Book Examines Islamic State's History, Tactics, Vision - by VOAvideo
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In his new book, William McCants, an analyst on violent extremism and radical Islam, says the focus on state building, the use of fear and an apocalyptic vision are the reasons why Islamic State failed when it was established almost a decade ago, but also why the terrorist group is now meeting with success. VOA's Keida Kostreci reports.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/book-examines-islamic-state-history-tactics-vision/2975788.html
Mr. Ghani said the authorities would prosecute pedophiles no matter who they were, but many are Afghan commanders or powerful backers of the government.
The sale of the vessels — amphibious assault ships that can carry troops and helicopters — was called off after sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
Chinese president sends conciliatory message on hacking in Seattle speech
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An billionaire hedge fund manager has spent five years buying out and then building a mansion on the grounds of this boss' former home after he was passed over for promotion
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Britain may have to pay tens of millions more to the European Union despite repeatedly making it clear it does not wish to take part in the resettlement programme
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The Communist Party is trying to address the problem of how to make people care about the German philosopher Karl Marx’s ideas in China.
The story of a Chinese military staffer’s alleged involvement in hacking provides a detailed look into Beijing’s sprawling state-controlled cyberespionage machinery.
The war against Islamic State extremists has displaced millions of Iraqis. More than 1 million have escaped to Kurdistan, where they live scattered in an assortment of rented rooms, churches and camps. VOA's Sharon Behn talked to some Sunni teens who survived IS, only to find themselves a year later trapped in an area where they don't speak the language, cannot find jobs and have little or no access to schools.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/displaced-war-iraqi-sunni-teens-live-life-despair/2975981.html
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Investigators will test remains believed to belong to Crown Prince Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria, who were killed with their family by Bolsheviks in 1918
Russia’s investigative committee has reopened its case on the 1918 murder of the Romanov royal family after the Russian Orthodox church demanded further testing of what are believed to be their remains.
The church’s hesitancy to allow the remains of two final members of the family to be buried has divided the Romanovs’ descendants, with one branch of relatives supporting the call for more tests and another expressing impatience with the hold-up.
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After months of inaction, firm proposals emerge amid splits and acrimony at Brussels summit
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NPR |
U.S.-China Business Relationship Is, As Trump Might Say, Huge
NPR "China." You have heard that word over and over — and over — in recent months. On the campaign trail, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump often spits it out with disdain, as this Huffington Post video shows. China's real mission in the US this weekCNBC US Presses Firms to Raise China ComplaintsWall Street Journal Watch These Foreign Students Express Their Love for China's President Xi JinpingTIME BBC News all 331 news articles » |
Two Chinese fighter jets passed dangerously close to an American spy plane in international airspace over the Yellow Sea, a US official said Tuesday.
FBI Ignores Court Order, Congressional Oversight; Refuses To Respond To ...
Techdirt Grassley, whose panel oversees the FBI, reacted sharply to a letter the FBI sent Monday turning aside U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan's request for information on whether investigators have been able to retrieve records from a backup thumb ... |
French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday called for a new Syria peace conference as part of efforts to end a conflict which has claimed some 250,000 lives and destabilized the whole region.
Egypt's military announced Wednesday it was winding down its largest campaign in the Sinai against Islamists, following a 16-day operation in which it said scores of Islamic State group jihadists were killed.
Senior South Korean and US defense officials met in Seoul on Wednesday for talks focused on responding to the possibility of an imminent North Korean rocket launch and later nuclear test.
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The Kremlin lashed out at U.S. plans to modernize 20 nuclear weapons stationed at a German airbase, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov characterizing the move as a "violation of the strategic balance in Europe."
Illegal capital outflows between 1994 and 2012 cost Russia's economy $1.3 trillion, according to a report by GFI, a Washington-based organization that researches shady international transactions.
 Express.co.uk |
MAPPED: After Crimea and Ukraine now 'Assadland' in Syria is next on Russia's ...
Express.co.uk Over the past few days, Russia has ramped up its military presence in Syria, where it has been a long-time ally of the country's dictator Bashar al-Assad. Missile-laden warplanes, attack helicopters, drones and tanks are all claimed to have been ... and more » |
 BBC News |
Russia reopens Tsar Nicholas family murder case
BBC News Russian investigators have reopened a notorious murder case dating back to 1918 - that of the last tsar and his family, the Romanovs. The bones of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, reburied in a St Petersburg cathedral, will be re-examined. Revolutionary ... Russia digs up remains of last Tsar for new probeYahoo News Russia to exhume remains of Tsar Nicholas II for testing in bid to prove if ...Mirror.co.uk Justice for the Romanovs: Russia reopens case into murder of last Tsar's familyRT all 38 news articles » |
Turkish President Recep Erdogan on Wednesday became the third Middle Eastern leader in as many days to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Russian investigators have exhumed the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Aleksandra as part of a new probe into the 1918 slaying of the Romanov family.
