A man shot in the groin by a balaclava-clad gunman at Campbellfield shopping plaza on Tuesday was a member of a north-west crime family.
It is understood Omar Tiba, 27, from Coolaroo, had part of his penis shot off when an unknown gunman got out of the car and started firing
Several members of the Tiba family have been convicted of serious violent offences - including Bassam Tiba for the manslaughter of Richard Haddara - and drug crime.
Sounds like some of those "Lebanese" criminals Australia has become known for...
Up to four men in a white or cream car drove up to the victim in the Campbellfield Plaza car park about 9.30pm on Tuesday before one got out and started firing, Detective Inspector Steve Clark said.
A shopping centre security guard heard gun shots, ran outside and found the man lying on the ground with at least three gunshot wounds to his leg and groin, Channel Nine reported.
If it had been his feet we would have known he was a Palestinian...
"He heard some shooting, he ran down to see what it was, and he saw a man on the ground, bleeding," the security guard's colleague, Thomas Yoannis, said. "I think it was his wife or his partner, holding him. She was holding his head and crying, and just asking for help."
[Al Jazeera] Several people have died after a ski hotel was buried by an avalanche in earthquake-hit central Italia, according to Italian media.
"There are many dead," Antonio Crocetta, the head of a group of Alpine police that was trying to reach the cut-off hotel, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
SkyTG24 television said some dead were found inside the Hotel Rigopiano in the town of Farindola on the Gran Sasso mountain in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region.
Media reports said there had been at least 20 guests and seven staff at the Hotel Rigopiano on the lower slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain when the first of four powerful quakes hit the region on Wednesday morning.
The rescuers at the hotel were reported to have a snow mobile capable of transporting up to eight people.
Ambulances were blocked by two metres of snow some nine kilometres away, according to the civil protection agency.
Antonio Di Marco, president of the province of Pescara, which includes the mountain village of Farindola, close to where the hotel is located, said two people had been found alive.
"We don't know yet how many people are unaccounted for or dead," he wrote on his Facebook page.
"What is certain is that the building took a direct hit from the avalanche, to the point that it was moved by 10 metres."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yikes.
You mountain people - would helicopters be too risky, on account of causing additional avalanches?
#2
What amazed me is that the avalanche moved the entire building. I would have thought that windows would be broken and maybe some doors pushed open, and even the whole hotel would be buried in snow, with a space in the middle not affected so people could be rescued from the roof or some such. But to move the hotel off its foundation? Unbelievable.
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/20/2017 18:04 Comments ||
Top||
Rescuers have found six people alive in the Italian mountain hotel devastated by an avalanche on Wednesday evening, local media reported Friday, citing emergency services at the scene.
The rescuers have been able to speak to the survivors and called for helicopters to evacuate them after more than 40 hours under the rubble, the reports said. More than 25 people, including children, were thought to have been in the hotel when it was hit by a massive wall of snow.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A senior police official was tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... by the security forces over bribery charges.
The police chief of Police District # 13 Hussain Dad was arrested by the operatives of the major crimes branch of the ministry of interior.
Sources privy of the development said Hussain Dad was arrested during an operation after he received AFN 50,000 in bribe.
The sources further added that a clash broke out during Hussain Dad’s arrest and two security personnel of the major crimes directorate were maimed.
This comes as the government has stepped up campaign against the corruption in line with its commitment to the international community to root out graft from the key government institutions.
A former senior General of the Ministry of Interior was tossed in the calaboose Book 'im, Mahmoud! for 14 years over corruption by a special tribunal formed to try the officials accused of corruption.
General Abdul Wasi Raufi was found guilty of corruption by the special tribunal holding its first public trial earlier this month.
The tribunal chief Sher Aqa Munib said the court also awarded a fine of AFN 18,000 besides awarding a jail term of 14 years.
Gen. Raufi was found guilty of receiving $150,000 in bribe and was tried by the special tribunal.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
[Al Jazeera] Troops from a bloc of West African countries have entered Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... in support of Adama Barrow, shortly after the new Gambian president called for international backing following his inauguration in neighbouring Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... Longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh, who came to power in a 1994 coup, has refused to step down ...Hell no! The money's too good!... despite losing a disputed December 1 presidential election to Barrow, deepening a political crisis.
