were disturbed that Biden hadn’t informed them before the attack and that they had to find out about it in the news. So they are trying to curtail Biden’s war powers.
Some media even tried to sell this action as Biden getting tough on Iran. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace claimed that the sense that the Biden team was coddling or letting Iran off the hook was "obliterated" by this action.
So maybe Wallace wants to pick up on this story that seems to be floating over the transom this weekend?
According to Iran International and Al Arabiya are reporting that an Iranian official says the US has given the "green light" for Iraq to release at least part of the $6 billion funds frozen because of sanctions from Washington.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/07/2021 12:36 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11135 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
ValJar is back! Like the Churchill Bust move on day one, yet another not so subtle symbol of the start of the Obama Supreme Soviet Central Committee behind the curtain. USSA is beginning behind a flimsy screen until HR 1 passes and then the final charade can end.
[AnNahar] Syria's Kurds have handed back 12 children of alleged 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.... members to their mothers from Iraq's Yazidi minority, a Kurdish official said Friday.
"The children, aged two to five, were all born to Yazidi mothers and fathered by IS members. They were handed over to their mothers" on Thursday, said Syrian Kurdish official Zeyneb Saroukhan.
Dozens of Yazidi women and girls survived sex slavery at the hands of IS jihadists in Syria and have since returned to Iraq, but many were forced to leave their children behind or risk being shunned by their community.
Saroukhan said this was the first time children had been given back to their mothers.
IS kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women and girls from their ancestral Iraqi home of Sinjar in 2014, then enslaved, raped, or married them off by force to jihadists, including in neighbouring Syria.
US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters say they have rescued dozens during their years of battles against IS that led to their 2019 territorial defeat.
But while the Yazidi community welcomed those survivors back to northern Iraq, that compassion was not extended to their children.
Saroukhan said it had been the Syrian Kurdish authorities' duty to look after the children until their mothers asked for them.
Yazidi women and kiddies have previously returned from Syria to Iraq, but many of those kidnapped remain missing.
In May last year, a then 17-year-old Yazidi girl kidnapped by IS returned to Iraq after the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... lockdown in Syria delayed her homecoming.
In 2019, Syria's Kurds repatriated 25 women and kiddies.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/07/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[JP] The IDF is updating its attack plans against Iran's nuclear facilities, Defense Minister Benny Gantz revealed on Thursday in an interview with Fox News.
"We have them [the attack plans] in our hands, but we will continue [to] constantly improve them," Gantz said.
"The Iranian nuclear aspiration must be stopped. If the world stops them before, it's very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves," Gantz said.
Gantz spoke as US President Joe Biden is working to renew negotiations with the Iranians as part of an effort to return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran - known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action [JCPOA].
Israel is opposed to a return to the deal and has laid out a series of demands it would like to see addressed in a future deal.
On Thursday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Vice President Kamala Harris that Israel was totally committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons designed to destroy Israel.
The White House said that the two leaders agreed on the need for close cooperation and partnership on regional security issues, "including Iran’s nuclear program and the regime’s dangerous regional behavior."
[Grayzone] As Tulsi Gabbard criticizes former Congressional colleagues for ignoring the ongoing US dirty war and sanctions on Syria, a look at the comments of Joe Biden and top aides show that they have admitted to the same underlying, horrific facts. Gabbard only stands apart — and is even vilified — for being willing to call it out.
While Joe Biden has faced some mild Congressional pushback for bombing the Iraq-Syria border, Tulsi Gabbard says her former colleagues are ignoring the larger issue: the ongoing US dirty war on Syria. After a decade of proxy warfare that empowered Al Qaeda and ISIS, the US is now occupying one-third of Syria and imposing crippling sanctions that are crushing Syria’s economy and preventing reconstruction.
While Gabbard has been vilified for her stance on Syria, many top White House officials — including Joe Biden himself — have already acknowledged the same facts that she has called out. Aaron Maté plays clips of Biden and some of his most senior aides admitting to the horrific realities of the US dirty war on Syria, and argues that Gabbard only stands apart in being wiling to criticize it.
Featuring clips from: Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic Congressmember; President Joe Biden; Brett McGurk, National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa; Martin Dempsey, former Joint Chiefs chairman; Rob Malley, Special Envoy for Iran; John Kerry, Special Envoy for Climate & former Secretary of State; former President Donald Trump; Alena Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions; Dana Stroul, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East; Vice President Kamala Harris.
[SyrianObserver] The Palestine Liberation Army militia, which supports the regime forces in their battles against the Syrians, announced a reduction in the salaries of its members in Syria under the pretext of a decrease in the readiness rate and thus a decrease in the readiness allowance.
A source in the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria confirmed to SY-24 that salaries were reduced between 4,000 and 5,000 Syrian pounds, and the officers were informed of the decision to reduce their salaries to 38,000 pounds per month for reserve personnel after it was 43,000 pounds. As for the volunteer personnel, their salaries have been decreased from 65,000 to 60,000 pounds.
The source drew attention to the fact that “the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Army militia has abandoned its members who were injured in the ongoing battles in Syria and have become handicapped and dependent on their families and society.”
According to the source, “the number of the Palestine Liberation Army members in Syria is about 6,000 Palestinians, fighting in more than 16 locations in Syria, of whom 3,000 are involved in battles.” Setting the stage for "North Palestine"? The Juice should start pushing that rumor
The source pointed out that “thousands of Palestinian youth have fled from the area under the control of this militia in order not to be forced into fighting within its ranks.”
[ENGLISH.AAWSAT] 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... ’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab threatened on Saturday to stop performing his duties to pressure politicians to form a new government, citing an incident in which shoppers fought over milk to illustrate the parlous state of the economy.
Diab’s cabinet resigned on the back of the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion that devastated swathes of the capital. Prime minister-designate Saad al-Hariri was nominated in October but has failed to form a new cabinet since due to political deadlock between him and President Michel Aoun ...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... An ongoing financial crisis, which erupted in 2019, has wiped out jobs, raised warnings of growing hunger and locked people out of their bank deposits. A new cabinet could implement reforms needed to trigger billions of dollars of international aid.
"If seclusion helps with cabinet formation then I am ready to resort to it, although it goes against my convictions for it disrupts the entire state and is detrimental to the Lebanese," Diab said in a televised speech.
"Doesn’t the scramble for milk constitute a sufficient incentive to transcend formalities and roughen out the edges in order to form a government?" Diab said referring to the recent incident at a Beirut supermarket in which shoppers fought over powdered milk.
A video of the squabble went viral on social media, leaving many people shocked at the desperate state of the economy.
Groups of protesters have been burning tires to block roads across the country on a daily basis since the Lebanese currency tumbled to a new low on Tuesday, enraging a population long horrified by the country’s financial meltdown.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...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...
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