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The sale of the vessels — amphibious assault ships that can carry troops and helicopters — was called off after sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
 Reuters |
Divided EU leaders to offer cash for Syria refugees
Reuters BRUSSELS European Union leaders could promise billions of euros in new funding for Syrian refugees at an emergency summit on Wednesday where they will also try to patch up bitter divisions over the migration crisis. Meeting for dinner a day after ... The Latest: French President Slams Opponents of Refugee PlanNew York Times Politics Hold Sway in Economic Impact of Europe's Refugee CrisisWall Street Journal Call for unity as EU leaders debate migrant crisisCNN Bloomberg -Voice of America all 1,835 news articles » |
On September 4, a group of armed men linked to former Deputy Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda attacked police checkpoints in Dushanbe and Vahdat. Nazarzoda and his followers fled to the Romit gorge, some thirty miles to the northeast of the capital city. Following a counter-insurgency operation, the security services killed Nazarzoda and 11 of his followers on September 16 (YouTube, September 16). A total of 25 militants died in the operation, and the security services detained a further 125 suspects (Interfax, Sept 16). The regime lost 14 law enforcement officers, including the commander of the special operations group of the State Committee for National Security, Colonel Rustam Amakiyev (Lenta, September 16).
According to the official version of events, Major-General Nazarzoda was acting on the orders of the country’s leading opposition party, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT). On September 16, the Prosecutor General accused party leader Muhiddin Kabiri, of orchestrating the attacks (Khovar[Dushanbe], September 16). In his statement, the Prosecutor General implicated 13 senior party members in the violence, including First Deputy Chairman Saidumar Husayni, Deputy Chairman Muhammadali Hait and Spokesman Hikmatullo Saifullozoda. Plain clothes officers quickly raided the homes of the activists and took them away (Radio Ozodi, September 17). The Ministry of Interior has vowed to seek the help of Interpol to secure the extradition of Kabiri, who is currently in exile in Istanbul (Asia Plus, September 18). The IRPT’s leader flatly denies the government’s allegations against him (Radio Ozodi, September 17).
Given the IRPT’s stated commitment to a multi-party system and gradualist approach to reform in Tajikistan, the accusations of the party’s involvement in the early-September armed attacks are difficult to justify; and the regime has changed its story a number of times. President Rahmon initially labeled Major-General Nazarzoda an “Islamic State sympathizer,” who tried to lead a coup against the government (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, September 7). Although Tajikistani officials highlighted Nazarzoda’s civil war–era membership in the party (which was then a key coalition member of the United Tajik Opposition), they only formally accused the IRPT of involvement in the September 4 attacks after having neutralized Nazarzoda and his ability to offer a different story. Indeed, in his only recorded statement on the events, Nazarzoda said that the regime plotted to remove him for refusing to agree with the government’s recent banning of the IRPT (see EDM, September 11). When he heard that he was going to be targeted, Nazarzoda assembled supporters and decided to fight his way out (TajInfo, September 6). This explanation is more plausible than the government narrative. If the attacks were premeditated, they were abysmally planned; Nazarzoda let the government capture almost his entire weapons cache on the first day (Ozodagon, September 4).
Instead of posing a real threat to the regime, the September attacks offered an opportunity to remove a potentially disloyal commander and to completely eliminate the country’s leading opposition party. Nazarzoda was one of the last remaining United Tajik Opposition commanders in government. The 1997 peace deal allocated 30 percent of government posts to the opposition. But since then, the regime has arrested, killed and exiled most of these former commanders. Therefore, rather than plots by outside forces, struggles within the Tajikistani state itself ultimately caused the recent outbreak of violence in this Central Asian republic. This process of regime consolidation has resulted in sporadic armed attacks in Tajikistan. For instance, in 2008, the head of the paramilitary police, Oleg Zakarchenko, was killed when he tried to move against former United Tajik Opposition commander Mirzokhuja Ahmadov, whose forces controlled the Rasht Valley (Fergananews.com, February 4, 2008). Conflict between the government and local commanders had resulted in the deaths of over a hundred people in the Rasht Valley between 2009 and 2011.
These inter-elite struggles are not only about political influence, they are also about economic resources. Notably, Nazarzoda had used his political influence to run a construction business and buy a bread factory, nine houses, over fifty cars and three dachas in Varzob (YouTube, September 16). The regime has moved swiftly to requisition these assets, along with those owned by the IRPT and its leader, Muhiddin Kabiri (IslamNews, September 14).