In a statement, Senegal's army said on Thursday that forces from ECOWAS, West Africa's regional bloc, had begun strikes as part of an operation aimed at upholding the result of last month's vote.
Colonel Abdou Ndiaye did not specify the type of strikes, but said "significant" land, air and sea resources had been made available .
Earlier on Thursday, Barrow, who had recently sought shelter in Senegal, took the oath of office in a hastily-arranged ceremony at Gambia's embassy in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.
"This is a day no Gambian will ever forget in a lifetime," Barrow said in a speech immediately after being sworn in.
Not long after his inauguration, the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution backing Barrow and called for a peaceful transer of power.
"The people of The Gambia spoke clearly at the elections in December. They chose Adama Barrow to be their president. Their voice now needs to be heard and their will needs to be heeded by just one man," Peter Wilson, the UK deputy ambassador to the UN, said.
Earlier this week, Jammeh had declared a national state of emergency , while the parliament extended his term in office by 90 days. He has not been heard from since his mandate expired at midnight.
[Iran Press TV] The Gambia’s vice president has resigned amid a growing political crisis in the West African country, triggered by the refusal of incumbent President Yahya Jammeh to step down despite his election loss to opposition leader, Adama Barrow.
Isatou Njie Saidy, the highest-level official to abandon Jammeh’s camp, announced her decision on Wednesday, hours before president’s mandate expires. She had been vice president of the Gambia since 1997.
The Gambia’s Minister of Education Abubacar Senghore had also resigned earlier on the same day, becoming the eighth cabinet minister to leave the government this month.
Jammeh had initially accepted the results of the December 1, 2016 election, in which Barrow was declared the winner, but later reversed his position and filed a complaint with the Supreme Court over election irregularities.
Defeated Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh has agreed to cede power to the country's newly inaugurated leader, a Senegalese government official confirmed late Friday. Final arrangements were being made to the agreement, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the press.
Jammeh, however, has offered to step aside once before but changed his
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
[Iran Press TV] 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... independent expert says the Saudi government should end its ban on women driving, urging the kingdom to do more to reform its male guardianship system.
"There -- that's sorted. I'm starving -- anyone else up for elevenses before we go to lunch?"
Philip Alston, an Australian legal expert who reports to the UN Human Rights Council, said after a 12-day visit to 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... that the government in Riyadh was urgently required to cast aside rules and regulations that have hampered social life in the kingdom.
"So, I feel very strongly that the kingdom should move to enable women to drive cars," Alston said on Thursday.
The expert also called on Riyadh to make efforts to change the country’s guardianship system, which effectively hinders women's ability to work and travel. Alston said some features of the system, requiring that women obtain the consent of a male member of their family to study, travel and other activities, "need to be reformed."
"My concern is that the government is in fact deferring to a relatively small portion of conservative voices," Alston told a news conference, adding, "The role of the government is to work out how it can change the policy and how it can change attitudes."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"My concern is that the government is in fact deferring to a relatively small portion of conservative voices," Alston told a news conference, adding, "The role of the government is to work out how it can change the policy and how it can change attitudes."
Uh, those aren't "conservative" voices. Those are "Islamic" voices. Those in favor of enabling women to drive in that country are also (unforuntately) Islamic voices. Any progress in treating women, men, and any other niche in that country will move at a snail's pace until *Islam* is called upon to reform (before it is eventually disgraced into the dust bin of history).
#2
hahaha dying gasps of the globalist deceptacons
i've got a better idea. Why don't we just ban Muslim migration and ban Sharia.
prosecute those who promote sharia within our borders for treason.
close the islamic schools, and regulate the mosques.
treat Islam like communism in the 1950s
and then we don't have to care what backwards knuckledragging religitarded crap the do in saudi arabia. Boycott them. Don't buy their oil, and don't halal certify our food including exports. Who cares if they can't buy it. Sit in the sand and starve until they can evolve to the level of say 1890.
#3
Why is an Australian legal twit dictating to Saudi Arabia how they should like if they want?