Nazarzoda’s defection legitimized the regime’s final move to eliminate the IRPT. This process has been going on for a number of years, but has intensified since the March elections, when the opposition party lost its remaining two seats in the parliament. In June, the state newspaperJumhuriyat accused Kabiri of illegally buying property (Jumhuriyat, June 16). Kabiri, who was then outside the country, became effectively exiled. At the same time, party deputies began abandoning the IRPT en-masse, in televised resignations (YouTube, June 23). In August, the government closed the party’s main office due to an “unresolved dispute about the legality of the building’s acquisition” (Radio Ozodi, August 25). On August 28, the Ministry of Justice cited a lack of popular support as grounds to ban the party (Khovar, August 28).
Nazarzoda’s defection has allowed the regime to put the final nail in the IRPT’s coffin. Now, with its leader fighting extradition and its senior members arrested, the Islamic Renaissance Party appears to have been confined to history, and Tajikistan has effectively become a one-party state.
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Chicago Tribune |
Bentley-driving preacher convicted of fraud and lying to FBI
Chicago Tribune When confronted about the payments by the FBI, Jackson initially claimed to have no ownership interest in the facility, then later blamed an underling. In his closing argument Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Ridgway mocked Jackson as "the ... and more » |
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Tuesday that hope remains that lawmakers will strike a deal to fund the government when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30 and insisted the situation was not yet dire enough to warn defense employees of the potential fallout.
For the Obama administration, the news from the Middle East keeps going from bad to worse. Vladimir Putin’s power play, moving significant military forces into Syria to support his ailing client, Bashar al-Assad, caught the White House flat footed and unsure how to respond.
Although the administration gave the Kremlin de facto control over American policy in Syria some two years ago when it walked away from its own “red line,” granting Russia a veto on Western action there, President Obama and his national security staff nevertheless seem befuddled by this latest Russian move.
The forces Mr. Putin has just deployed to Syria are impressive, veteran special operators backed by a wing of fighters and ground attack jets that are expected to commence air strikes on Assad’s foes soon. They are backed by air defense units, which is puzzling since the Islamic State has no air force, indicating that the Kremlin’s true intent in Syria has little to do with the stated aim of fighting terrorism and is really about propping up Russia’s longtime client in Damascus.
The White House is left planning “deconfliction” with Moscow—which is diplomatic language for entreating Russians, who now dominate Syrian airspace, not to shoot down American drones, which provide the lion’s share of our intelligence on the Islamic State. The recent meeting on Syrian developments between Mr. Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who clearly finds dealing with the Russian strongman preferable to parleying with President Obama, indicates where power is flowing in today’s Middle East.
Read the rest at the New York Observer …
Filed under: Espionage, Strategy, Terrorism, USG
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The commander of Iran’s army said on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel at all costs despite the recent nuclear deal aimed at reining in the country’s rogue behavior, according to comments by these officials.
Ataollah Salehi, commander of Iran’s army, said that no matter how many weapons are given to Israel, “we are going to destroy them,” according to comments reported in Iran’s state-controlled press and independently translated from Persian for the Washington Free Beacon.
The comments follow reports that Iran has unveiled new advanced military hardware and intends to violate international prohibitions on its construction of ballistic missiles, which could be used to carry a nuclear payload.
“Israel only barks, no matter how much weapons are given to [it], we are going to destroy them, we will promise this task will be done,” Salehi was quoted as saying by the Fars News Agency.
Salehi expressed pride in Iran’s support for terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that seek the Jewish state’s destruction. The military leader also said that Iran has been directly responsible for attacks on Israel.
“We are glad that we are in the forefront of executing supreme leader’s order to destroy the Zionist regime,” he said. “They have been hit by those supported by us [Iran] even though they have not confronted us directly; if they confront us directly they will be destroyed.”
Meanwhile, other Iranian military officials lashed out at Republican politicians in the United States, claiming that they do not have the strength to start a war with Iran.
“The backward Republicans want to go back to the era of the mad [President George W.] Bush,” Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, was quoted as saying in separate comments. “Bush did all he could to invade Iran but was not successful.”
Iran views such threats as empty rhetoric.
“If Republicans want to take Bush’s path, they cannot start a war with Iran, war will not benefit them, what Republicans say are just empty words,” Firouzabadi said.
Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran expert and associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argued that Iran’s military has become emboldened by the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Tehran.
“Due to the extreme weakness shown by this administration, Iran’s military establishment neither fears nor respects the U.S. anymore,” Ghasseminejad said. “The U.S. faces a credibility problem in the region; the problem will be there as long as President Obama is in office.”
Iranian leaders also vowed earlier this week to violate portions of the nuclear deal that seek to restrict Iran’s construction of ballistic missiles and arms.
Instead of abiding by the United Nations Security Council Resolution, which was recently passed along with the terms of the nuclear accord, Iran’s leaders insisted that they may violate any restrictions without facing repercussions.
The post Iran on Israel: ‘We Are Going to Destroy Them’ appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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Russia Plans Second Big Military Base Near Ukrainian Borderby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Russia is planning a second major military base near the border with Ukraine, where NATO accuses Russian troops of helping pro-Moscow separatists fight Kyiv's forces. The new base will house 5,000 soldiers and heavy weaponry, according to public documents and people working at the site. It is further east than one under construction in Belgorod region reported by Reuters earlier this month but still close to the border with separatist-held parts of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, where there has been heavy fighting. The bases are part of a Russian military buildup along a new line of confrontation with the West, running from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic in the north, which carries echoes of the Cold War-era "Iron Curtain." Russia has also increased its military presence in Syria. NATO and the pro-Western government in Ukraine say Moscow uses bases on the border with the former Soviet republic as staging posts to send troops across into areas where almost 8,000 people have been killed since April last year. Moscow had annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula a month earlier but denies having any troops in eastern Ukraine. The documents show the Russian defense ministry intends to turn an old military depot in the town of Boguchar, in Voronezh region, into a major base with dozens of buildings and special facilities for more than 1,300 armoured vehicles and ammunition. The new base, with a dozen barracks with space for 5,210 troops, warehouses for rockets, an infirmary, swimming pool and large training complex, will be 45 km (28 miles) from the Ukrainian border. According to tender documents published on the Russian government website zakupki.gov.ru, the ministry plans to transfer a motorized rifle brigade from Nizhny Novgorod, in northwest Russia, to Boguchar along with troops trained in how to respond to nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. "Already here" At the Boguchar depot, a soldier said some had already arrived. "The guys from Nizhny Novgorod are already here," he said, declining to give his name. Guards would not allow the reporter to enter the depot, and the officer in charge there refused to speak to Reuters. From the barbed wire fence that marked the perimeter, no fresh signs of construction could be seen, only a half-built building on which work appeared to have been abandoned some time ago, and a ramshackle barracks. Dozens of vehicles with servicemen, including military trucks, were driving on the road leading to the depot. The road surface had marks left by tank tracks. The site was home to a tank division until 2009 when the division was dismantled, and the base was subsequently used to store military equipment, according to Russian media reports. The Russian defense ministry did not reply to written questions from Reuters about the purpose of the new base it plans to build at Boguchar and whether there was any connection to the Ukraine conflict. The war in Ukraine has dragged relations between Russia and the West to their lowest level since the Cold War. Besides the plans for the two new bases in southern Russia, the Kremlin has moved military hardware to its Baltic enclave Kaliningrad, approved a military air base in Belarus last week, and it is beefing up its military presence in Crimea. Russia has pulled out of the treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, a post-Cold War pact that limits the deployment of troops in Europe, so it is free to move extra troops and hardware to its western border. According to the procurement documents, the defense ministry plans to complete initial construction and installation works at the Boguchar base by April 29, 2016. The ministry intends to use the base to train soldiers on artillery and man-portable air defense system. On top of that, the base will include a headquarters with a communications node, a huge dining room, a sports complex with tennis and badminton courts, and kennels with room for 30 dogs, the documents showed. Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions has subsided since September 1, when the Ukrainian parliament backed giving more autonomy to rebel-held areas in line with a peace deal. But disagreements over local elections envisaged by the deal have renewed tension.
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 BBC News |
Russia reopens Tsar Nicholas family murder case
BBC News Russian investigators have reopened a notorious murder case dating back to 1918 - that of the last tsar and his family, the Romanovs. The bones of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, reburied in a St Petersburg cathedral, will be re-examined. Revolutionary ... and more » |
ВИЧ-инфицированные в России жалуются на нехватку лекарств и импортозамещение жизненно важных препаратов.