If they want to live in the six century, let 'em.
Just make sure they stay there.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/20/2017 21:58 Comments ||
Top||
[NYPOST] A federal judge is expected to block a proposed mega-merger between Anthem and Cigna -- a $54 billion deal that would create the nation’s biggest health insurer -- as soon as Thursday, sources told The Post. I dunno why. Single points of failure are so much more efficient.
In what looked like a bid to get ahead of the judge’s smackdown, Anthem said in a public filing early Thursday it is extending the expiration of the merger agreement from Jan. 31 to April 30. Indeed, sources said Anthem can appeal any ruling that doesn’t go its way. Insiders expect that US District of Columbia Judge Amy Berman Jackson will rule against it on antitrust concerns.
President B.O.’s Department of Justice sued Anthem in July, alleging the merger would stifle competition in the US health care industry. The case went to trial in November.
A ruling by Jackson against the tie-up will likely spark a fight between the corporate giants. Cigna is looking to fight any merger extension as it looks to wiggle out of the deal and collect a $1.85 billion breakup fee from Anthem, according to insiders.
Cigna said in a statement that it had received notice of Anthem’s extension and that it would evaluate its options after the court ruling.
According to sources, Cigna believes the bench trial in November produced testimony that shows Anthem didn’t hold up its end of the merger agreement.
For example, a key to the deal was Anthem having a plan worked out to maintain the Blue Cross/Blue Shield networks it operates exclusively in 14 states, including one in New York City. Blue rules require, however, that an exclusive carrier have no more than one-third of its marketed products from other insurers in a given state. A combined Anthem and Cigna would trip that threshold, according to court papers.
On July 25, 2015, Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish said on an analyst call that Anthem in the merger did not "anticipate any issues regarding so-called Blue rules in large measure."
Yet in court testimony on Nov. 30, Anthem VP of corporate development Steven Schlegel said Anthem was facing the possibility of a $3 billion penalty for having too much of its business being non-Blues-related.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
What's wrong with this? I thought Single Payer was the goal of the ACA.
[Ynet] Spanish officials say a Russian computer programmer wanted by the United States on hacking allegations has been locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! while a decision is made on whether to extradite him.
The National Court said Thursday that Stanislav Lisov, 31, was locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Jan. 13 after Civil Guard police nabbed Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! him at Barcelona airport on an FBI warrant issued though Interpol.
The court said a Madrid judge questioned him by videoconference over charges of criminal conspiracy in connection with electronic and computer fraud for which he is wanted by the U.S. It said he was ordered locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! because of the seriousness of the offenses and the risk of him fleeing justice as he had done previously in the United States.
Lisov was arrested as he prepared to take a flight out of Spain with his wife.
[Al Jazeera] Indigenous leaders in Canada are calling for a national strategy to combat a suicide crisis in their communities, after two 12-year-old girls did away with himself earlier this month.
Wapekeka First Nation in northern Ontario is "in a state of shock, grief, and crisis" after Jolynn Winter and Chantel Fox, both 12, died after committing suicide on Jan. 8 and 10, respectively.
Local leaders say they discovered that several youth in the fly-in, Oji-Cree community had entered into a "suicide pact" last year.
But they say the federal government turned down their request for additional health funding to prevent the suicides.
"Our community plan was turned down by government and now two are dead," said Joshua Frogg, a spokesperson for the community, in a statement on Wednesday.
Located in northwestern Ontario, about 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Wapekeka First Nation is home to about 430 residents.
"I can't believe I had to bury my daughter. It was so hard to say goodbye," said Sandra Fox, Chantel’s mother. "I honestly didn't think I could survive losing Chantel."
Since the girls' deaths, four other local children were flown out of the community ‐ it is not accessible by road ‐ to be placed on 24-hour suicide watch, while 24 others have been identified as high risk for suicide.
"Every community member is deeply affected. These children could be alive today and their deaths preventable," Frogg said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#7
Onset of puberty
'Slender man' social phenomena
High fat high protein low carb malnutrition
No prospects in a fast moving world
Overwhelming alcoholism
Long hours of darkness
Yep. Everything's under control now. Won't cost us one more cent than is planned.