Ссылка на источник - http://www.svoboda.org/media/video/27265096.html
Brazil's Congress Upholds Vetoes Limiting Fiscal Deteriorationby webdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)
Brazil's Congress early on Wednesday upheld key presidential vetoes to avert a surge in public expenditure and postponed a decision on a possible salary increase for judiciary employees, in a rare victory for an embattled government struggling to rebalance its fiscal accounts. Lawmakers decided to uphold President Dilma Rousseff's veto of a bill to remove social security taxes on diesel fuel purchases. The bill would have cost the government 64.6 billion reais ($15.95 billion) in lost revenue until 2019, according to official data. Lawmakers also maintained the veto of a bill to allow workers to retire earlier with full pension benefits. The proposed formula to calculate the retirement age of workers would have raised public expenditure by an extra 1.1 trillion reais until 2050, government data showed. After a long session extending beyond the midnight hour, Congress postponed the vote on two vetoes of bills that threatened to raise public expenditure in coming years: a hefty wage hike for judiciary employees and a raise in benefit payments for retirees. Congress has not yet set a date for voting on the remaining vetoes. Uncertainty over the vetoes dragged the Brazilian real to its weakest level on record on Tuesday, as it traded above 4 per U.S dollar. The real has shed nearly 35 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar so far this year as the economic and political crises have deepened. Repeated clashes between Rousseff and her wide-ranging alliance in Congress have exacerbated an economic slowdown and led Standard & Poor's to strip Brazil of its investment-grade rating earlier this month. Rousseff, a leftist who was re-elected in October, is pushing for more tax hikes and spending cuts to plug a widening fiscal gap and avert downgrades from other ratings agencies. If two rating agencies cut Brazil's debt grade to junk it could spark a capital exodus from an economy that until recently was a Wall Street favorite. Rousseff's victory in maintaining those crucial vetoes does not mean that lawmakers will support her fiscal adjustment plan, analysts say. Senior lawmakers and business leaders have publicly opposed new tax increases and demand deeper spending cuts to shore up the government's finances.
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Russia rejects criticism of greenhouse gas plan, will not amend: top Putin adviser
Reuters The world's fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, Russia pledged in March to keep its emissions at 25-30 percent below the level it generated in 1990, the year before the Soviet Union and its vast industrial complex collapsed. Green groups say ... and more » |
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President Putin's spokesman said the American plans are 'another very serious step towards exacerbating tensions on the European continent'
Russia at Increasing Risk of Muslim-on-Muslim Violenceby paul goble (noreply@blogger.com)
Paul Goble
Staunton, September 23 – Statements by Russian officials and pro-Kremlin commentators that Salafi Islam spreading in Russia and now threatens “traditional” Russian Islam are by themselves exacerbating tensions to the point of violence between the two, clashes Moscow may hope to exploit or to justify repression but that may cost it control of the situation.
An object lesson of these risks is provided by a series of events over the last month in the predominantly Lezgin village of Novy Kurush in the Khasavyurt district of Daghestan. This summer, a Salafi imam arrived, recruited a following of some 80 predominantly young people, and called for the restoration of “’pure Islam’” (eadaily.com/news/2015/09/22/v-dagestane-zhiteli-sela-gde-ubili-imama-vygnali-salafitov-iz-ih-mecheti).
The local Sufi imam, Mukhammad Khidirov actively fought them, preaching against Salafist ideas and seeking to mobilize his flock, the majority of the 8000 people in the village, to oppose the Salafis. Apparently for his trouble, Khidirov was murdered on September 9, a death that has significantly raised the level of tensions there.
Yesterday, approximately 1500 Sufis took to the streets, drove the Salafis out of the local mosque, burned its contents in the streets, and sealed its doors. That action came after police identified two Salafis as the probable murderers but so far have proved unable to track them down. The police have found weapons among other Salafis.
Because many in Russia and elsewhere see the Salafis as a threat – that trend of Islam includes but is broader than what many refer to as radical Islamism – they may welcome the actions of the villagers of Novy Kurush especially because the local police seem incapable of maintaining order.
But that is almost certainly a mistake: if ever more people for whatever reason take the law into their own hands, such moves will almost certainly guarantee an increase in the kind of chaos that radical Islamist groups thrive on not just in the North Caucasus but in the Middle Volga and elsewhere.
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Spectators at the Papal Parade along the Ellipse and National Mall in Washington, D.C. react to Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. capital.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/parade-spectators-react-to-pope-francis-washington-visit/2975620.html
Only Slovakia continued to promise a full-on fight after the European Union approved the plan, though the acquiescence of other countries in Central and Eastern Europe may anger voters.
 New York Times |
Opposition to Refugee Quotas Softens in Europe's Old Communist Bloc
New York Times WARSAW — When asking European Union members to accept a set quota of refugees was first proposed in May, nearly all of the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe came out strongly against the idea as an attack on their sovereignty. Refugee crisis: Why eastern EU states oppose quotasYahoo News PM: Prague won't take refugee quota dispute to courtPrague Post Czech Republic - Factors To Watch on Sept 23Reuters Radio Prague -News24 -Eesti elu, Estonian World Review all 97 news articles » |
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