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet "has come a long way" since "grotesque" cost overruns and schedule delays plagued the costliest U.S. weapons system, departing Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in an appraisal at odds with the view of President-elect Donald Trump.
Because the $379 billion program is critical to three U.S. military services and many allied air forces, "it’s essential that it perform both in technology and in cost terms, and we’ve got to keep working on that," Carter said in an interview Tuesday.
Carter didn’t respond directly to Trump’s tweet last month that F-35 costs are "out of control," or his message Tuesday that boasted of "the massive cost reductions I have negotiated on military purchases." Trump has extracted general promises to cut costs on Lockheed’s F-35 and Boeing Co.’s new Air Force One after meetings with the chief executive officers of those two biggest U.S. government contractors.
Carter reflected on the F-35’s progress since he certified in June 2010 that the program was worth continuing even though its rising projected cost breached congressional limits.
The program was "near collapse and disgrace" when he first wrestled with its status in 2009 as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, he said, "because the development phase" was "grotesquely overrun in cost and behind in schedule." He said "we needed to instill discipline" and "eventually that was done."
Carter also said the program made significant changes to use fixed-price incentive fee production contracts to put more Lockheed profit at risk.
Two hundred of the U.S. program’s planned 2,443 aircraft have been delivered, and as of last year Congress had authorized about $110 billion in spending. "The things that need to be done" include applying "continued pressure on production costs," he said.
"Never forget," he added, that the support phase of the F-35 includes "the lion’s share" of the expenses. In addition to the $379 billion in projected research, development and procurement, the fleet will require more than 50 years of support estimated by the Pentagon’s independent cost analysis unit to add up to as much as $1.2 trillion.
Highlighting the promised capability of an aircraft that’s been dubbed a flying computer because of its eight million lines of software code, Carter said, "If we stay on course, no other fighter aircraft in the world will come close to competing with" the F-35 "for performance and cost, and we will wipe out all competition."
[Bangla Daily Star] A Jordanian was yesterday charged with stabbing to death his wife and two young daughters and seriously wounding a third in apparent "honour" killings, judicial and security sources said.
The killings took place on Wednesday in the northern town of Ramtha and the prosecutor charged the 28-year-old with premeditated murder, a judicial source said.
A security source said the man turned himself in to the authorities after the crime, claiming to have killed them to defend the family's "honour" because he "suspected that his wife was cheating on him".
According to the security source, the couple had a row during which the wife told her husband that their three daughters -- aged three, two and one -- were not his but fathered by another man.
"He went crazy and grabbed a kitchen knife with which he stabbed his wife and three daughters," said the source.
The wife and two of the girls -- the three-year-old and the two-year-old -- were killed on the spot while the one-year-old was admitted to hospital in a serious condition, the security source added.
Murder is punishable by death by hanging in Jordan, but courts usually commute or reduce sentences in cases of so-called "honour killings," particularly if the extended family urges leniency.
The conservative Moslem majority country sees around 15 to 20 such cases a year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
A security source said the man turned himself in to the authorities after the crime, claiming to have killed them to defend the family's "honour"
[Iran Press TV] Iran's oldest high-rise in downtown Tehran collapsed on Thursday morning following a major fire in the building, leaving many firefighters buried under rubble, some of who are presumed dead.
While Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf had earlier said 20 firefighters bit the dust trying to contain the flames, Tehran Fire Department front man, Jalal Maleki, told the state TV that although a number of firefighters were presumed dead, no final figure could be given on fatalities.
He, however, was quoted by the IRIB News Agency as confirming the 20 fatality figure, emphasizing that this was not a final figure because a number of firefighters were trapped under the rubble as rescue operation to get them out continued.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Sun estimated 75 fatalities earlier today
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/20/2017 0:23 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Iranian video at link shows the collapse, which shows some similarities to the Bush-explosives double-collapse some 15 years ago in New York City. But this building - the tallest in Iran - was only 17 stories.
I'll pray for the firefighters.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/20/2017 8:18 Comments ||
Top||
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.
[Al Jazeera] Troops from a bloc of West African countries have entered 
